At the beginning of the Fall 2023 semester, Wofford College Campus Union set out to amend its constitution and bylaws. On Feb 15, a digital poll was opened for Wofford students to cast their votes in regard to these amendments. 

An ad hoc committee of assembly members was tasked with editing the former constitution under a set of specific purposes, outlined in the foreword attached to a student-wide email announcing the referendum.

A majority of the changes seen in the updated constitution appear to be minor, making slight adjustments to grammar, pronouns and phrasing. However, both Student Body President Graydon Davies ‘24 and Delegate-at-Large Dalton Perry ‘25 maintain that these seemingly trivial edits are still substantive for the assembly and the student body.

Perry, who was a member of the ad hoc committee, commented on the weight that language can hold in documents like Campus Union’s constitution, believing that the document “can’t have any language that’s discriminatory, even if it’s not intentionally discriminatory.”

The key terms Perry is referring to were the usage of male pronouns for leadership positions, especially that of student body president, which have since been made gender-neutral. 

“I think that having a constitution that clearly has effective language and gender-inclusive language and is inclusive to every individual on this campus kind of opens the door for those people to be more comfortable… and (able to) have their voices heard,” said Perry. 

Other language edits include the removal of many “arbitrary stipulations” and repetitive wording, much of which pertains to assembly processes that have since changed. Since the last official version is from 1971, many practices have naturally updated, and their new meanings were implied. However, this new version clearly states how the assembly functions today. 

“It was kind of modernized wording about our current practices,” said Davies, “ We thought it was important for students to know how the assembly actually operates nowadays, and we wanted the constitution to reflect that.”

Though the constitution was updated rather recently in Spring 2022, Davies mentioned that some of these changes were also yet to be put into official writing. For example, the newest version of the bylaws specifically outlines several new committees, including the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism Committee. 

However, Davies voiced that past members of the assembly, specifically Megan Santos ‘23 and Dylan Goshorn ‘22, were the ones who initially introduced and implemented this committee in 2022.

Additionally, organizations like Wofford Activities Council (WAC), Wofford Athletics and Recreation (WAR) and Wofford Live are no longer extensions of Campus Union. They will now be acting independently, allowing them more freedom in their turnover and appointment processes.  

The most significant amendments are likely those in relation to the operations of the assembly itself. This includes an adjustment to the election period and a new cohort system for delegates proposing bills. 

Davies explained that moving the elections, now to be held in mid-March, will hopefully allow for delegates to gain experience in spring meetings and thus begin making effective legislation earlier in their terms the following fall. 

The newly established cohort system also has an end goal of efficiency and will require delegates to propose grade-specific bills created by their year’s cohort.

“We want substantial bills that have lasting changes on your class level and on the school as a whole.” said Davies, “Before this cohort system, all of the “larger” bills have typically been changes to the school as a whole, they haven’t necessarily been felt by one class level. So that was the goal with the cohorts, to make it more specific with the individual students and the class’s needs.”

In regard to the new amendments and processes, Perry said that he hopes that “Campus Union is going to have a lot more people who actually (take) the time to see these changes” and that candidates who “want to see changes in the school and want to see their interests heard in the betterment of the student body” will run in the future.

The amended version of the Campus Union constitution passed among the student body and will be officially ratified with the publication of this issue of The Old Gold & Black.