A.S. directors reverse their resignation

Associated Students directors William Sun and Yian Chen, who announced their resignation earlier this month at a special board meeting, said Monday that they will be retaining their positions as Director of Academic Support and Director of Budget Management, respectively. “I’ve decided to remain on the board,” Chen said at the A.S. public board meeting. “My resignation decision was based on my co-workers at the Associated Students; it was not based on the people that I should put first—the students that I was elected by to represent as director of budget management, and my commissioners.”

Sun and Chen’s positions were marked vacant on the A.S. Board of Directors’ Monday agenda. But Chen maintains that her resignation was not official, and that there was a misunderstanding among board members as to what the student government protocol was for a legitimate resignation.

“There are no official documents in the A.S., in our constitution or bylaws, about resignations; so it was just based on every director’s [perspective] and what they think is official,” Chen said.

“The directors resigned,” Cameron Espinoza, Director of Student Outreach, insisted at the meeting. “They changed their minds, and they have the right to do that.”

A polarizing discussion among A.S. directors, regarding contract education and the attempted impeachment of DJ Davids, Director of Publicity (Davids avoided impeachment by a narrow margin), was what initially led Sun and Chen to an emotional stepping-down during the special board meeting on April 4.

“I apologize for our actions on that day; it was totally based on emotions,” Sun said at the Monday board meeting.

“We are supposed to represent the whole student body. We cannot let our emotions get in the way.”

Prior to the meeting, Chen and Sun told the Corsair that they were upset about Davids’ attempted impeachment. They believe Davids’ behavior did not warrant sanction, and that the board members’ use of peer pressure to make him quit was unfair.

According to Sun and Chen, the charges against Davids, which included failing to communicate properly with his counterparts and creating a volatile environment in the office, were gratuitous.

“Those charges can be used against any directors on that board,” Sun said a few days after the failed impeachment.

“Not everybody did a perfect job,” Chen continued. “Everybody has contributed to creating the environment that the A.S. have right now; there’s a very clear division within us.”

However, A.S. President Harrison Wills says several board members pushed specifically for Davids’ impeachment because of “his removal from Alpha Gamma Sigma, his intimidation of other members, and his failing to perform his duties,” among other issues.

Davids maintains that some A.S. directors attempted to impeach him because he has been the “most outspoken board member against them,” and was a strong supporter of contract education, which the student government voted against last month.

“It was just an attempt to get rid of me after I spoke out in favor of contract education, which they are all so passionately against, as you saw tears flying at some of these meetings,” Davids said after the Monday board meeting.

“The impeachment attempt stems off of emotion.”

Wills refutes those claims, and states that the attempted impeachment of Davids was not based upon his support of contract education, nor on his outspoken character.

“Him being outspoken has nothing to do with why we would impeach him,” Wills said. “Our entire board is made of outspoken, impassioned, and politically active members. So that’s irrelevant!”

Wills later on stated that frustration and tension among A.S. directors sometimes arise when there is a lack of a “cooperative setting,” and that some members fail to do their job.

But he insists that some directors’ decision to chastise Davids was not emotion-driven.

“I think he’s very capable,” Wills said, “we can move past our differences on these issues, and work together to create a healthy collaborative working environment.”

Espinoza believes that differences among board members leading to resignations and attempted impeachments creates a distraction from the more important matters the school is currently facing.

“I’m so tired of all this passive aggressiveness going on,” Espinoza said to her counterparts at the meeting. “Let’s try to work together, because there are bigger issues.”