Vanderbilt Student Government proposed a new constitution to change its current structure, consolidating in size across several government branches. The constitution will be open to student voting March 23 and March 24.
If the changes are implemented, VSG’s Cabinet, currently consisting of 21 members, will be dissolved, and responsibilities will be delegated to various committees. The Senate’s size would be reduced by 22 members, with structural representation for each class, academic college and transfer students. Additionally, senators would serve across nine reorganized committees, with total committee membership reduced by around 40 members.
In a message to The Hustler, VSG President Soham Saraf emphasized coordination challenges with VSG’s current size and the need for VSG to restructure for efficient operations.
“While we have quite a large organization, size has not translated to impact, or at least the amount of impact we would like to see,” Saraf said. “Because of the separation between cabinet, committees and senate, inter-branch collaboration is hard to facilitate, especially because of the size of each branch. Additionally, because each branch is so large, it becomes difficult for committee chairs and our executive members to keep tabs on all the work that is being done and ensuring there is follow-through with ideas.
Saraf clarified that the main goal of proposing the new constitution is to consolidate branches — including economic inclusivity, student health and wellness and environmental affairs and services — with more checks and balances to facilitate collaboration among a smaller number of members.
“Senators, who will continue to approve of the VSG budget, appointments and amendments to the Statutes, will also serve on committees to ensure they are representing their constituents within the construction and execution of VSG initiatives,” Saraf said. “[The] cabinet may be ‘dissolved’ on paper, but its responsibilities are being disseminated to multiple committees, notably Campus Partnerships, Campus Culture and Spirit, Public Relations and Philanthropy.”
Senior Layne Foeder, current committee chair of environmental affairs, said she found out her committee would be disbanded in the proposed constitution through VSG’s Instagram post. She also said she disagrees with Saraf’s analysis that existing environment-focused student organizations will be able to assume their responsibilities.
“Just because there are other environmental [organizations] means our role as a committee doesn’t play a part,” Foeder said. “All the other environmental orgs on campus have a specific mission that aren’t always dedicated to more structural things on campus. And that’s not to say that they aren’t doing great work. It’s just different work.”
Foeder said she agrees with the constitution’s efforts to consolidate and unify, emphasizing her lack of connection with the other branches in VSG. She said she believes consolidation will create more structural accountability and doesn’t foresee any significant workload changes for members who are already invested into VSG.
“I do think [this consolidation] would help us feel more of a cohesive unit. From my experience, I didn’t know anyone who was on senate until I was a [committee] chair,” Foeder said. “And with the new changes, all of the senators are required to sit on committees, and I think that also helps with cohesion.”
Junior Nadeem Zaman, one of the multicultural leadership council senators, said he disagrees with the scale of downsizing the new constitution proposes. While he said he isn’t opposed to the idea of reforming the structure of the senate, he pointed out flaws in the logic that having fewer senators leads to more efficiency.
“The fact that [the proposal is] downsizing the Senate by more than half but increasing the workload by sending us to committees, that can be counterproductive to efficiency because it makes you stressed. It makes you burn out easier,” Zaman said. “I mean, sure, you’re doing more work, but is the quality of your work that good if you’re burned out and overworked all the time?”
Zaman also said he believes there is an implicit assumption of the Senate becoming more competitive and efficient through downsizing. Saraf stated in his message to The Hustler that the inability to fill senator seats was a factor in the proposal to downsize.
“VSG is not that popular on campus to where it’s suddenly going to become more competitive simply because we downsized it,” Zaman said. “So, I don’t think they’re going to be able to achieve a lot of their goals of efficiency.”
First-year Dwayne Woodard said he sees value in the idea of downsizing to unify VSG. However, he expressed concern for VSG’s ability to represent the entire Vanderbilt community accurately with the proposed reduction of senators.
“I feel like only having three [senators] for the entire grade is just too little. Like, three senators for how many thousands of people?” Woodard said. “And the school is just going to keep expanding. So, [we’re] having three senators for a senior class who has less people than [the first-year class], but they’re getting the same representation in VSG.”
