USS Elects New Leadership
New School Free Press Newspaper
Page 1
November 16, 2009
BY AIDAN GARDINER
Free Press News Editor
Three senators now hold the five positions of leadership in the
University Student Senate. Only three senators stood for election.
At a special session on November 10, the USS filled the three co-chair
positions which have replaced the presidential and vice presidential
offices. Elected were USS secretary and General Studies student Peter
Ian Cummings, USS treasurer and Lang student Dan Schulman, and Parsons
student Christopher Walsh. Walsh is the first Parsons student to serve
on the executive committee. Cummings and Schulman will continue to
hold their other offices.
Following a meeting on October 29, the USS voted no confidence in the
leadership of then-President Tushar Gogia. Vice President Chris Crews
read a statement saying that Gogia had failed to work with the senate
when making decisions and had failed to lead when called upon to do
so. Cummings and Schulman strongly supported the statement.
Many senators also felt that any failure on the part of the president
was symptomatic of a flawed leadership structure. On November 3,
Cummings announced that the USS had passed a constitutional
amendment which replaced the president and vice president positions
with three co-chairs who each share an equal amount of power and
responsibility. The amendment passed 12 to two, with Gogia abstaining.
Cummings and Schulman also served as president and vice president,
respectively, last year, but both declined to stand earlier this year
because they wanted to allow other senators the opportunity to lead
the student government.
Schulman said that the perceived failure in leadership and lack of
time compounded the urgency of the moment. “In this kind of
situation,” he said, “those who are willing to actually step up, take
charge, actually organize, and take care of what needs to get done,
[are] important for the livelihood of the senate.”
“I would’ve loved to have seen other people run,” Schulman added.
“It’s emblematic of what we need to do in this situationo engage
more senators so that they feel like they can do more and should do
more.”
Some senators thought that Crews would stand for election. He declined
and said that the struggles of the senate kept him from other aspects
of his life. “After everything politically that has happened this
semester,” he wrote in an e-mail, “I have lost faith in Senators’
commitment to the USS as a serious political body.”
“I don’t have the time or the energy to force people to want to be
more engaged,” he added.
Once the election was completed, Chris Crews formally resigned from
the vice presidency and unceremoniously handed Walsh the key to the
USS office.
Gogia said that he wouldn’t step down, because he had no office from
which to resign. “As a point of process, I’m not stepping down,
because I don’t know what I’m stepping down from,” he said. “The
position that I was in is not in the constitution any more.”
Once the votes had been tallied, senators briefly debated whether it
was worthwhile to contact absent senators to record their vote, even
though it wouldn’t alter the outcome. Jonathan Ziese, Drama senator
and chair of the constitutional review committee, said that the senate
could cut itself a little slack. “I think this is an area where we can
allow ourselves to be a little ridiculous,” he said.
© 2009 New School Free Press Newspaper. Hey! USS didn’t write it!