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There are 13 elected positions on the undergraduate student government. Next year, there could be nearly 800 members influencing, discussing, debating, and being more directly involved in the council’s actions with the approval of a new proposal.

Jenny Wood, Undergraduate Students Association Council president, has proposed a new advisory council composed of student representatives chosen from student groups to offer input on USAC’s decisions.

The group would be called the Student Advisory Council, already tagged “SAC” by councilmembers, and would meet with USAC councilmembers to discuss salient issues.

SAC would be open to all of UCLA’s almost 800 student organizations on campus. Each organization would be allowed one representative on SAC.

Though members would be elected or chosen by their individual student groups, none would hold voting powers on USAC, but would meet with other student group representatives at least twice a quarter to discuss USAC-related matters.

The purpose of SAC is to bring students together and foster greater student voice, student programming and involvement in USAC, Wood said.

“There’s no space right now for any organization to come forward with a policy recommendation, but by providing an avenue that will be open to every student organization, they will now have a voice,” Wood said.

“This is a step in a positive direction because it’s open to everyone,” added Wood.

Wood said SAC is also intended to allow USAC to better understand the issues that are most important to students and consequently act as more informed advocates.

The proposal has prompted mixed feelings from some councilmembers, including General Representative P.C. Zai, who expressed her concerns regarding the setup of the body.

Zai said she does not believe it is realistic to motivate all student groups to attend, and said larger groups will be able to send representatives more often and thus hold a voice over smaller groups.

“I do have some concerns about how (SAC) would be implemented, because you can barely get student groups to register. Logistically, you can potentially get anywhere from zero to 800 student representatives to show up,” Zai said.

Zai also said she disagrees with the idea to mandate a quorum for SAC, since it could be hard to gather all representatives consistently.

Originally proposed during the council’s first meeting three weeks ago, the adoption of SAC was planned to come to a vote during tonight’s meeting. However, because of mixed feelings on the council, voting on the creation of SAC will be postponed until more student input is generated.

Facilities Commissioner Joe Vardner said though he lauds Wood for the idea of wanting to garner more representation and student voices on council, he has concerns similar to Zai’s.

While both Zai and Vardner were wary of the council’s true representation, Wood emphasizes that the meetings will not be held consistently so there is no great time demand.

Wood foresees SAC meeting about two times a quarter for a few hours, with early reminders for meetings so accommodations can be made within the groups for the designation of representatives.

In this way, Wood hopes to answer the concerns for holding the mandatory quorum.

Rick Tuttle, administrative representative to USAC, said he commends any attempt to extend the opportunity for involvement to students.

The concern for student voice and representation on USAC was visited earlier this year with General Representative Brian Neesby’s senate proposal, in which he advocated the adoption of a 20-member legislative body.

Neesby’s proposal also incited mixed feelings. Some believed it would be less representative of the student body, with elected members having to garner smaller percentages to win a seat, rather than a 50-plus-one majority.

Wood said she would work with Internal Vice President Kristina Doan to reach out to student groups who attend mandatory budget funding workshops today, Wednesday and Thursday to hand out a survey for feedback on the proposal.

Questions on the survey will ask if the groups would be willing to participate on SAC, what issues the groups are concerned with most, and whether they think SAC is an efficient means to create more representation on USAC.