Wisnoski: I Should Have Known Better

Amy Wisnoski is current executive vice president of USG

I was never persuaded by anyone to run for office in the Undergraduate Student Government. In the Fall of 2004, I came to Stony Brook University as both a transfer student and a commuter -- the very bottom of the Stony Brook totem pole. Having been involved in student government and assorted extracurricular activities since I was 13 years old, it took me all of three weeks to seek out the student government at Stony Brook. A friend of mine from high school, Mike DiGioia, who had been at SB for a year before I got there, had started a movie club, he told me, "And we $750 just to rent movies! It's awesome!" Intrigued, I asked him who gave him this money and thus my experience with "USG" began. He led me up the stairs of the Student Activities Center to the wondrous office. It was so impressive, so professional -- I knew immediately that I wanted in. So I attended a few Senate meetings, a little confusing and seemingly completely pointless at times, but I was not discouraged. That May, I decided to run for Senate. I was so naively excited for my term to start, I came to USG over the summer to interview the parliamentarian and decided to run for President Pro-Tempore -- even though I had no idea what the position entailed. I had dreams of meetings filled with meaningful debates that ended in productive compromises. I saw Senate meetings and office hours as a fun and truly good way to spend my extra time. Everything would be great, I didn't predict it or expect it -- I never even thought twice about it.

And then reality set in. My term as a Senator was at its best frustrating and at its worst, embarrassing. I served with Senators who had no interest in governance, legislation, student life, or Stony Brook in general. I also served with Senators who had interest but neither the time nor inclination to mold that interest into solutions to problems. Eventually, some of the more lackluster Senators resigned and worthwhile replacements were found. Cody Peluso, Cheryl Lynch, and Esam al-Shareffi -- three former Senators whom I consider some of the most important role models for USG officials and hopefuls -- made the Senate meetings worth attending again. My fatal mistake during my 2005-2006 term was assuming that everyone else was going to be as enthusiastic and dedicated as I was, most of them were Senators because their friends were or simply because they knew it would add muscle to their resumes. No matter how hard I worked, I couldn't accomplish practically anything alone. The media on campus would write about the Senate meetings and would usually focus on the comatose Senators who struggled to find the appropriate words when attendance was called, the gallery was basically empty save for a few spectators who came to laugh. And they were all justified in their mockery, that Senate was hardly productive. We didn't fight with each other or act out plots to John Grisham novels but we were barely alive.

By the end of the year, I was ready to dismiss USG as a bad dream. Enter Samuel Darguin. He was the Chair of the Senate when I served and was one of the most honest people I'd met within USG. He told me he'd be running for President next year, and initially I scoffed. Why would anyone choose to continue to serve in an organization whose inefficiency and apathy had rendered it basically superfluous? Then Cheryl expressed interest in the position of Treasurer. I began to imagine a USG run by the people I respected, and suddenly I realized that I needed to be a part of this. I decided to run for Executive Vice-President. It made sense to me. I'd been a dominant voice in the Senate, I knew its rules very well and I could be counted upon to take it seriously and ensure that the freshmen class of Senators would do the same. I'll save you the nonsense surrounding the USG Reform Party and S.U.C.C.E.S.S. because that's what party coalitions in a student government election are -- nonsense. I don't regret running on the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. ticket, it was a ticket I was truly proud of, it produced a fantastic Junior Class Representative (even if it was only for a semester), and a truly remarkable Vice-President for Communications, Mr. Clifford Pierre. S.U.C.C.E.S.S. served as a way to get people into office, we were never focused on forcing everyone to vote a certain way on a given issue. In fact, individualty and dissenting opinions were encouraged. If only our opponents had shared that mentality from the beginning.

The Spring 2006 election was one of the most invigorating, fun and terrifying experiences of my life. I worked hard with the other members of S.U.C.C.E.S.S, and did a lot of my own campaigning (including the bold decision to attach a giant neon sign reading, "VOTE AMY WISNOSKI" onto my car) and in the end, I won. I never fathomed that I would win and Sam would not win. When I got the phone call from him, I was devastated. I remember sitting in my boyfriend's dorm room in New York City, and going from total elation to utter depression in seconds. How could this have happened? HOW could this have happened? How could this have HAPPENED? I didn't understand it. In the days that followed, rumors, theories, and saddening truths surfaced about the election but nothing was ever done. I remember running into Romual Jean-Baptiste, the USG Reform Party candidate and now President-Elect in the hallway a couple of days after the election, he greeted me as usual -- with a big grin and a handshake. I'd known Romual as the Vice-President for Student Life when I was a Senator and had always found him to be friendly and very approachable. I was surprised to hear he was running for President because he had excelled so brilliantly as the Vice-President for Student Life and to be honest, I felt somewhat guilty for aligning myself so fiercely with Sam. Because I had never imagined an administration that included me but not Sam, I'd never prepared myself for what it would be like to work with Romual -- who would obviously know that he was not my choice for President. To say I felt awkward would be an understatement.

I moved into my new office on May 22, 2006. I felt overwhelmed with excitement for the new year. I bought a new gavel and clock for the Senate meetings. I met with President Jean-Baptiste almost everyday, we talked giddily about all our plans for the upcoming year. The awkwardness between us melted away, and I really began to believe that Romual was going to be a great President.

I took a few summer classes in the summer of 2006, and so I knew personally that each student paid a $5.00 Student Activity Fee for each summer. Lynn-Marie Watson, the best event planner I've met and Trevor Hirst, the newly elected Vice-President for Student Life planned and executed activity after activity during the summer and so, to me it seemed as though the money was being well spent. Some time into the summer, it came to my attention that there was a large surplus in the Summer budget. Somewhere in the ballpark of $7,000 to $8,000. Romual immediately expressed the desire to have the entire amount allocated into the Presidential Discretionary Fund. At the time, the only person who could do that was the ever un-corruptible Executive Treasurer, Stephen Hui. He of course, promptly and repeatedly refused. The only other body with the power to allocate money was the Summer Senate. Romual had been pushing me to get a Summer Senate together, but I'd been having an extraordinarily difficult time recruiting the ten people necessary (as per the USG Constitution). He had given me three names but I still needed seven more. A few weeks passed and I didn't do anything to get the Summer Senate started. Romual repeatedly asked me if I had called the girls he had referred to me and I always answered no, I'm not going to do the Summer Senate -- I can't get the ten people. What had started as a casual conversation was now a constant heated debate. I insisted that the Summer Senate could not operate without ten people, he claimed the Constitution was more flexible than that and implied that its language meant up to ten people. I disagreed and would not hold a meeting with less than ten Senators. He said he understood where I was coming from and that we would just have to agree to disagree. I considered the matter closed. Later than night, I received a phone call from Senator-elect Alexandra Borodkin. It was not the friendliest of phone calls. She urged me to form the Summer Senate with whomever I could get, and mentioned something about her and her friends having a lot of luck with Supreme Court cases -- she ended the phone call by asking me, did I want to get impeached?

I folded like a deck of cards. I didn't want to get impeached! The year hadn't even started! I called the girls Romual had suggested and held the first and last meeting of the Summer Senate. I knew that Romual would ask the Senate to allocate the full surplus to his discretionary fund, but I didn't think that was right. Such a large sum of money to be trusted to just one person (a discretionary fund is just that -- discretionary, there is no oversight), it just didn't seem ethical. I began the meeting ready to plead with the two Senators to leave the surplus alone -- let it be used next Summer. They seemed attentive and responsive, and Romual barely spoke -- he mentioned a couple of pet projects he would be able to fund -- but never once did he utter the words, "Presidential Discretionary Fund". And then out of the blue, one of the Senators raised her hand and made a motion allocating the entire amount to the Presidential Discretionary Fund. The other Senator seconded and the vote was unanimous. The meeting last six minutes. The two Senators left and Romual sat across from me, waiting for me to speak. I politely (or maybe not so politely) asked him to leave. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me that the two Senators were handpicked by Romual and then given explicit instructions. I don't know why -- by then -- I hadn't realized that the process by virtue of it being a USG process, could be corrupted. I was so deeply disheartened by that experience, by the blatant disregard for fairness or ethics, I never fully trusted President Jean-Baptiste again.

I tried to put the Summer Senate debacle behind me and spent the next two months planning the training, and pictured the Senators laughing and making great friends with another by the day's end. Eunice Ro, the Administrative Director for USG and the greatest source of straightforward honest advice within, tried to prepare me for the reality. The Senate was split along "party" lines, I was foolish to assume that no one would be loyal to the people with whom they had run. The fall semester opened with open hostility. The Senators who had run on the USG Reform ticket were fiercely united and not shy about it. I would set agendas only to have them endlessly amended on the floor, pointless and repetitive debates raged on for what seemed like hours, my recording Secretary, the honorable Mr. Esam al-Shareffi was wildly and irrationally despised; again it seemed as though my dreams of productivity were just that -- dreams. No one was concerned with affecting positive change, all anyone cared about (at least the anyones who spoke during meetings) was listening to their own rhetoric. As early as October, I confided in Eunice my desire to resign. I simply could not bear a year of this.

And then I wrote the Providing Academic Support to Students Act (PASS). I did what I thought was effective lobbying by talking with Senator Robert Romano before presenting the bill to committee, he helped me recognize some of the bill's initial weaknesses and even suggested a title change. Romano being the de facto leader of the Reform party cronies, I assumed the bill would breeze through committee and receive a standing ovation on the Senate floor. But of course, that was not what happened. The bill went under incredibly scrutiny -- some reasonable, some not -- under the guise of "fiscal responsibility". Once the Reform party was essentially disbanded one of the former insiders told me it was opposed first and foremost because I had been its author. This was and is truly baffling. I am a good and decent person, I had never wronged any of the Senators who so ardently blocked the passage of PASS. The bill and the program it eventually created were inspired ideas that provided solutions in real-time to a number of students. Opposing it seemed not only cruel but politically unwise -- clearly this program is both affordable and helps students, how could blocking it be justified?

A couple of months later, Senator Joseph Antonelli, a Reform party candidate, presented the Affordable Long Island Railroad Tickets Act, the idea of which was that the USG would subsidize the cost of LIRR tickets providing them to students for less than half their original cost. The bill cost tens of thousands of dollars. It was passed in one meeting.

Eventually, all but Senators Drew Curran, Christopher Dolley and Robert Romano left the Reform Party. I've gotten to know some of the former Reform Party Senators a bit, and I can honestly say that they are good and decent people. Unfortunately, far too much time has been spent on unnecessary and meaningless internal reform. I've been told that the changes to the Student Activities Board by-laws were effective, but I see no palpable good achieved from that. I know that certain Senators work very hard, and I commend them for that. But I wish now and have always wished that the skill and dedication employed by those Senators could be directed towards projects that would have tangible benefits for the student body. I will not be convinced that internal USG affairs are of the utmost importance all the time.

But while I might disagree with some of the goals the Senators have had this year, I do not disagree with their decision to impeach President Jean-Baptiste or Junior Class Representative Michael Cohan. Both fliers are deeply offensive on more levels than I have time to describe. What message can anyone possibly get about USG when learning what these fliers depicted? If we hurt and humiliate each other, how can we possibly expect the student body to trust us to do anything worthwhile? One of the aspects of the Undergraduate Student Government that I have always been extremely proud of is its remarkable diversity. A person who would exploit that diversity in such a malicious fashion is not someone that deserves to represent any of the students at Stony Brook. I understand that we are all still very young and that mistakes are still being made everyday. But we are not so young that our actions are without consequences. I have seen a lot of mistakes made within USG, I have seen corruption and apathy -- I know what the perception most students, or that is most students who know about USG, have. But I have never been as saddened by someone within USG as I am now.

I have urged the President to resign, and other than foolish pride, I do not know why he has not done so. If he were thinking not of himself but of USG and beyond that, the students he has represented for the past 10 months, he would ask for forgiveness and resign. But he will not, and so the Senate has voted to impeach him. He will face a trial, and a just outcome will emerge. Whatever the outcome is, the USG must move on from this and make some attempt at doing what it was created to do -- provide a forum for positive change on the Stony Brook University campus. So far we have been both minimally successful and monumentally ineffective.