Changes to OUSC executive board coming soon

As OUSC elections draw near, changes to the executive board are being made.

The executive board is made up of nine students, the president and the vice president. Each board member works to improve a specific aspect of student life.

Student congress vice president Liz Iwanski described the e-board as “the team of student leaders from student congress who work together while also having individual focuses addressing the needs of the student body, [helping] to determine the direction of student congress and accomplish the administration’s goals and mission statement.”

E-board member and student services director, Kyler Johnson, said he deals with “whatever people decide to be upset about.” He works a lot with campus maintenance. If a light is out or a path isn’t plowed, Johnson contacts OU staff who can fix it.

Evan Fobar, legislative affairs director, said he focuses on campus safety and college affordability.

Other e-board positions include the student program board chair, student activities funding board chair, administrative assistant, financial affairs director, multicultural affairs director, visual communication director, and environmental health and wellness director.

The president and vice president hire e-board members at the beginning of their term and the legislature approves them.

E-board members keep their positions for a year. After their term ends, they can apply again.

Some e-board members are called appointed agents. This means that their positions are not written in the student congress constitution. The president and vice president decide if they want to keep those positions on the e-board for the year.

The legislative affairs director, multicultural affairs director, marketing director, visual communications director, and environmental, health and wellness director are appointed agents.

Meinberg and Iwanski are working with campus administrators to get the legislative affairs director, multicultural affairs director and marketing director in the constitution. This would require the positions to be filled in order for student congress to run and make it difficult to remove the students in these positions from office.

Meinberg and Iwanski said they are confident that the changes will pass, but they won’t be effective until the next administration comes into office.

In the meantime, these positions are still less secure than the other e-board positions. Meinberg and Iwanski removed Josh Pokrefky, ex-marketing director, from his position Feb. 16.

“He didn’t fulfill the expectations Liz and I set for the administration,”Meinberg said.

Although the administration is only in office for about two more months, Meinberg said she felt it could still accomplish goals but wouldn’t have time to train a new person for the job. Therefore, the position will be left vacant until the end of the administration. The tasks of the marketing director were divided among the other e-board members.

“It was the best solution to just divide the duties, because of the time frame,” Meinberg said.

When this position is added to the constitution, it will be necessary to have it filled in order for student congress to be allowed to run.

Pokrefky started the swag campaign while in office. Students can turn in T-shirts from other colleges to receive an OU shirt. Meinberg said the program is successful and the administration plans to continue it until the end of its time in office.