Reapportionment Amendment to appear on ballot

A reapportionment amendment seeking to allocate senate seats by major will appear on the Spring 2019 ballot.

Amendment 2 has passed through the Senate and the Executive branches. Travis Hills, the SGA President, will sign the amendment but warned that frequently changing the senate may cause conflicts in the future.

With the current system, there is a representative for every major plus one for every class, and ones for on and off campus. The amended system would still include representatives for every class as well as on and off campus; however, the new system will proportionally allocate the remaining representative seats by college.

“Under the new system, the senate would grow organically.”

Rep. Connor Coddington [Sophomore]

The new amendment would provide each college with 1 base senator and additional senators per 240 students. Rep. Connor Coddington [Sophomore], who is spearheading the amendment, said “Under the new system, the senate would grow organically.” Amendment 2 would allow the larger College of Innovation & Technology to have greater representation in the senate while lowering the College of Engineering’s representation.

Graduate students and undecided / non-degree seeking students will also be considered colleges for apportionment under the new amendment. The senate will be capped to a maximum of 30 senators.

The amendment was sparked by the university’s plan to add 3 more engineering major programs. “Maybe [the new programs are] not targeted to be big majors or small majors.” said Coddington.

Size differences between majors is already apparent with the computer science major accounting for 42.8% of the student body while all 3 undergraduate engineering degrees totaling to 43.5%. “They [CS Students] need a lot more representation” said Rep. Roberto Sardinha [EE]. “The amendment is actually looking into the future for the school.”

“I feel like it’s a good change”

Rep. Roberto Sardinha [EE]

Coddington remarked “[it’s] a metric that has worked for other schools.” His research backs that claim, with 7 out of 10 Florida Universities having proportionality by college in their legislative bodies.

“I feel like it’s a good change” said Sardinha. “I feel like it’s good.”

The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the Student Government Association of Florida Polytechnic University or Florida Polytechnic University.