General SGA unanimously passed a major revision of its Accountability Review Board on Mar. 31, which renovated the board for the 2015-16 school year.
The Accountability Review Board (ARB) was put into place to ensure that Executive SGA members, class councils, and the commuter council are effectively completing their jobs. The revised board hopes to continue this while providing assistance to SGA by allowing stronger communication between students and their school government.
Freshman Chris Estep and Director of Community Life Keri Lewis were central figures backing the change of ARB and adding essential components to make ARB more effective and helpful.
“The way the ARB has been designed in the past [is] dysfunctional. And so…in writing the ARB Reform Act, we tried to provide some structure, some process, and to clarify,” Estep shared.
Though the current ARB consists of only one member, next year the board will be comprised of a full five-person team, including an official chairperson and representative from each class. Students will vote for the chairperson, who must be a junior or senior, during elections for Class Councils this month. The winner will nominate a student from each class to be on the board, which only passes with General SGA’s approval.
“I think it will be very beneficial for the Exec. SGA because they can better understand what the students are wanting,” junior Charissa Mohnkern said, the current chairperson of the 2014-2015 ARB.
This new ARB will evaluate SGA notebooks (Executive SGA, class councils, and commuter council) and meet with members to provide feedback. It will work to conduct polls and surveys with students to provide SGA with an understanding of their opinions and ideas.
Their evaluations will also be made available for any ENC student to observe. The ARB plans to work with the Veritas News to allow writers and readers full access to SGA documents. This will allow for students to have broader knowledge of the inner workings of SGA, and hopefully get further involved in the school on multiple fronts.
The ARB will also require SGA members from all councils to complete semi-monthly performance reviews of their colleagues, as well as reviews of their counterparts. (Ex: Freshman Class President will fill out reviews for all other Freshman Council members and Executive SGA President. They would not be required to fill out reviews for Sophomore/Junior/Senior Presidents.)
While some of the new features are being implemented this semester, the revised ARB will take full effect in the next academic year.