The New Mexico State University Engineering Student Council discussed and approved two resolutions to the Associated Students of NMSU bylaws in a meeting last Tuesday evening.

The Engineering Student Council is made up of about 24 individual engineering organizations, according to their website. These include departmental chapters, interdisciplinary chapters, diversity chapters and honor societies.

The group unanimously approved the bylaws that were originally proposed by the Arts and Sciences Council, which met and voted on September 18.

David Elver, one of four senators for the Engineering Council, and Clayton Miller, president of the council, explained each item of the resolutions and took questions from the attendees. Each resolution was then voted on.

Resolutions 2 and 3 addressed issues such as expulsion from the councils, the Council of Councils, financial regulations, Senator Impeachment and appointment of senators to the Special Committee of Elections.

The Council of Councils was one of the major points the resolutions addressed. Elver explained that it is a meeting of all student councils in an effort to unify the bylaws and uniformly organize the councils. It is an effort to ensure each council runs smoothly and is beneficial to the organizations that it is made up of.

“It was an idea originally proposed by President Prieto last year and it’s now just being enforced,” Elver said.

The resolutions also addressed the process of expulsion from the council of individual persons as well as organizations

“The council can expel individuals or organizations if a two-thirds vote of the entire council membership, only for a time period not to exceed the remainder of that academic year,” Miller said.

Elver said this was placed as precautionary measure if an organization were hindering productivity. He did not foresee a use of the rule in the near future.

Dante Archibeque, a chemical engineering major and board member of the Engineering Council responsible for Internal Affairs, said his position did not allow him to vote, but he thought the resolutions were positive.

“I didn’t find any problems specifically with anything individually,” Archibeque said.

He said the bylaws were difficult to understand, but credited Miller with simplifying the wording for the group.

Javier Lopez, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major and treasurer of MAES, Latinos in Science and Engineering, said he voted yes to adopt the resolutions.

“It’s a good thing that they let us know what’s going with Senate, which are rules that involve us as an organization, how we spend money or how we interact with other organizations,” Lopez said. “I had no objections today.”

Haley Stewart, a senator for the Arts and Sciences Student Council, said both student councils, as well as the councils for the colleges of Education and Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, voted to approve the resolutions at their respective meetings. The resolutions will be voted on by the ASNMSU Senate committees next week and then sent to the full senate for a vote. If the resolutions are passed, they will be added to the law books at a later date.

The Engineering Council meeting also addressed upcoming community service and activity dates for the organizations involved with the council, as well as notifying the attendees that two Senate positions for the upcoming semester were open for applications.