GSSC Resignation Sparks Dispute

On the heels of her resignation as social chair of the General Studies Student Council, Ashley Forman appeared at Tuesday night’s weekly GSSC meeting to set the record straight.

While the meeting was originally scheduled to discuss gala marketing and to pass a resolution for changing GS diplomas from English into Latin, the meeting never touched on those issues and instead delved into the questioning of executive decision-making.

Controversy arose surrounding the GSSC March Gala, an annual formal dinner and evening that, in the eyes of some officers, like GSSC Vice President of Finances Keith Hightower, is a source of “irresponsible” spending. Other members, like finance committee member and Worker’s Representative Allen Settle, said they feel that the event is essential, calling it “the gem of senior year.”

The gala planning had officially been in the hands of Forman, but she and council member David Minchin claimed that once a budget proposal had been approved by the board—totaling $11500—and vendors had been contracted, their decisions began to draw skepticism from the finance committee, and the proposal passed by the council had been repeatedly altered.

In her fiery resignation letter, sent to the e-board and General Studies Dean Dominic Stellini Sunday night, Forman cited the slashed budget, a lack of creative control, and difficulties in working with colleagues as her reasons for quitting.

“Decisions were made without me; I was disrespected as I was disregarded, and I was verbally told my name would be dragged through the mud on purpose if we did not sell enough tickets to this event,” Forman wrote in her resignation e-mail, continuing, “This is not what I had in mind. Not to be steamrolled about my budget and not to be treated like garbage by my friends. ... The ineffectiveness of this year’s council and the politicking in the background of this annual party is not what I signed up to do. I refuse to blow my cool over this.”

“Once this was all put in place, things began to be changed,” Minchin said, claiming that contracts had been canceled by the finance board.

The budget for the event, and apparently the grandeur of the dinner, was reduced to what one in attendance referred to as a “wine and cheese” tasting.

“Our budget is roughly 40 percent lower than last year’s budget,” GSSC President Niko Cunningham said. “We cannot do the same exact things as we did last year. What we try to do is maximize what we do have and make that stretch the focus. So every person on the student life committee has had their budget slashed for different events. We’ve tried to make them really good when we’ve had our events, but our finance committee is always looking for ways to save money. Always.”

But Student Services Representative Joel Pichardo was skeptical.

“I’ve been here for three years and hearing about budget shortfalls ... I have no idea where all the money went,” Pichardo said, explaining his belief that former GSSC President Susannah Karlsson’s reign had left this year’s council with a good deal of funds in the beginning of the year.

Pichardo questioned whether there was someone altering resolutions on the side. He said that in his conversation with Stellini, Stellini mentioned that he had been “getting questions from a lot of students” about their concerns with the uses of student funds. “Someone should not be altering resolutions passed on by the council.”

“The situation with the gala was decided by the general council, and no significant change was made in the finance committee,” Settle said. “I would say the gala is still going to be a great event, and there is still the consistency in what the council had said before.”

“There has to be a villain. There has to be a villain, and it’s always the money guy,” Cunningham said.

While Cunningham and GSSC Vice President of Communications Brody Berg attempted to move on to the issue of gala marketing, Minchin said that he thought it would be a waste of time.

“The e-board’s already decided who’s making the decisions,” Minchin said, pointing to the marketing plan distributed at the beginning of the meeting and developed by Cunningham and Hightower as strictly “informative” and not worth time spent on voting.

“The council, as they announced it today, is being run by Keith [Hightower]. And therefore there’s no point in even discussing it because the decision of the board is that is what’s happening,” Minchin said later.

Forman’s resignation comes a little over three weeks after Vice President of Student Life Cheryl Berg also stepped down. While the GSSC has lost two major players in its programming branch in a little under a month, Cunningham and Hightower said Monday that while searching, they were in no hurry to fill the positions. Instead, Brody Berg temporarily stepped into the role of VP for Student Life, while Hightower—and notably not Minchin, who had been working closely with Forman—has taken over Forman’s role in planning the gala. Cunningham and Hightower are now in charge of gala marketing. There have been no suggestions of permanent replacements of Cheryl Berg and Forman in the near future, and instead the responsibilities have been dispersed among members of the executive board.

“His [Hightower’s] specific authority is to take a look at where we can save money if we can. And there’s been multiple times this year where he’s renegotiated contracts that our Student Life programmers have negotiated and save us money. And therefore my faith in the finance committee is unwavering,” Cunningham said.

“Throughout the past year, I’ve felt that sometimes the constitution has been trampled upon, and this is a direct example of it,” Pichardo said. “It’s not a constitutional review question, it’s an interpretation of the constitution.”

The topic has been tabled for next week’s meeting, and some have suggested a hearing.