Spring Fever Week, Casino Night, Midnight Breakfast and Homecoming Week — The most anticipated events on campus result from months of organizing and planning by the Campus Activities Board (CAB). Last year, CAB changed how the organization would elect members responsible for arranging these events.
Until recently, CAB conducted elections using a system similar to SGA’s. Students selected the president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and public relations officer.
Before the revision, the CAB constitution read, “The student body shall elect the Executive Council in November of the given year for the upcoming school year.”
The new procedures restrict the elections to members only. According to CAB President Carlos Moses, member feedback resulted in the procedures’ being changed.
“With elections previously being open to the whole body, the CAB members felt that there was an unfair bias based on name recognition rather than knowledge of the person’s character and experience in CAB,” Moses said.
Moses won the presidency in the fall of 2022 when CAB conducted its last campuswide election. Along with Moses, four international students claimed seats in executive offices: Vice President Prajwol Pachhai, Secretary Thalama Malla, Treasurer Bharosha Prasai and PR Officer Bishal Bhandari. Morgan Folse joined the executive board as CAB’s graduate assistant.
Following the 2022 election, CAB unanimously voted to revise the constitution on Jan. 31, 2023. In November 2023, CAB used the new system to elect officers. Although CAB hosted a Christmas banquet honoring the incoming officers, the organization has yet to announce the names and offices of the winners.
As of now, the revised constitution states, “The Campus Activities Board general body shall elect the Executive Board in November of the given year for the upcoming school year.”
CAB considered the change in election procedure to be a revision, not an amendment to the constitution. Since CAB interpreted the change as a revision, the organization did not need the student body’s approval. An amendment requires CAB to follow a series of steps that ultimately culminates in a campuswide vote. However, a revision does not require CAB officials to meet the same criteria, allowing all changes to be done in-house.
Also, the constitution does not require CAB to inform the student body of switching from campuswide to member-only elections. The only mention of any changes occurred when CAB uploaded the newly revised constitution to Wingspan.
“It isn’t an amendment because we did not add any additional information or take away any information,” Moses said. “We simply changed the wording to make it clear and precise for better understanding to the original text.”
