Trevor Mattea, SU vice president of administration, will be resigning in two weeks. (Courtesy of the Montana Administration)

Student Union Vice President of Administration Trevor Mattea announced Monday that he would be resigning from his post in two weeks. His resignation is the second for the Montana administration, raising questions about Student Union’s internal efficacy.

A member of Treasury resigned late Tuesday night and seven SU senators have also stepped down this term.

“It’s a wake up call; we really need to transform Student Union,” SU President Jeff Nelson said of the Senate and Executive  Council resignations.

Mattea, a junior, said he resigned because he was not satisfied with some of the aspects of how SU operates.

“I fear that sometimes things are done because they’ve been done before and there’s a hesitancy, or people are slow, to step back and reassess things and think outside the box,” Mattea said.

An SU press release stated that Mattea was frustrated with the bureaucratic structure of his position and his inability to make a “noticeable difference in the lives of students.”

Second executive resignation in two months

The resignation comes less than two months after Courtney Reeves, former vice president of public relations, resigned for “personal reasons.”

Mattea said he views his resignation as different from Reeves’.

“[For me,] it wasn’t an issue of time and having enough time, it was more of an issue of, ‘How am I spending my time?’ Is it something where I feel like I’m having a worthwhile participation, and is it making me happy? More and more, the answers to those questions were ‘no.’”

Jill Carnaghi, associate vice chancellor for students and dean of campus life, agreed that the executives stepped down for their own reasons.

“I think each of them made the tough call for themselves,” Carnaghi said. “The most difficult thing can be, ‘I can’t complete what I said I was going to do.’”

While Nelson acknowledged that many students do not understand the full extend of their responsibilities until they actually hold that position, he said his focus is on the student body rather than on the students who work within student union.

“My focus is not so much on the internal specifics,” Nelson said. “I’m more concerned with the results for students.”

Questions about the VP of administration position, SU structure

As for the position of vice president of administration, which Nelson held last year, Nelson said he understands Mattea’s frustrations with the job.

“It’s very internal-focused, and it’s hard to see how you make an impact on students,” Nelson said.

The position of vice president of administration involves the oversight of internal aspects of SU and many of the day-to-day issues of student government, such as rules, office supplies and room reservation.

“Perhaps I misunderstood exactly what the position was or what the day-to-day job was. I wasn’t aware of how the things I was obligated to do—the day-to-day office stuff—was going to bog me down from doing my own projects,” Mattea said. “Its hard to have the enthusiasm to do the things you really want to do once you complete the things you’re obligated to do.”

Senior Chase Sackett, speaker of SU Senate, said he thought Mattea’s resignation was not a reflection on the structure of Student Union but rather on the position of vice president of administration itself.

“I don’t think it’s an SU thing. I think it’s more about what that position is. I can completely understand why Trevor would be unsatisfied with that position,” Sackett said. Sackett served as a senator while Mattea was the chair of the Campus Services Committee.

Junior Jack Novick, an SU Senator, said the resignation will not change his thinking on student government.

“It doesn’t really make me feel any differently about Student Union,” Novick said. “It’s more moving on the same path we’ve been on, moving toward changing from a bureaucratic self-serving organization to more outreach and more activism.”

The resignations have caused SU members to reconsider how students understand SU.

Nelson said that  the executive branch is looking to create an “inside SU” program that hosts events highlighting each position in the body. This would increase awareness about Student Union and its functions and educate those planning to run. Another suggestion has been to more explicitly outline each executive position in the constitution so that candidates are more aware of what they are getting into.

“I’d like to see Student Union be realistic about what it can do and give less emphasis to the idea that we’re changing school policy because that’s not usually the case,” Mattea said. “I won’t say that students or Student Union reps aren’t involved in some decisions because they are, but to say that’s most of what we do would be inaccurate.”

With additional reporting by Perry Stein

Mattea’s resignation is the second for the Montana Administration, following the resignation of Courtney Reeves, former vice president of public relations.

According to the release, in his role as vice president of administration, Mattea was hindered by the “bureaucratic structure of the Vice President of Administration” such that it became difficult “to make a noticeable difference in the lives of students.” Mattea cited a desire to make an “impact at Washington University” by using his “time and talents outside of Student Union.”

Former art school senator Ben Guthorn, seen here on the right during the confirmation hearing for Student Union Vice President of Public Relations Morgan DeBaun, is the latest Student Union Senator to resign. Since the end of the spring semester last year, seven members of the Student Union Senate have resigned. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Last Wednesday saw the appointment of the seventh new senator to Student Union this term, calling to attention the unusually large number of resignations. The Senate body, composed of 26 members, lost six of its original senators before the semester even started.

Senators take office in the spring when they, along with members of the Treasury, prepare the next year’s budget.

Senior Ben Guthorn, a representative from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, was the most recent to resign. Originally a write-in candidate, Guthorn always viewed his position as temporary. When he had the opportunity to serve as president of the Art School Council, he stepped down from his Senate position.

“With the start of the new school year, the opportunity to install two new freshmen as the College of Art Senators presented itself. I see this to be the best for a body who often sees many fall by the wayside,” Guthorn wrote in an e-mail to Student Life.

When there is a vacancy, the school’s council sends an e-mail to every student in that respective school urging them to apply.

Time constraint a main rationale

Senior Chase Sackett, the speaker of the Senate, said he believes that most senators—especially those who leave over the summer—simply have realized that Senate will not fit into their schedules.

“It’s really just people looking at their schedule and realizing that ‘I really want to do this, but I want to give it my all and I just don’t have time to do that,’” Sackett said. “They’re students first.”

This was certainly the case for senior Jennifer Sisto, a former senator who resigned over the summer. Sisto was offered an internship at BJC Healthcare over the summer and was asked to continue into the fall and put in 20 hours a week.

“You have to put a lot of time into it, and you can do really good things on Senate, and I felt like I didn’t have enough time to devote to it to actually make the position useful for myself,” Sisto said.

With weekly Senate meetings running an average of two hours, in addition to committee meetings, liaison meetings and outreach, she felt she simply did not have the time.

Sackett said time was an issue for many who resigned over the summer after realizing they needed to commit more to their academics. One of the former senators who resigned went abroad.

Other reasons for resignation

One senator said he resigned because he was unhappy with his experiences in the body.

Sophomore Neil Shah was elected in November 2008 for a yearlong term and resigned over the summer after serving for one semester.

“Oftentimes, I found myself questioning to what extent the time I spent in meetings translated into benefit for the student body,” Shah wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “I think legislators should have a genuine passion for their work, and that feeling was something that I wasn’t fortunate to experience in Senate.”

Shah wrote he still thinks that Student Union has good objectives; he just found himself frustrated with the process.

“Student Union is an extremely bright and dedicated group of individuals, and they were a pleasure to work with,” Shah wrote. “It was more because I didn’t necessarily like the legislative process and felt that it was too slow and oftentimes inefficient.”

Despite the string of resignations, Sackett said he does not see any inherent problems with Senate.

“My overall sentiment on it is that it has not been a problem, and it’s also not a huge proportion of the Senate body,” he said.

With three senators resigning last term, more than twice the number of senators resigned this terms than last term.

Resignation: The impact

Mike Post, a junior in his third Senate term, said he believes the resignations do disrupt the flow of Senate.

“A lot of people who fill in seats bring a lot of energy to the group. It does disrupt the continuity,” Post said. “The relationship that was built over the last year doesn’t need to be rebuilt, but there’s a bit of a lag.”

The real problem, according to Post, is that someone was willing to go through a vigorous campaign process but not stay with the group.

“You, at one point, liked the idea of Senate and concept of Senate, and you liked what you were doing, so what happened from then until now that makes you want to resign? If it’s personal reasons, then so be it,” Post said. “If it’s about Senate, we want to know what it is so we can fix it. To me, that’s the frustration.”