Council votes down UMC seat

Members of the University Council recently voted down two proposed amendments to the group's by-laws which would have given the United Minorities Council a permanent seat on Council. The move follows a vote by the Undergraduate Assembly to give the UMC chairperson one of five additional Council seats recently allocated to the group. Next year, 15 undergraduates will sit on Council, as opposed to only 10 this year. At its last meeting of the year, the UA spent over an hour discussing the allocation of those five positions. The UA had planned to give three of the remaining seats to its members and one to the University representative to Ivy Council, an organization which is made up of Ivy League student government representatives. The remaining seat would be given to the UMC chairperson. The vote was a controversial one, requiring six ballots before the measure was passed. The revised Council by-laws, which will be approved in the fall, state that "15 undergraduate students elected as members of the Undergraduate Assembly" can be Council members. This wording would not allow for a non-UA member to fill one of those 15 seats. UA Chairperson and Wharton sophomore Dan Debicella introduced an amendment to change the word "as" to "by" to indicate that the UA should decide who can represent the undergraduates, but Council members do not have to be on the UA. "The UA wishes to decide how the seats will be chosen," Debicella said. After UA member and College sophomore Eden Jacobowitz explained the UA's vote on the UMC position, held three days before the Council meeting, discussion ensued on the issue of who should represent the undergraduates. "If [the by-laws] remain, every undergraduate has a vote," Finance Professor and Council member Morris Mendelson said. "If it is changed, only the members of the UA would have a vote." Debicella responded, saying that 13 of the positions would be filled by representatives directly elected by undergraduates. UA member and College freshman Josh Gottheimer said the amendment would give the UA too much power. "This is giving permission for the UA to decide as they will," he said. "The chair of the UMC is not elected by the undergraduate student body." UA member and College junior Dan Schorr agreed. "I don't want to undermine the UA," he said. "But it has major changes from year to year and you are giving future UAs too much power." Schorr asked Council moderator and Political Science Professor Will Harris to elaborate on a section of Council by-laws which state that all elections must be "democratic in both principle and practice." Harris said a UMC seat would not violate that statement. Council members defeated the amendment in a fairly close vote. Debicella then introduced a second amendment which explicitly states that one position would be allocated to the UMC chairperson and the other 14 to UA members. UMC Chairperson and College senior Jun Bang said the group's chair person has "held a seat before, just not technically or legally." After someone suggested that the UMC chairperson could run for the UA, College sophomore and UA Vice Chairperson Tamara Dubowitz said the time committment would be too great. Former UA Chairperson and College junior Seth Hamalian said he advocated the UMC position because "the amount of information and viewpoints provides for greater representation." Despite the voices of support, this amendment failed as well, but also by a very close vote. Debicella said after the meeting that the UA would change its by-laws to include a statement saying that the Ivy Council representative must be a UA member so that he can be a University Council representative. Debicella added that the UA would address and finalize the issue in the fall.