In a tight vote of 11 ayes and 9 nays on Wednesday afternoon, the Student Association (SA) Senate postponed the creation of a Senate advocacy committee to next Wednesday, during the last Senate meeting of the Fall 2024 semester, due to disagreements over who would be the committee’s chairperson.
The temporary committee would make “reports and recommendations to the Senate about student advocacy issues.” Both senators mentioned the committee would be reaching out to “points of contact,” but did not clarify.
The Spectrum reached out to both senators via email, asking them to specify issues the committee intends to address and the measures it would take to do so. Herman redirected the inquiries to SA president Samin Bhuya while Krauciunas had not responded to The Spectrum’s email by the time of publication.
SA Senate chairperson Gavin Krauciunas and SA Student Affairs Director Tyler Herman each submitted near identical resolutions to establish the committee, but the two clashed when each nominated themselves to be the committee’s chairperson. To settle the disagreement, several senators suggested holding an election.
Claiming that he made the first resolution to establish the committee, Krauciunas said he nominated himself as its chairperson to alleviate the time that would be spent on having a separate election.
“I don’t think that we need to have an election for that. I think that I already got the ball rolling,” Krauciunas said. “I have a few ideas for the committee itself. Why not just push forward? Just move on with it?”
SA P.O.C. Council Coordinator Stephanie Kacou, who voted in support of postponing the vote to establish the committee to next Wednesday, said that an election should be held regardless of time constraints.
“An election sounds like the fairest thing,” Kacou said.
Herman expressed concern that Krauciunas would have the power to set both agendas of the Senate and its advocacy committee, allowing Krauciunas to potentially prevent certain issues from being discussed during meetings.
“If the standing advocacy committee and the Senate are both chaired by the same person, that person is reporting to themselves on the activities of the advocacy committee and therefore can dictate what the appearance of the activities is,” Herman said. “My biggest concern is the chairperson, who’s already in power, putting themselves in power again somewhere else.”
SA Senator Benjamin Lau suggested having Krauciunas and Herman be co-chairs.
Herman seemed hesitant of the notion, saying there is “no method” that would allow co-chairs to exist within SA, referencing SA’s policy on club officers that prohibited co-positions.
In an email to The Spectrum, Bhuya said that the SA bylaws and Senate policies do not currently address the matter of Senate committee co-chairs, but SA has avoided them in the past to streamline committee governance.
The idea to establish an advocacy committee was initially mentioned last April but no resolution was made to establish it until this academic year.
Bhuya said that regardless of the outcome, the SA president is the official representative of SA both inside and outside of the university community.
“Unless people of this committee have my say so, you shouldn’t be just by yourself contacting anybody and claiming to represent SA,” Bhuya said.
The Senate plans to draft and vote on a new resolution — which would only establish the advocacy committee — on Wednesday, Dec. 11. The committee chair is expected to be selected through an internal committee vote.
Editor’s Note: the article was updated to reflect Bhuya’s statement and the information that the committee chair is expected to be selected through an internal committee election.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com
The news desk can be reached at news@ubspectrum.com
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
Photo: Courtesy of UB Blueprint
