Undergraduate Aseembly creates a new bureaucracy

The Undergraduate Assembly solidified revisions to its internal structure at its meeting Thursday night, considerably altering the way the body will function compared to years past. Gone are the numerous committees which traditionally served as the UA's main legislative apparatus. Inserted are three new groups, which leaders have called "Brainstorming Structures." Named Campus Facilities, University Budget and Finance and Student Life, these groups will focus on what UA Chairperson and College sophomore Seth Hamalian called "bigger issues." Emerging from the brainstorming groups are "collapsing work groups" which will concentrate on specific issues around campus. According to UA documents, the work groups will not be like standing committees, but will disband once a problem or concern is resolved. Policy proposals will also replace resolutions as the UA's main means of outside communication. According to the document, the "Policy proposals will contain data, opinions, polls, and administrative plans." This type of document is a move away from resolutions -- which often contained very little research, if any. The motion to approve the new plan passed almost unanimously, with only Wharton freshman Daniel Chen dissenting. Chen raised questions at the meeting about the collapsing work groups. He said the previous standing committee structure allowed for continuity on certain issues. Also discussed at the meetings was a petition sponsored by Women on the Walk. The group sought the support of the UA in its campaign to convert the vacant Locust Walk Theta Xi house into a women's center. "We are from all sorts of different groups," College senior and former Panhellenic Council President Debbie Frank said. "There's a lot of support out there -- from every facet of the University." Frank said the organization has already collected 1,500 signatures towards the formation of the center, adding that the group does not support the establishment of a sorority on Locust Walk. "It's not even an alterative," Frank said. The UA formed a new work group on the Locust Walk diversity issue -- to which the Theta Xi house is central.