To commemorate Constitution Day and inform the students about its importance, SGA distributed pocket Constitutions in front of the library and the SUB.
Brianna Vanderboeven, an SGA senator for the College of Health and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said that it was SGA’s way of celebrating the special day.
Constitution Day is celebrated on September 17, which marks the day the ‘Framers’ (the crafters of the Constitution), signed the document.
“The Constitution is the most influential living document,” said Vanderhoeven. “It is the cornerstone which maintains good governance and rule of law.”
“Not many people know about their rights, so passing these out is a good way for students to know about their rights,” Vanderboeven said.
Vanderboeven suggests that students learn the Bill of Rights and the different amendments that discuss our rights as citizens.
Vanderboeven said handing out a pocket Constitution would benefit freshmen students who are not registered to vote and get them excited about it.
“Some people are very aware of the Constitution, but for others, the Constitution gives complexity about the things they really don’t know about,” said Vanderboeven.
Vanderboeven said the large number of students stopping by and asking questions made it clear that students are very interested in learning more about the Constitution.
Joshua Chisholm, a junior finance major, accepted the pocket constitution because he believes that it is important for citizens to review the laws they are governed by.
“The way that American law is right now, it continuously changes and evolves,” said Chisholm. “I think it’s important to be up-to-date on the Constitution.”
Chisholm said, for the most part, he is informed about the law changes in policy concerning healthcare and business.
Chisholm finds all the parts of the Constitution to be equally important, but he thinks some parts need special attention.
“I think there are some parts of it that our founders wrote that are meant to be subjective to anybody from our judicial system,” Chisholm said. “Those parts are specifically subjective, and some people might say that they are not important as they are not explicitly detailed.”
Chisholm said the particular parts of the Constitution that are vaguely written, should be given a lot of importance because they are the ones that allow the judges and lawmakers to interpret and create further laws based on how they feel the information has to be interpreted.
Chisholm said the original parts of the Constitution that were written before the amendments are the most important.
“We can retain an idea that the founding fathers wanted our country to be like,” Chrisholm said.
“There is a lot of material in there that should tell us how they thought the country should be best be run.”
