Student Congress to talk Saunders Hall renaming

At its next meeting, Student Congress will consider creating a special committee to help Congress determine its stance on renaming Saunders Hall.

Only four members of the rules and judiciary committee were present Tuesday night to hear speaker David Joyner present the proposal for the select committee on Saunders.

“Student Congress doesn’t have the authority to rename Saunders Hall, but we do have the power to take a stance on the issue,” he said.

“When I was running for speaker, I promised we would create a committee to address Saunders Hall because I feel that the last Congress did not address the issues.”

The committee would include one chairman and six members. Joyner said members will be selected next week if the proposal passes in the full Congress. If the committee is approved, Joyner said it would help contextualize the debate of renaming the hall.

“Over the course of the next semester, we will bring in people who are passionate about the issue, and hearing all those testimonies will give Congress a better understanding on the stance we should take,” Joyner said. “This is a move to determine whether or not we will add our names to the voices to change Saunders Hall.”

Joyner said he was confident that the committee will be established.

“There seemed to be a lot of positive reaction when I brought it up last week in Congress,” he said. “This is just us deciding if we will take the step to pursue joining the debate.”

Because so few members were present Tuesday night, the rules and judiciary committee decided not to create the select committee on its own. Members voted to pass the proposal to the full Congress without prejudice.

“I have no opposition to this resolution to this committee, but given the nature of the committee right now — seeing that there are only four members present — I would prefer if this moved to full Congress,” chairman John Anagnost said during the meeting. “I would prefer to have more voices, more people to see this idea and really talk about it and have a better debate about it.”

The committee also passed a proposed update to the Student Constitution on for review by the full Congress.

“Essentially, the code needed to be revamped,” Student Body Vice President Rachel Gogal said. “A few members of student government took it upon themselves to go line by line in the code and rewrite certain sections that were outdated or needed to be updated.”

Gogal said the changes were fairly routine. The constitution is revised every few years to account for changes in technology and the changing student population, she said.

“It was a great project for student government. I think they were covering their bases across the board.”

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