Absent Friends

A constitutional amendment designed to prevent members of the Otago Students' Association Executive from absenting themselves for long periods during their terms of office is planned.

The proposed amendment followed dissatisfaction within the Association with the prolonged absence of Errol Millar, Association President. Millar is at present in the United States on a three-month Student Leader grant. He will not return to Dunedin until March 26.

Acting President Michael Anderson has expressed the intention of moving the amendment at a special meeting of the Student Council called to discuss a marijauna referendum. According to the terms of the motion. Executive members will be required to seek the Student Council's permission for an absence of more than two weeks.

Two past Presidents of the Otago Association have gone to the United States on similar grants at the beginning of their terms. "They went earlier," Anderson said, "so that they were back to handle the extremely heavy work which is usually encountered in this period. I have had to knock off my job a month earlier in order to do the work Millar should be doing."

Anderson said that he and several others had endeavoured to dissuade Millar from accepting the grant. Millar, however, argued that he would learn much that was beneficial about student administration.

"However it was quite plain, judging from the experience of the past Presidents who accepted the scholarship, that no direct benefit accrued to the Association," said Anderson.

Anderson quoted another student who accepted a Student Leader grant, Mike Volkerling of Auckland, as saying that the grant was useless. Of the seventy days Volkerling spent in the United States only fifteen were spent at universities.