On Feb. 16, the Dartmouth Student Government Senate met over Zoom, due to inclement weather, for its sixth weekly meeting of the winter term. Led by student body president Chukwuka Odigbo ’25, senators discussed — and ultimately passed — two amendments to the DSG constitution.
Among the changes, the chamber voted in favor of an amendment, proposed by general house senator Sabik Jawad ’26, to allow senators and executives to call for votes of unanimous consent, in which a motion is passed by lack of objection rather than by a tally of votes; the amendment passed 23-0-1. Another amendment, proposed by North Park senator Jude Poirier ’28, which mandates a call to the public — time at the end of DSG meetings for students and senators to “discuss” topics not covered in the meeting — was passed by unanimous consent.
The Senate deferred voting on a third amendment, proposed by Poirier, allowing senators to call votes on non-agenda items brought up during calls to the public.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, West House senator Samay Sahu ’27 said Jawad’s unanimous consent amendment will save approximately “five minutes per vote.” As chief of staff, Sahu is responsible for manually tallying a roll call of all senators’ votes before a motion can pass.
“When I have to meticulously track the votes of every single person, it takes more time from us having robust discussions that we need to be having about important issues,” Sahu said.
According to Jawad, DSG had previously implemented roll call votes due to “concerns about transparency,” following controversial private votes about a response to campus arrests last spring. The Dartmouth’s Editorial Board publicly recommended that DSG vote “in broad daylight.”
Transparency was also key to Poirier’s proposed amendment, which he explained stemmed from “worry” among senators last term that executives could use their control of the agenda to “constrict” DSG meetings and prevent votes.
Last term, Odigbo refuted the claim that executives could prevent votes from occurring in response to an article in The Dartmouth about the rejection of an impromptu voting amendment.
Sahu described Poirier’s amendment as a “loophole” to the current language in the constitution. Currently, votes can only be called on topics specified in DSG’s meeting agenda, according to Sahu.
“It would be reckless to have all the members of the Senate vote on an issue in a short press of time where we don’t have the full facts,” he said.
While Sahu explained that members of the public who bring a concern can have that item added to the agenda for next week’s discussion, Poirier said he believes that argument is a “stretch and somewhat of a waste of time.” DSG has an “obligation to respond to campus crises quickly” as a representative body, he argued.
Non-voting representative Daniel Pruder ’27 argued that the Senate is “restricting” itself from covering “substantive issues” by not allowing impromptu motions.
“They’re not really looking at the fact that the best way to empower themselves and to give a voice to the student body is by allowing [impromptu] motions,” Pruder said.
Pruder said last spring’s call for a vote of no confidence in College President Sian Leah Beilock was an example of DSG “listening to public concerns” via spur-of-the-moment votes.
According to Poirier, public pressure during the no-confidence vote — when 30 undergraduates attended the public DSG meeting — has led the Senate to be more hesitant in embracing impromptu motions. However, he said the “campus controversy” surrounding the vote and the College’s response to pro-Palestinian protests was unique and unlikely to be repeated.
“I think that that fear is keeping us from following a constitutional norm of allowing senators to call votes,” Poirier said.
Poirier added that the call to the public is a “normative” amendment to make DSG’s constitution similar to other “representative bodies.”
“If you ever go to a local government meeting, they almost always end with a call to the public,” Poirier said.
West House senator Favion Harvard ’26 said in an interview with The Dartmouth that he was “critical” of the amendments proposed at the Feb. 16 meeting. According to Harvard, DSG needs “proactive” change to its bylaws instead of “fixing issues as they come about,” or the constitution runs the risk of becoming “not as comprehensible as it should read.”
At the meeting, Harvard, alongside School House senator JJ Dega ’26 and East Wheelock senator John Wisdom ’26, proposed a constitutional task force to recommend improvements to DSG about its bylaws. Harvard said the three people who would chair the committee were himself, Dega and Wisdom.
The Senate deferred vote on the proposed committee for later discussion, since the meeting ran past its mandatory time limit.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, general house senator Ikenna Nwafor ’27, who spoke in opposition to the proposal, said the task force is a “noble” idea but that the proposed method of choosing task force chairs “increases the inequality of senators’ power.”
“The Senate [should] get to debate … and pick the chairs of the committee, rather than people who are sponsoring the proposal,” Nwafor said.
Harvard said he believes “a lot of the issue” with the constitutional task force motion has been that he, Dega and Wisdom are members of the Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity.
“I don’t really like people to stereotype me as my Greek house,” Harvard said. “We’re also three students who are very dedicated to student government.”
Nwafor denied being motivated by the sponsors’ Greek affiliation.
“I don’t care about them being [in] Alpha Chi,” Nwafor said.
Nwafor added that there is a potential “conflict of interest” between the task force chairs’ “power … to affect” DSG and the possibility that, as members of the Class of 2026, Harvard, Dega or Wisdom might run for the DSG presidency next term.
Instead of empowering the task force’s co-sponsors, Nwafor said the committee should be chaired by a “non-DSG” student to prevent bias.
“If [senators] write our own bylaws … we might create rules that protect our own power, resist meaningful reforms or overlook diverse student perspectives,” Nwafor wrote in a follow-up statement to The Dartmouth. “Without broader input, the process could lack transparency and legitimacy, making it seem like the bylaws serve DSG insiders rather than the student body as a whole.”
Additionally during the meeting, Christopher Sims ’27 was confirmed as a non-voting DSG representative by unanimous consent.
DSG Senate meetings occur weekly on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Collis 101 and are open to all students.
Jackson Hyde '28 is an intended philosophy major from Los Angeles, California. His interests include photography, meditation, and board game design.
