Senate Chair Resigns

Questions Senate Representation of Student Body

by Caroline Sterne

Tuesday March 7, 2006

"I feel as though I’ve reached a sort of impasse," said sophomore Shamara Wyllie as she resigned from her position as Chair of the Student Senate. In a personal interview, Wyllie explained that she had found herself caught between her love of the idea of student governance and what she observed on the actual senate floor. "I cannot say with any sort of assurance that Senate is representing every student," said Wyllie. Wyllie’s initial excitement about her role as Senate Chair waned after she came to feel that Senate was not representing its entire constituency. Wyllie said, "the situation was toxic. It wasn’t healthy to be in."

Wyllie is not the only senator to have stepped down this year. All told, there have been seven resignations. All of the current and former senators were contacted for this article and asked for their responses to both Wyllie’s resignation and the other recent resignations. Four current senators and one former senator responded to the query.

The current senators expressed a mix of regret and frustration at the resignations. In an e-mail, sophomore class President Lauren Palmor wrote, "Now the remaining committed senators have to run around picking up the pieces of some irresponsible people who were not capable of doing their job." In an interview, senior class Co-President Alex Edelman said, "It was a shame, for everyone."

First year Aja-Monet Buscamper, like Wyllie, resigned from her position on Senate this semester in part because of her discomfort with the Senate environment. "I don’t want to make it a race issue but it is—at the end of the day part of it is. Some of the things people were saying . . . you have to sit there and gulp it down, you can’t speak out." Buscamper noted " a change in the community between senators" after the Ethnic Studies Committee came before the Senate.

In a written statement regarding her departure, Wyllie stated, "I resigned from Senate, not because I do not love student governance, not because I was not committed and not because it became too much for me to handle. I resigned from Senate because it was not representing the student body to the best of its ability. Senate became more concerned with personal and individual politics than representing the student voice. I resigned because I want to dedicate my self to representing the student body in a more effective manner. I do not think any of the other senators who resigned this year were any less committed than the senators on Senate. There are a few good people still on Senate and I hope they work toward making Senate more effective for next year and the years to come."

Wyllie’s Senate leadership was marked by her calm manner of speaking and her introduction of a quote to be read at the opening of every senate session. Senior Senator Sara Tunick, who has taken over as Senate Chair, said, "Shamara was a great Chair." Buscamper echoed that statement, saying, "In my mind Shamara was an ideal senator."

However, some senators questioned Wyllie’s ability to remain neutral in her role as chair. Edelman said, "I think that when you’re deciding who gets to speak, your opinion is shown in who you allow to speak and [Wyllie], at times, it certainly felt like when we disagreed, abused that power in incredible ways." Edelman attributed Wyllie’s decision to leave Senate to a realization that she could not represent all of the opinions expressed by senators.

In interviews with Wyllie and Edelman, it became clear that there are different opinions amongst senators regarding how far the duties of representation go. Wyllie said, "The senators know that many groups on campus are not represented and the Senate’s job is to work harder to make sure those voices are heard."
However, Edelman did not feel that this was necessarily his role as a senator. Edelman said, "There are 300 students in the senior class and there are 1,000 students in the school. Senators can only represent the people they know and the people who they talk with regularly."

The "Constitution and By-Laws of The Sarah Lawrence College Student Senate" lists the duties of senators. Two of the general duties of senators are "To represent the student body of the college in accordance with the states and implied responsibilities of his/her position" and "To communicate regularly between the Senate and his/her constituents." Determining what representation means and how best to improve communication between students and Senate is left up to the interpretation of the senators. In an interview, Dean of Student Affairs Mary Spellman said, "I think [representation] means something different to every person." Tunick expressed a similar view, saying, "Everyone has their own [leadership] style."

In the name of greater communication both between senators and between senators and the student body. Other senators wanted to let the matter drop. "to write a further article about a private Senate matter is, I think, excessive…I’m not sure the school needs to know the reasons [for Wyllie’s regination]," said Senator Alana Sliwinski.

Edelman suggested that the Senate Chair position become semester-long, due to the stress put on the individual in office. Wyllie expressed the importance of the media in holding Senate accountable. Buscamper said that she thought a panel at the beginning of the year explaining the Senate’s role would increase student awareness and, hopefully, increase voter turn-out.

While some administrators and current and former senators think that improved communication between Senate and its constituency is necessary, they also feel that students need to pick up the slack.

Spellman suggested that the low voter turn-out for Senate elections is in part a reflection of a larger problem in the United States. "Part of it is getting community members to understand why [voting] is important," said Spellman. Edelman explained that he himself didn’t care very much about Senate before he was on it and said that he thought most people found it boring. One student, senior Rohan Kamicheril, admitted, "We [the students] don’t really hold [the senators] in check."