The Upsides to Senate Downsizing

Tim Dahill | tdahill@butler.edu

As of January 12th, the Student Government Association’s Student Senate has decided that their next election cycle will look a little different from previous years. Due to “lack of competitive senate elections and overall failure to fill seats through elections” the senate will be downsizing from thirty-eight senate seats to twenty starting next election cycle, per Senate Resolution 2122-047. This move comes in response to a third-party investigation from Kealing and Associates that found the Senate was too large, ineffective, and not efficiently fostering equal representation among the student body. “SGA needed to change,” said Alex Stencel, the primary sponsor of the resolution. “One of these changes was how Senate functions.” The elections for senate seats last fall highlighted this as only twenty-two of the thirty-eight senators were elected, with only three of those elections being contested. The remaining sixteen had to be nominated, ten of those being residential seats. 

Compared to other universities of similar size, Butler’s number of senate seats outpaces them by a number of about double. “This was actually one of the main things we looked at,” Stencel continued. “Our senate, specifically for the type of college we are, a small private university, our senate was too big compared to the others. So, it should make sense that Butler should have a smaller senate.” Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio bolsters only nine senators with one for each college, one residential seat, and one commuter seat for a student population of approximately 8,629 students. Xavier University in Cincinnati has a student population slightly closer to Butler’s with approximately 5,009 students, but structures their senate to have twenty total senators with four guaranteed first-year seats and the remaining sixteen to be filled by other year levels at the voters’ discretion. Dayton University, with a similar population to Wright State of 8,743 boasts a similar system to Xavier with sixteen Senate seats but giving each year level a guaranteed four seats. 

As SGA’s Student Senate currently stands, with an approximate student population of 5,095, eighteen seats are allotted to residential buildings, twelve to academic colleges, and eight to each respective class, allotting equal amounts of senate seats between each college, residential building, and year level. 

So, the newly adjusted twenty seats for this upcoming election cycle will consist of two senators per year level for undergraduates and a minimum of one senator to represent each academic college, with the remaining six seats to be allotted to each college by student enrollment in each college. The more students that are enrolled in their respective college, the more representation they will have. “We wanted to make it as realistic and proportional as possible,” Stencel added. “One of the ways we did that was we came up with an equation we used which proportions your seats depending on how big your college is. The bigger colleges need more representation so that their issues can be heard while still having equally proportioned seats for each class.” Overall, with fewer seats, the senate is hoping this will help spur interest and create more competitive elections which will help foster new ideas and ensure senate’s effectiveness going forward. 

Photo Courtesy of Alex Stencel