The ASUO Senate’s treasurer resigned Tuesday, making her the seventh member of the 20-seat committee to leave the Senate following the 2009 ASUO election.
It’s an uncommonly high number — before winter term began, as many senators had resigned as did so in the entire 2008-09 school year — but nobody within the ASUO has offered an explanation for the sheer numbers. Indeed, ASUO leaders said they thought the number was an anomaly, not a trend.
“I understand why it looks that way,” Senate President Nick Gower said, “but look at the individual cases.”
Three senators resigned before the school year had even begun. Two cited time commitments, while one had slipped below the grade point average necessary to hold a Senate seat. Two more resigned within the first two weeks of the term, also citing time commitments. Four were newly elected senators, while Lidiana Soto was one of the Senate’s senior members.
There is an institutional reason behind the resignations, Gower said, but it is an issue with the Senate itself, not the particular group. He said students apply to run for ASUO positions without grasping the time commitment that will be required.
“The responsibility falls on those running campaigns to make it clear what the commitment will be,” Gower said.
Nevertheless, the Senate’s leadership took action to stem the trend toward resignations after the year’s first five. Senate Vice President Nick Schultz took measures to combat resignations, holding meetings with each senator to help them create schedules that could withstand their time commitments.
Diamond overwhelmed
Diamond, who was the Senate’s treasurer, was an exception to the rule, both she and Gower agreed. Diamond was heavily involved in the ASUO before filing to run and became one of the more outspoken senators.
“I’d like to think that my resignation isn’t a part of any larger trends,” she said.
Gower said Diamond was not one of the senators he considered likely to resign.
Diamond announced her decision to resign Tuesday in an e-mail sent to the Senate, ASUO President Emma Kallaway and the subcommittee on which she served.
“While I do incredibly value my work in student government and treasure the opportunity to serve students, I feel that added stresses in my life are not allowing me to be the type of representative I’d like to be,” she wrote.
She said she had understood the time commitment for the position when she ran, but that she had discovered that her winter term class schedule and her schedule in a second job at the campus radio station were too demanding.
“I work and I take a lot of hard classes, and my personal well-being was suffering because of lack of sleep,” she said.
Diamond was a consistent fiscally conservative vote on the Senate, whose primary job is to allocate money raised through student fees.
“A whole new ball game”
Despite her resignation, Diamond said she plans to run for ASUO president in the spring. Time commitments will not be a problem, she said, because “2010-11 is a whole new ball game.”
It’s unclear whether Diamond is serious about her candidacy.
She said her running mate would be CJ Ciaramella, a former Emerald reporter who is also her boyfriend. Ciaramella was appointed to the Senate in winter of 2009 but was rejected after he mocked the Senate in his confirmation hearing. He is a senior one term from graduation. Diamond herself did not answer clearly when asked whether her candidacy was a joke.
However, there is a precedent for seniors running for ASUO president. Two of the five candidates for ASUO president in the 2009 election were seniors when they ran, and election runner-up Michelle Haley even said she would run a joke campaign in a March 2009 interview.
[email protected]