Before spring break, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) unanimously adopted a new constitution and an amendment to allow recall with near-unanimous support by the assembly at its March 5 meeting.

The constitution took effect immediately and aims to simplify the leadership structure.

“Our current government structure is a convoluted two-branch government with a highly descriptive but kind of convoluted way of running things.… It’s been pretty unreflective of how we have been running for the last few years, or even before that,” BSG Vice President Elliot Ewell ’27 said.  “BSGs in the past had attempted to amend the constitution using procedures that are in the current document, have failed to reach for those votes and amended the constitution anyway.… Our attempt to remedy this is by bringing a new constitution.”

The new constitution creates a four-branch structure from existing BSG committees. It changed the name of the Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC) to the Treasury Funding Commission (TFC) and the Student Organization Oversight Committee (SOOC) to the Treasury Chartering Commission (TCC) to emphasize that the students, not the Office of Student Activities, is in charge of funding student clubs. Few other structural changes were made.

“It’s less prescriptive, gives more freedom for our members, it’s workable … [but] nothing really changes structurally about how we operate,” Ewell said.

The constitution required four-fifths of the assembly to approve, and it passed unanimously.

Further, BSG also voted 17–3 to adopt a new recall amendment. Under the previous recall amendment, signatures of 50 percent of the whole student body were required to initiate a recall, but the amendment pushed that down to 20 percent, with a recall now allowed to pass with a two-thirds majority.

“The recall section, as far as we know, had never been used.… It was such a high bar,” Chair of the Treasury Funding Committee Maxwell Payne ’26 said.  “We decided to move it down to make it a bit easier.”

This Wednesday, BSG convened to discuss ideas to bring to President Safa Zaki’s attention and to pass proposals.

BSG President Eisa Rafat ’25 opened the meeting by asking BSG members to share any thoughts they would like to be relayed to Zaki in his and Ewell’s upcoming meeting with her. Members brought up concerns over club activities’ funding, the new course registration system and recent deportations and detentions on college campuses.

Payne explained that the College could better supplement funding for student organizations. Chair of the Student Affairs Committee Harper Stevenson ’27 expressed concerns over the College’s encouragement for starting new clubs, given that the TFC is out of money for the year.

Henry Stack ’27, a member of the Student Affairs Committee, mentioned poor reviews from students on the new course registration system through Workday.

“The feedback I have gotten on the course Workday system has not been positive,” Stack said. “[Rafat and Ewell] could give an early review of that system from the students and relay it.”

Many members also brought up concerns about recent deportations and detention at U.S. colleges and universities, notably the recent detention of a Tufts University PhD student. They expressed concern about the possibility of a similar situation on Bowdoin’s campus and recommended that BSG encourage Zaki to make resources available and known to students.

“My priority is definitely the situation at Tufts and, unfortunately, the situation at many other college campuses,” Rafat said. “I think the scariest part of it is that Tufts did release a statement saying that they had no previous knowledge that this was going to happen.”

BSG then passed a proposal that completed the process of the recall amendment first voted on before spring break. Another proposal to approve changes to the bylaws of the constitution—which included giving the chairs of standing committees of BSG the power to select faculty delegates to their committees rather than the president and vice president—also passed.