GUSA’s coveted attendance trophy

Well, duh, you might say upon seeing that headline. But recall that at one point last school year, attendance at Georgetown University Student Association meetings had gotten so low that senators found themselves unable to make quorum and identified six senators with attendance so bad, they could be forcibly expelled from the Senate.

So how are they doing this year?

Much better. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) said that attendance at most meetings has been over 85 percent, and that only one senator, cheerleader-cum-delegate Eric Cusimano (SFS ’10) has missed enough meetings to qualify for a review by the Ways and Means Committee.

“According to my reading of the bylaws, attendance becomes a question when a Senator misses more than two consecutive meetings or more than three meetings in a given Semester,” Talbot wrote in an e-mail. “At that point I believe it’s up to the Ways and Means Committee to review whether to take action on the matter.” (Talbot confirmed his reading of the bylaws with GUSA’s parliamentarian).

Vox reviewed GUSA’s attendance sheet and found that a number of other senators do have two or three absences, but these have been excused, Talbot said. (What constitutes an “excused absence” is at the discretion of the speaker.)

With Yasmin Serrato explaining in an e-mail that one of her three recorded absences was actually a tardy, Susie Movitz is the only senator to have missed three meetings. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo from Flickr user photofriendly

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.