Updated: Sept. 10, 2019 at 1:28 a.m.
Three Student Association senators announced plans to resign from the SA Senate during the first meeting of the semester.
SA Sen. Justin Diamond, ESIA-U, said during the meeting Monday that he will resign from his post “effective immediately.” Diamond launched a last-minute bid for SA president in the spring on a platform to abolish the organization, but he lost in a run-off election against SA President SJ Matthews and garnered enough write-in votes to win a seat representing the Elliott School of International Affairs.
Diamond said his time in the SA only reinforced his belief that the organization is an ineffective body and has taken a “toll” on him because he has struggled to gain respect from other SA members. After notching a senate seat last spring, Diamond vowed to “destroy the SA from within.”
“Following the campaign, I wanted something to spring off of, have somewhere to go, have some sort of direction, maybe make some sort of change in the SA ,” Diamond said. “But fundamentally, the institution itself can’t be changed really from within by me because I don’t really have allies there – it was kind of stupid to think that would even be possible.”
SA Sen. George Glass, U-at-Large and the chair of the finance committee, said SA Sen. Arman Hussain, SMHS-G, and Robert Yassky, SOB-G – who were both absent from the meeting – would resign. Diamond, Hussain and Yassky all served on the finance committee, Glass said.
Glass said Yassky and Hussein told him they intended to resign because of class conflicts with SA meetings and the SA’s required time commitment to the finance committee and biweekly senate meetings.
“Finance out of all of the committees in the SA is the most strenuous,” he said. “We meet every single week for a reason because student orgs need money.”
SA Executive Vice President Amy Martin she said would rather have senators immediately resign when they realize they cannot commit to the time or job rather than stay in the senate and do “little to no work.”
“I think what we’re seeing is just that the senators who are here and who are present are very active and they’re very engaged and they’re wanting to do the work and wanting to have the discussions,” she said. “So if that means I lose two or three senators who have just realized that they can’t give that commitment, I think that that’s fair play.”
Shannon Mallard and Kate McCarthy contributed reporting.
This post was updated to clarify the following:
This post was updated to clarify the reason for a senator’s departure.
