Special Summer Session

Unexpectedly, the AU Undergraduate Senate met earlier this evening for the purposes of electing a new Speaker. Unfortunately, Speaker Justin Woods will not be returning next year. The meeting had only eleven Senators present, most of them via conference call.

The first item of business was actually the confirmation of Savonia Vassel as Chair of the Board of Elections. For those of you that didn't follow every moment of last year's SG executive elections, I can tell you that the BOE is very much an area of interest to me. To make a long story short: I ran for President. I hung a banner from the side of the faculty parking garage that read "Mike Mayer for SG President." The person who was Chair of the BOE at the time told me that my sign was in violation of the rules. Of course, I had studied the rules extensively before hanging my banner, and there was no such rule. "What rule am I breaking?" I asked. Apparently, I was in violation of the rule that stated that there would be no campaigning inside of Bender Arena. No matter what anybody says, I have never been even close to convinced that the outside of a parking garage is equal to the inside of Bender Arena. Heated exchanges and letters to The Eagle followed. But I lost the election, and I move on.

Obviously, I wanted to hear the new nominee's perspective on the issue. I asked her what her interpratation of the rule was, and she informed me that she agreed with the previous Chair's ruling. I simply cannot accept that. It should be the job of the Chair of the BOE to enforce the rules as they are written, not interpret the rules as they feel they should be written. The rules were as clear as day, and the parking garage was an element that was overlooked. What is the point of having written rules if you can interpret them to mean whatever you want? If they don't want people putting signs on the parking garage, they ought to change the rules to say so. I simply could not support a nominee that agreed with such a ruling, and thus was the lone Senator to vote against her.

That said, Ms. Vassel made it clear that she wants to make it a priority to get more students involved in elections. That is another passion of mine. The best way to get students to care more about SG is to get more students to run for office and more students to vote in elections. I hope that she was sincere about this, as I would very much like to work with her to help make it happen.

Finally, the selection of a new Speaker took place by secret ballot. Anthony Dunham was elected. I congratulate him and look forward to working with him.