After more than 30 years of discussing the idea, the Student Government Association (SGA) is making an effort to implement direct elections of their top two executive board members by the student body.

This January President Bill Durkin instructed the Senate Nominations and Election Committee (SNEC) to begin outlining a process to put the power of electing a leader into the hands of Northeastern students. Currently, the SGA president and executive vice president are elected by senate members only.

“We’re a changing school, and SGA needs to play a larger role in fostering a sense of community,” Durkin said. “That starts at the top, and students should have a larger role in how that leadership is elected.”

The charge, which is equivalent to an official assignment, was given to SNEC chair John Guilfoil, and contains five separate parts to be completed individually. Guilfoil said the first part has already been completed, and SNEC has begun work on the second point, which will be finished by the end of the school year. Each separate part of the charge also has a deadline and, if all goes according to plan, direct elections could take effect in the 2006-07 executive board elections next April.

Making the transition from senatorial elections to direct elections encompasses much more planning than some people may realize, Durkin said, and this accounts for the amount of time necessary for the project.

“The devil is in the details,” he said.

The five parts of the charge lay the groundwork for planning each part of direct elections, from nominations to presidential debates to voting methods to the actual implementation of the project.

One of the most complicated and time-consuming points is setting guidelines for campaigning. Because currently only senators vote for the president, virtually no campaigning to the student body is necessary. However, with direct elections, that would all change — and intense campaigning would become an integral part of becoming SGA president.

Guilfoil said things such as campaign length, creating a committee to oversee the election and possible student organization endorsements for candidates need to be decided on, but the most involved issues regard campaign finance. He said SNEC must decide how much can be spent on a campaign, if a candidate can use his or her own money, whether candidates can accept donations and how campaign finances should be recorded and reported after the election is over.

“We just basically have to make sure somebody can’t buy the election,” Guilfoil said.

This is far from the first time SGA has tried to make installing direct elections a priority. Six years ago, legislation was passed calling for senators to run representing a certain college or organization, and to be directly elected by the student body, said Professor Gerry Herman, SGA’s advisor.

“We tried to popularly elect senators, having representatives for each college and class, but the problem was there was no way to get at the constituents,” Herman said, citing the lack of students living on campus at the time. “It was very hard for senators to promote themselves … Eventually the petitioning method [where students are required to collect 50 signatures to be recognized as a senator] resumed its dominant role.”

He added that due to the failed attempt, many of SGA’s constitutional bylaws were re-written in language that could coincide with a direct election method, so the charge is not an impossible feat.

For now the charge only applies to the top two officials, and the other four members of the executive board will continue to be elected by the senate in order to “keep a good check and balance” between the student body and the senate, Durkin said. And though he said nothing is set in stone, he mentioned the possibility of senate oversight when candidates are being nominated.

“When a candidate is nominated, if a senator stands up and gives a reason why the person shouldn’t run, it could go to vote with a two-thirds majority needed for that person to run,” Durkin said. “The senate doesn’t want to give up all their power.”

Herman said due to the way the organization is set up, maintaining the bond between the executive board and the senate is imperative to SGA’s success and credibility.

“My sort of nightmare is that you have an e-board going off in one direction and the senate in another,” he said. “That’s my bottom line in all of this, to make sure the organization maintains its integrity, because that’s the only way to maintain its influence.”

Technology could play a major role in implementing this form of elections, as online updates about the candidates and some form of online voting will almost definitely make an appearance come 2007 elections. Also, providing a form of electronic or online voting could give a level of convenience to students, which could possibly combat previous student apathy and bring in big voting numbers, Durkin said.

In order for the election to be valid, a substantial number of students will need to vote, Herman said.

“If you have 100 people voting for SGA president, obviously that’s not going to work,” he said.

Hamangi Patel, a junior speech pathology major, said although there is currently a lack of student interest, the fact that students don’t get to vote is a major contribution to that sense of apathy.

“There’s not a lot of students getting to know who the [people in SGA] are,” she said, “but then again, if you don’t get to pick who they are, why would you?”

Almost every executive board elected in the past 10 years or so has talked about direct elections as running platforms and goals for the year, but none have followed through, Durkin said. He said this is because previous executive board members have tried to implement direct elections in one year, which is not possible.

“There’s been a lot of talk and very little action,” he said. “Past SGAs have bitten off more than they can chew because they looked at it in a one-year time frame … you have to realize this is going to take much longer than that.”

However, some students can clearly see the damage caused by the separation of senate and students on campus.

“I think one of the big problems around here is that it’s not socially connected; everyone is kind of in their own circle,” said John McGue, a junior finance major. “There’s no sense of NU pride.”

McGue said if he was offered a vote, he would probably research the candidates and might feel more like part of a community choosing one leader.

Both Herman and Guilfoil said this is the furthest any SGA has ever gotten in the process to have their top officials elected, and both said they firmly believe this is their best shot yet.

Almost 50 percent of students now live on campus, and more than ever, Northeastern is becoming a community rather than simply a commuter school. This is why it is so important students have a more active role in deciding who will lead their governing body, Durkin said.

“I think the students have been waiting for it, I think it’s the changing student body that is calling for it,” he said. “I think we’re growing as a community and becoming more cohesive, and we need to start fulfilling those [direct election] promises to them.”