The amended constitution was officially passed by Student Government Association (SGA) senate on April 8, promising its students with equal representation and a diversity advocate. 

“[Normally] when the constitution passes, it can take action up until a year [before it goes into effect],” said Jake Statom, SGA President. “This year, we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to go ahead and make it effective.”

While some of the changes would be classified as too late in the semester to bring into effect, one change that is in full operation is University Council Program’s (UPC) separation from SGA. 

“Even though UPC and SGA are no longer a part of the same entity, we’ve remained a partnership,” Statom said. 

In becoming its own entity, UPC had to present their final operations manual to senate on Feb. 11. Now, UPC has oversight over their own manual and their budget. 

Parker Fleming, UPC Vice President, said this was a really necessary change. 

“Senate and UPC are very different,” Fleming said. “We’re more event oriented. Sometimes, it [was] hard to get the two on the same page.” 

Fleming said that having to go through SGA, they were “kind of double backing.”

 “Our boss would make sure we were doing everything with the operations manual and that our changes were necessary,” Fleming said. “Then we would have to go to senate and we would have to explain why our changes were important. It just became a disconnect in it that way.”

Fleming emphasizes that there was no bad blood between the two organizations.

“They’re both wonderful organizations on campus that provide leadership and student experiences, it’s just that they’re very different from each other.”

With UPC up and running on their own in the midst of a pandemic, it is hard to see what their next steps will be. 

Fleming said while COVID-19 is still tricky, they are still preparing programs Student Orientation, Advisement and Registration (SOAR) nights since it has been stated that everything will be in-person next semester.

“We want to give the incoming freshmen a good experience for their first night on campus,” Fleming said. “We’re excited about that, and really just want to bring fresh ideas in the fall.”

Fleming said UPC wants to get better.

“We want to provide students with a better college experience as far as programming goes and making sure they will be represented,” Fleming said. “We are ready to adapt whenever there’s time to adapt but right now our form is still new and we’re still working out the kinks in that.”