The University of Iowa Undergraduate Student Government passed legislation on Tuesday to restructure the Academic Affairs Committee as the USG textbook drive saw record numbers this year.

The bill underwent a lengthier process than usual to pass because it is a change to USG’s constitution. Constitutional changes require a previous week of questions from senate members before they can be voted upon.

Zach Hemmen, the director of USG Academic Affairs, said the committee has advocated for academic policies and different activities on campus, such as implementing Microsoft co-pilot into everyday student life.

The bill specifically puts major focus on one activity: the USG textbook drive.

Since its beginning in Spring 2023, the USG textbook drive has given a select number of textbooks to students for free during the starting weeks of each semester. Students are asked to return the books when the final week approaches. The drive was spearheaded by former USG Academic Affairs Director Amira Qidwai, who saw the drive as an opportunity to ease student textbooks costs.

Since the drive was implemented, the tasks of distributing and cataloging the books fell entirely on the director of Academic Affairs.

Hemmen said he was “overwhelmed by the amount of books we got” after being told by the former director that the drive could be managed by a single person.

This year’s 792 textbooks soon became too much to handle for one director as opposed to the approximate number of 350 textbooks from the previous year. Even with the help of volunteers, Hemmen said he put in 90 hours of work over the course of three weeks dealing with the drive.

The committee’s restructuring was passed in hopes of easing the workload. The legislation requires members of the committee to assist in not only the textbook drive but in maintaining other resources such as the UI grades website. To “sweeten” the deal, senators who work on the drive are given external relations event credited per semester of time worked.

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This came as a point of disagreement during debate for some senators.

USG Sen. Harry Siraj was the leading voice for amending the legislation, arguing senators not in the Academic Affairs Committee should have the ability to choose to volunteer for the USG textbook drive, along with receiving an external relations event credit.

When it became evident that support for this amendment was limited, Siraj said he believed the legislation “needs more work” and “wasn’t well thought out enough.”

USG President Addison Eckard clarified the intentions of the bill.

She stated that she and Vice President Brenda Ramirez hope to get the drive “institutionalized through the University of Iowa libraries” in the near future and the legislation was not a foundation for the next 10 years, but a temporary solution.

After this period of debate, the bill passed with 84 percent of the senate in favor.

Hemmen said he was relieved to see the bill pass, stating that while the committee is “excited to watch [the textbook drive] keep growing,” collaboration with other campus partners was necessary.