An eight-person commission to rewrite the Campus Activities Board’s constitution met Monday in a closed meeting inside Student Association offices.

Former SA President and commission chair Shaun Crisler denied the Northern Star access to cover the meeting because of “personnel matters” that would be discussed, which possibly could shield the meeting from open-meetings legislation.

“Possibly [because of] the request of resignation of different members, in general,” Crisler said, declining to comment on whether the resignation he spoke of was from CAB or the SA.

“As far as personnel, the retention and recruitment is solely based off the constitution,” Crisler said, when asked what the personnel had to do with the constitution.

SA President Craig Marcus explained the rewrite process to CAB members at Monday’s CAB meeting and said CAB representatives would have four votes to SA representatives’ three, according to meeting minutes.

Crisler disagreed and said he knew nothing of the CAB meeting discussion.

“It is like any other committee,” Crisler said. “It is a 4-4 vote and I hold the deciding decision if a conflict was to arise.”

Marcus, too, questioned the validity of his reported conversation with CAB.

“Well, I’ve never seen these minutes and don’t know if they’re official,” Marcus said. “There must be an oversight or error somewhere; I didn’t even know they took minutes.”

The CAB constitution has been compiled and altered throughout the years, with the last major change last year when the SA senate voted to have CAB members elected by students, said Eric Johnson, student trustee and commission member.

“It is the second-largest organization on campus and it is my understanding the [SA senate] wanted students to be involved in the deciding process rather than just appointing CAB officers,” Johnson said.

Marcus said Holder approached him with concerns he had about CAB and was looking for a way to improve what was going on.

Jaquita Logan, vice president of programming and activities for CAB, has a different view of the situation.

“If I remember correctly, it was [Marcus] who said he was passing this idea around with [Holder],” Logan said. “He said as a president of SA, he can make those executive decisions. We don’t know what’s going on.”

Holder did not comment.

CAB’s constitution was not set up for campus-wide elections when the SA senate required CAB elections for executives, Johnson said.

With a revision decided for the constitution, Marcus and CAB President Matt Holder each appointed three people to the commission. Each president is not required to appoint three members from either CAB or the SA, Marcus said.

One of the biggest problems this year that led to the rewrite was that lame-duck CAB officers appointed CAB coordinators, Johnson said.

“So you had people from the year before selecting the new coordinators without the input of the officers students elected,” he said.

Objectives of the constitution commission:

– The students running and elected into the executive positions for CAB must be the students handling all the important decisions. The CAB president must be allowed to create the agenda and vision for CAB as a whole.

– The CAB staff must be able to respond and be willing to work with the CAB elected officials, especially the president, who represents the students.

– CAB must create diverse programming on campus reflecting the areas of interest of all student populations.

– Most importantly, the CAB constitution must be a working document and all CAB elections, both present and future, must follow stipulations set forth by the document.

Source: Shaun Crisler,

Craig Marcus and Matt Holder