Seton Hall Student Government Association at-large senator, Ronald Babiak announced that he is currently attempting to amend the SGA constitution to add an Ethics Committee.
According to the sophomore from there the committee would inquire about possible breaches of the code by SGA senators and executive board members.
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The Ethics Committee will also recommend to the Senate Speaker a directive of rectification, which is a suggestion based on the committee’s findings on how to move forward with possible written warnings, punishments and in the most egregious cases, expulsion.
It would be up to the Senate Speaker and Senate Leadership on how to proceed but it is important that this committee is given the responsibility to inquire and collaborate on an unbiased and fair solution to any ethical troubles that may come in the future.
Babiak’s goal to create change around campus is another one of the latest student attempts at pushing for a committee of some sort.
The Concerned 44, an initiative that garnered attention from professors, students and local staff members alike, pushed for a student review board among the demands they issued to the Provost.
Following the protest earlier this month, interim president Mary Meehan told The Setonian about her willingness to work with students. “I look forward to continued dialogue and action steps that result in an even more effective learning experience for all of our students,” Meehan said. “Our resources are limited, but we are committed to strengthening our academic offerings within the structure of our shared governance.”
Although Babiak’s cause is not associated with that of the Concerned 44, the results of the protests reflect the positive possibility of an Ethics Committee being approved. Meehan statement is in line with things that can be more effective for the student body, which an Ethics Committee can fulfill, according to Babiak.
“My motivation to draft this legislation for the committee creation was to provide members of SGA with ethical guidelines that we could all agree on, so that we know how to truly act in a manner becoming and fulfill our constitutional oath of office without any question about if any of our individual actions might impede us from doing so in the eyes of Senate Leadership, the executive board, or our SGA Advisor,” Babiak said. “Since it says in the oath we take ‘to act in a manner becoming of an officer of SGA’ and many senators including myself have struggled with how to exactly do that at times because it is so vague, you could potentially be in violation of your oath without even knowing it.
Evando Thompson can be reached at evando.thompson@student.shu.edu.
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