Union Board passes new resolutions

Union Board has prepared for this year’s election by making a few changes.

The board proposed some changes to its constitution that will be ready for a student body vote Nov. 19 and 20.

It also decided to make public relations and marketing an executive position instead of a committee, as it has been in the past, External Affairs Director Erin Brown said.

Brown was the first to propose the idea of making the committee into the board’s fifth executive position. 

The board wishes to create more student awareness for what Union Board does for the students of IU, said Asher Wittenberg, concerts director and election commissioner. Making the external affairs committee an executive position is an attempt at creating more communication between students and the board that represents them.

“We recognized how vastly important our marketing and public relations committee was, and we really wanted that to be a primary focus,”  Wittenburg said. “We want to serve them, but they have to recognize who we are. We need to work on raising awareness of what Union Board is because we are ultimately using their money.”

Applications for the 2014 Union Board director positions are due 7 p.m. Friday.
No previous experience is required for a director position.

Once applications are completed and the deadline has passed, those students who have applied will attend a mandatory meeting the night applications are due in the Maple Room in the Indiana Memorial Union.

Those students will then go through a process in which they can become a director on the 105th Union Board through a student body election or through a process of selection by a panel of non-returning Union Board members and executives.

“People have the option of running by selection or election or both,” Wittenberg said.

The campus wide election with be Nov. 19 and 20. Eight students will be chosen for director positions by the student body online or at a polling location in the IMU.

The remaining eight positions will be chosen by selection through an interview process. Executive positions will be filled internally by the 2014 Union Board directors after they have all been chosen.

“I’d actually never even stepped in the office before,” Brown said.

Union Board encourages interested students to apply to become a part of Union Board and ask current members any additional questions through the Union Board website, Wittenberg said. 

The installation banquet will be Jan. 25.

The banquet serves to formally allow the Union Board members of 2013 to pass on their positions to the new 2014 board members.

“It’s a symbolic passing of power,” Brown said. “From one board to another.”

Follow reporter Torie Schumacher on Twitter @shoe_torie