Attention Cal State LA Student Body
Notice of ASI Bylaws Amendments Approved:
The ASI Board of Directors (BOD) approved amendments to the ASI Bylaws on Thursday, September 8, 2022 by a 2/3 majority of the BOD. ASI policy requires student body notification of all Bylaws amendments and revisions.
Action(s) Taken: The BOD approved the following:
At the July 21, 2022 Board of Directors meeting, the Board discussed the possibility of changing the membership of the ASI Board of Directors. The impetus for the conversation was three fold.
Cal State LA created the College of Ethnic Studies, but ASI has yet to create a representative position to speak on behalf of the students of the college.
The current structure has two representative positions per college. Including Ethnic Studies would increase the Board by two additional students, adding to an already large governing body. The addition would also require an increase in the budget for the Grant-in-aid for student leaders.
The financial impact of adding more student leaders goes beyond the GIA and includes training, retreats, travel, and programming budget to support the student leaders’ efforts. Since the ASI Fee has not increased in decades and the cost of goods continues to increase with inflation, ASI faces a financial challenge to add more to the budget.
The proposed solution before the Board today is a change in the membership of the Board, reducing the number of Representatives for each College to one, rather than two and adds one Representative for the College of Ethnic Studies. The proposed changes require amendments to the ASI Bylaws as well as the Board of Directors Code of Procedures. The proposed changes are summarized below.
In addition, when reviewing the Bylaws, there were additional sections in need of revision and updating, which have been included to maintain the integrity of the
BYLAWS AMENDMENTS
Article I:
- Revise Section 2, Clause 1: Language was clarified and line C. was eliminated as intercollegiate competitions are not in the purview of ASI
- Revise Section 2, Clause 2: Recommend striking this clause regarding Associate Membership because it is in violation of the CSU requirements for eligibility. Faculty and staff may not hold student leadership positions in ASI. Allowing non-students to vote in student elections because they pay the student body fee, conflicts with the civic foundations of student governance.
Article III:
- Revise Section 1, Clause 1: Change the membership of the Board of Directors reducing the number of Representatives to one per college and adding the College of Ethnic Studies Representative
- Revise Section 1, Clause 2: Relate this clause to the University President and move the ASI staff membership to Clause 3
- Add Section 1, Clause 3: Clarify the role of the staff as members and advisors to the Board of Directors
- Revise Section 2: Clarify the qualifications statement to reflect CSU requirements for Student OfficeHolders
- ReviseSection 2, Clause 2: Remove the1 semester off exception. This had already been stricken from other sections of the Bylaws, but this sentence was missed in the revision last year. Taking a semester off is against the requirements of eligibility for student leaders set by the CSU Chancellor’s Office
- Remove Section 2, Clause 5: Recommend removing the requirement that students must meet the CSU eligibility standards for committee appointments. The CSU does not require a GPA, unit requirements, nor one semester of coursework for committee appointments, but ASI had selected to add this to our Bylaws. These additional requirements have proven to limit student engagement with University and ASI committees, limiting an important opportunity to voice their concerns in the shared governance of the University.
- Revise Section 2, Clause 6: reword the language to reflect the CSU policy for eligibility requirements
Article VI:
- Revise Section 3, Clause 2: non-substantive revision of language-Add Section 3, Clause 3: This section refers to the duties of the Board of Directors but does not include the Executive officers, this addition simply references the officers as members of the Board-Revise Section5: Include statement regarding current practice of sharing the annual budget and ASI’s financial status publicly-Revise Section6, Clause 2and3: Minor revisions to the language to update practices that reflect digital files rather than printed hard copy documents
- Article VII:-The BOD Code of Procedure and this section have duplication of language. The recommended changes to the Bylaws clarifies the Quorum statement and moves some language to the Code of Procedure.
- Revise Section 3: The quorum language has been updated for clarification
Article IX:
- Add Section 10: The Environmental Policy Committee was established years ago and has an existing Code of Procedure. However, the committee was never added to the Bylaws formally to establish it as a standing committeeof ASI.
- Remove Section 12, Clause 5: Bylaws states the term of office for all student leaders above in the document so it does not need to be restated.
If there are any questions or concerns with the amendment(s) or revisions please contact the ASI Executive Director, Barnaby Peake at 323-343-4778.
