By Jenna Duncan, News Staff

An analysis by a newly-formed ad hoc committee, set to be complete Jan. 6, will determine the next steps of the Student Government Association (SGA) restructure.
At the SGA Joint Senate meeting Nov. 16, President Ryan Fox and Parliamentarian Christain Toczko proposed five components to consider restructuring the executive board.
According to a letter from Fox to the Senate, the date was set ‘in the interest of timing of potential changes as they relate to the elections cycle for the 2010-11 elections.’
In addition, Toczko, the committee chair, said they hoped to formulate legislation over the next six months.
‘We haven’t changed our structure since 1994, so it’s definitely time for us to reconsider it as it pertains to how we serve students,’ Fox said.
The plans for restructure, detailed in the Nov. 19 issue of The News, all focus on the redistribution of power, Toczko said.
A step was taken towards the restructure on Nov. 16:’ establishing the operational appeals board. The board would handle all appeals rather than the Senate Nominations and Elections Committee, Budget Review Committee and Student Affairs Board handling their own. Toczko said he hoped language for the board would be implemented in the next 12 to 18 months.
‘Part of our problem in the past is we’ve been very intimidated by reorganization and it’s very difficult to implement with one-year terms,’ Fox said.
Toczko, who will be graduating in May, said he is trying to make the restructuring go smoothly, since he will be unable to finish out his vision.
‘I want to tie up loose ends before I leave,’ he said.
Those involved in the process are trying to have it more well documented, a theme for this semester, Fox said.
‘The best thing is that we’ve done a lot better job of documenting everything internally, so we can continue to roll out new projects,’ Fox said.
One of the largest projects has been the funding priority survey that was launched Nov. 8. Fox said this was the highest response ever on the annual survey, with nearly 3,000 of about 15,000 undergraduate students completing it.
‘One of the new things we did this year was looking at opportunities to save the university money as well,’ he said. ‘We’ve really been able to identify priorities that will save the university money in the long run.’
Fox said the results are still being analyzed, and meetings are continuing with members of the administration including Provost Stephen Director, Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance Jack McCarthy and Director of Finance and Treasurer Samuel Solomon.
‘Slowly but surely it’s showing we’re getting our message out there,’ he said.
SGA has also been working on issues regarding the organization’s transparency. Office hours have been set in stone and the hours are posted online. Student Activities Fee allocations have been posted online as well as via SGA’s Twitter account.
Next semester, more student-oriented projects will be underway. Starting in January Northeastern will participate in RecycleMania, which will compete against hundreds of universities across the nation for the highest recycling rate.
Additionally in January, there will be the Die Hard Dog logo contest. In spring, the new design will run on 5,000 shirts.
‘We heard that it was time for a new look,’ Fox said.
Further down the road, bike rentals will become available, as well as a farmer’s market.
Overall, Fox said he was happy with the semester’s progress, and believes more will be possible next semester.
‘I think that everything went well [this semester] and we laid a lot of groundwork for new stuff next semester,’ he said.
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