The Associated Student Government (ASG) recently held elections and members of the organization are concerned about the process this year.
This has resulted in a seven-page grievance filed against the ASG President that is currently under judicial review. The grievance was broader than just the elections, but those draw the most attention.
The document covers how election rules were not followed. This includes violations such as not having campaign volunteers follow ASG rules and having chalk too close to buildings.
One of the bigger issues was that a student fee-funded organization endorsed a pair of candidates while a club sports team was forced to take down their endorsement even though they are not a fee-funded organization.
The grievance was filed by Senate Leader Angelina Decrow after the elections were over. Her main goal is to hold the organization accountable.
One of the Senators negatively affected by this was Nathaniel Ansah, who was running for the Student Trustee position. Ansah threw his hat in the ring in March for the position and was later pulled from the ballot due to class-standing issues.
Ansah stated that he was excited to be a part of ASG because he wants to effect real change in the student body. When he was running, nothing was called into question until he decided to take a closer look at his credit hours.
When he discovered he would not have junior standing until the end of the summer, he took it straight to administration and was immediately dropped from the race. This does mean that Ansah will have the class standing required when the Fall semester rolls around and the Trustee position officially begins.
“I got in touch with my advisor so I could try to do something to continue in the race. It didn’t seem like it was going anywhere, so I decided to talk to John Marshall and he advised me to write up and sign an agreement form that [would enable] me to get back on the ballot,” Ansah said.
The form created did not go through in the end and the justices for ASG said that the appeal was going to be impossible. The ASG Constitution is the only public document so the only information available to the student body does not mention credit hour requirements for the Trustee position, only that the student be in good standing with the Registrar.
“There was a lot of rule-bending as a whole. I [was] overworking myself because I did want that Student Trustee position and I am taking 12 credit hours over the summer to ensure I am at that junior status and I tried explaining that to the justices, but I guess it didn’t go through. I decided that I might as well stop because it is not going anywhere,” Ansah said.
Ansah stated he will not be returning to ASG next year and that while student leaders have done truly amazing things, the organization does not hold its members accountable for going through with proposed projects. He talked about how he wants to keep making real change and is going to continue to work with students with another organization in Student Life.
The student government has been called into question a few times in the last two years. ASG’s members have a record of not completing office hours on top of inappropriate conduct in meetings.
Ansah stated that he is not upset with the outcome of the election as he learned valuable lessons along the way. He ended with the hope that next year’s administration will make changes and keep each other accountable in order to make valuable contributions to the student body.
