A recent trend in the Undergraduate Student Association (USA) has continued and, as a result, USA will be looking for a new e-board member.
In an interview with The Griffin last December, sophomore Senator Rami Daham accused the e-board of unprofessionalism during an executive session in which the e-board attempted to remove Daham from his position. The vote was rejected.
On Dec. 10, Justin Brown, the now-former vice president of marketing and public relations and a member of the USA e-board, resigned from his position, citing stress and being “drained regularly after [USA’s] Tuesday evening meetings.”
He said in a resignation letter, which he also shared with The Griffin, that he noticed a variety of problems throughout USA, including unprofessionalism from the e-board.
Brown noted that, many times throughout last semester, he believed that he felt his “integrity and ability” had been questioned by members of the e-board, which distracted him from academics and personal life. He brought up one example where — as part of his role — he was in charge of running USA’s Instagram page and felt as though his ability to post things on it, like Instagram stories, was questioned.
“My role and my participation in the organization was causing a lot of stress on my own life and it was becoming more of a burden; I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I had before,” Brown said in an interview with The Griffin. “And just from a professional aspect, I saw issues throughout the organization: a lot of communication issues and stuff like that where I didn’t feel as though my efforts or the efforts of the e-board or other individuals were making progress towards solving those.”
After those concerns, he decided it would be best for him to step down.
“We have a role as student leaders and representing the student body; I feel there should be a level of professionalism. Yes, it’s a club and you should enjoy it, but also when business needs to be taken care of or when certain items are being discussed, there’s a level of professionalism expected that — across the board — I saw individuals lacking in those situations,” Brown said. “And I’m sure I wasn’t always the most professional, either, but I’d like to think I would recognize the times it was necessary to be professional.”
Brown declined to name specific names, but he does hope that USA will be able to fix these issues in the future in order to become a better voice for students.
“I’d like to see the organization solve these issues, like the reasons I left: I’d love to see them fix that,” Brown said. “It’s an important and useful organization for the campus.”