Transparency Resolution

Passed General Studies Student Council, October 24, 2017

Authored and Introduced by Yona Kornsgold, Student Services and Academic Representative

A Resolution to Promote Accountability and Transparency of Current and Future General Studies Student Councils

WHEREAS General Studies Student Council (GSSC) has a responsibility to promote in accountability and transparency in all aspects of its organization;

ACKNOWLEDGING that students in the School of General Studies have a right to understand the efforts of their representative council members and their usage of student life fees;

WHEREAS GSSC currently, and historically, has introduced initiatives to promote transparency;

WHEREAS GSSC seeks to ensure continuity from year to year;

ACKNOWLEDGING that information can be lost during transitions from changes in GSSC leadership;

ACKNOWLEDGING that institutional memory and exhaustive record keeping is instrumental in achieving smooth transitions in GSSC leadership;

ACKNOWLEDGING that each GSSC should have the autonomy to make their own guidelines and policy decisions;

ACKNOWLEDGING that many of the following initiatives are codified in the constitution and bylaws of GSSC;

ACKNOWLEDGING that this resolution will serve as a central document where archival and transparency initiatives and procedures can be found for future GSSC’s;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this resolution is binding for GSSC for the 2017-18 academic year, and will serve as non-binding guidelines for future GSSC’s;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Communications will be responsible for live-streaming all general body council meetings via some broadly accessible internet platform;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Communications will be responsible for making general body council meeting agendas available to the GS student body at least 24 hours prior to general body council meetings;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED GSSC Vice President of Communications will be responsible for making general body council meeting minutes available to students at least 48 hours after the end of all general body council meetings;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Policy will be responsible for maintaining an archive of previous and updated versions of the GSSC constitution and by-laws;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Policy will be responsible for maintaining an archive of resolutions and reports authored and adopted by GSSC in current and previous years, and that access to archived documents shall be made available upon students' requests;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Communications will be responsible for posting the GSSC constitution, bylaws, and all resolutions and reports from the current council to the GSSC-run website;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC Vice President of Policy will maintain a project tracker of ongoing initiatives conducted by members of the GSSC Policy Committee, which will be made available to the student body;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that members of the all GSSC committees will complete reports at the conclusion of projects, which will be archived and incorporated into the end of year report;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the GSSC VP of Finance will be responsible for transparency of expenditures and budgets, including, but not limited to, GS student access to the GSSC budget and expenditures and availability of reduced prices for GSSC events;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the GSSC VP of Policy will be responsible for organizing and compiling an end-of-year report, including, but not limited to, projects and accomplishments by GSSC committees and council members with detailed reports outlining the details of said project, including, but not limited to, points of contact, timeline of project, resources used, reports and resolutions authored, accomplishments, and status of completion;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the GSSC President will be responsible for holding at least one town hall per semester for the student body that will take place prior to the start of business of GSSC council meetings and that the items in this resolution are realized by the end of the year;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that GSSC will continue to look into ways to achieve more transparency, including, but not limited to, investigating the possibility of accompanying live-streams of council meetings with subtitles, and writing rules for publicizing emergency council dialogue and votes via email;