Student Government Association defeated an amendment Wednesday to lower the GPA and credit-hour requirements to run for executive office.
After about a 20-minute debate, the amendment was defeated by a 15-16 vote.
The amendment's author, sophomore Ryan Tirre, said he also felt the amendment could have been further discussed. He said senators did not have enough time to ask questions, and this may have affected the vote.
"A lot of people were undecided," Tirre said. "A problem with the Senate now is that there is not enough time for discussion."
According to Tirre, the 2.7 GPA and 45-credit-hour requirement has been in effect for the last three years, but it did not exist for 59 years before that.
Tirre introduced the legislation in part because of the apathy in the last executive office election, in which only four students ran for four offices.
He said the proposed requirements would allow more people to be eligible and officers would be elected based on leadership instead of academic standing.
According to Tirre, most opponents thought 2.0 would be too low. Tirre said he thought voters should determine that.
"That's eliminating the power of voters and telling the voters we don't trust them enough to vote."
Others thought any GPA requirement was unfair to the voter.
"It's not our choice to decide whether somebody elects based on GPA or not," senator Chris Brokowski said.
Freshman Senator Katie Carlson said students need a range of people they can choose from.
Critics of the amendment, however, thought the drop was too drastic.
"The GPA might be lowered to a 2.5 instead of a 2.0," Senator Megan Pickens said. "Ball State has been working hard to raise its academic standards."
Opponents said the margin between the 2.0 GPA requirement and the academic probation cutoff of 1.9 was too close. This raised questions about succession if an elected officer's GPA would dip below 2.0.
Though the requirements were the center of discussion, legislation from last semester was also addressed.
President Tommy Rector announced that a bill to end Saturday finals was being sent to University Senate's Student and Campus Life Council.
Vice President Tolu Olowomeye informed the Senate it would participate in decisions about changes in the University Senate meeting.
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