Michael Oakley, GS, was appointed by members of the General Studies Student Council as their new vice president of finance last night, after some contentious debate and a fiery anonymous email that was circulated around campus.
Oakley was elected to this position by GSSC members after they voted to suspend the bylaws in the council’s constitution in order to elect him internally, rather than open the nominations to the student body.
The bylaws of the council state that members of the executive board elect candidates after they receive nominations from the student body. This had been done once, and Oakley's nomination had been rejected, but wasn't opened up again.
Jacqueline Thong, the president of GSSC, said that the council moved to appoint Oakley because some were worried that it would take too much time to run a second round of nominations.
Amanda Koch, GS and senior class president in GSSC, expressed concern over having an important position empty for an even longer period of time. “We don’t have the time to put this off for three weeks,” Koch said.
“It affects our credibility within the University if we’re the only council without a treasurer, without a vice president of finance,” Benjamin Briggs, GS and comptroller of GSSC, said.
The position became vacant when Joshua Lewin-Jacus, who had been in JTS/GS, transferred to Columbia College, after he had already been elected to GSSC last semester.
“It was between study break and commencement, after F@CU that we found out he was transferring to another school,” Thong said. “Given that we found out the information too late, it made more sense for us to open up the position at the start of September.”
Not all GSSC members agreed to suspend the bylaw on filling vacancies though.
“We cannot set aside the rules,” Mahogany Wright, GS and vice president of communications of GSSC, said. “We have no constitutional authority to do this.”
Wright added that the constitution doesn’t give the GSSC members the right to suspend laws.
On Tuesday a wordy, anonymous email titled “GSSC is up to its old tricks again!” was circulated around campus, claiming that GSSC members were acting unethically in moving to nominate Oakley.
“What institution would propose to suspend their governance and not follow their special nomination process that is explicitly outlined in the constitution and by-laws which—get this—were rewritten last year by Ben Paladino (current VP of Policy and reported supporter of Michael Oakley), Nicole Morgan (current Chief Policy Rep and reported supporter of Michael), and Michael Oakley himself?!”
However, a majority vote of the members did support making this change to appoint a new VP of finance at Tuesday’s meeting.
Some members said they were concerned about appointing Oakley, claiming that he received an unfair advantage since he worked closely with Lewin-Jacus in his previous role as chief finance officer. Oakley had been presented to the council last week, but they voted to hear from more candidates before making a decision. After the vacancy was announced, seven candidates came forward to the council, a list that was later narrowed to three.
“The crime has already been committed,” Jose Robledo, GS and University Senator, said. “There is no competition because Michael already spent too much time working very closely [with Lewin-Jacus].”
At the meeting on Tuesday, three candidates were to be presented to council members, one of them being Oakley. One candidate, Olga Hayden, GS, left during the meeting without notifying council members, and the other, Peter Fisher, GS, announced his candidacy withdrawal before he was supposed to present his statement.
“Just based on what I’m hearing, it sounds like he’s [Oakley] doing a great job,” Fisher announced to GSSC members.
After a debate that was closed to Spectator, members then voted to appoint Oakley to the position.
“I truly thought he was the best candidate because he was the only one who had previous council experience,” Thong said.
karla.jimenez@columbiaspectator.com
An earlier version of this story stated that GSSC voted to not open up the elections process, instead of the pre-election nominations. Spectator regrets the error.
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