Ten ASUO senators resigned during the 2009–10 school year, which is more than twice as many as who left office during the 2008–09 school year.
The members of the 20-person committee who left their posts are Lyzi Diamond, Benjamin Independence Dodds, Christina Ergas, Kristine Jensen, Jessica Jones, Ryan Lassi, Carina Miller, Nick Schultz, Lidiana Soto and Liliana Villanueva.
Though the number is eye-catching, it is in many ways misleading. Although 10 resigned, the Senate didn’t operate with only 10 members because ASUO President Emma Kallaway appointed replacements. In fact, two of those to leave — Miller and Villanueva — were appointees to the same seat.
It is also misleading because resignations were concentrated at the beginning and the end of the Senate’s term. Six had resigned before November, while two resigned within two weeks of the end of the current Senate’s term, May 25.
The two most recent are Villanueva and Schultz. Villanueva left before the May 19 Senate meeting, and Schultz resigned May 12. Villanueva was appointed to replace Miller, whom Kallaway appointed to replace herself when she left her Senate seat after one year to assume the presidency. ASUO Senate President Nick Gower said Villaneuva cited personal reasons for resigning.
The cause of leaving for personal reasons was typical of the resignations.
“I work and I take a lot of hard classes, and my personal well-being was suffering because of lack of sleep,” Diamond said when she left.
Miller also cited academics as a decision for resigning.
“My grades have taken a big hit,” Miller said after her winter-term resignation. “My finances have taken a big hit. It’s taken up a lot of my life.”
Soto’s resignation came from realigning priorities.
“All of these activities and more during my junior year set me back in my studies and it’s something that I must to prioritize this upcoming year,” Soto wrote in her resignation letter. “In addition, financial reasons have led me to seek employment off campus for the upcoming year, limiting the time I’m able to be on campus for class and senate activities.”
The number of senators who resigned citing conflicts with their studies led senators to take measures to prevent further resignations. Schultz, who later resigned himself, headed those efforts, which involved personal conversations with each senator.
However, Schultz’s resignation was different from the rest in that he left not to ease the pressure on his studies, but to take a different position in the ASUO, as a member of the ASUO’s Constitution Court, its rough equivalent of a judicial body.
Those in the ASUO were already adopting a philosophical outlook on resignations in the summer.
“If we have Senate in the Ben Linder Room, I’ll resign,” Sen. Demic Tipitino joked during July following Dodds’ resignation, when the Senate was deciding to which room it would move its meetings.
However, some took a less philosophical view.
In a letter to the editor last summer (“Senators’ exits make apathy evident,” ODE, July 27, 2009), former Sen. Cassie Gray wrote: “By showing such apathy for representing and governing ourselves, we are opening the door to University administrators stepping in to control the budgeting and dispersion of student … funds.”
The consensus, however, among those in ASUO office is that the number was an anomaly, not a trend.
“The responsibility falls on those running campaigns to make it clear what the commitment will be,” Gower said after Diamond resigned.
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