Citing “personal circumstances,” Rebecca Forman stepped down as Student Union Secretary on Monday afternoon. She resigned via an e-mail to the Student Union (SU) executive board.
“I have decided that it is in the best interest of the Student Union for me to step down as this organization’s Secretary,” she wrote in the email. “Due to personal circumstances, I have been unable to complete many of my duties to the extent that this organization deserves.”
Forman says that she enjoyed her time at SU and that the decision did not stem from dissatisfactions she had with the organization or its members.
“It was a personal and internal decision,” she said. “It had nothing to do with the people in Student Union. I have a lot of respect for them. I think they’re amazing people. It has nothing to do with Student Union being a bad organization.”
Although she will no longer be involved with SU in an official capacity, Forman says that she looks forward to helping out with projects in the future.
“I will continue to do a lot of work for Student Union,” she said. “I plan to attend a lot of meetings that I’ve always attended. I’m going to still help out with [public relations] for SU.”
SU President Neil Patel hopes to see Forman stay active in SU and says that though he is sad to see her leave, he understands her decision.
“It’s something she wanted to do and she did it for personal reasons,” he said. “She knows what she’s doing so I support her in what she’s doing.”
Forman and Patel met prior to the official resignation, which-according to Forman-was hard to send due to her passion for her job and for the organization as a whole.
“I cried a lot,” she said. “This was really one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make but I think I’m doing the right thing. I feel really good about my decision.”
In the mean time, Patel is not sure what will happen to the now vacant space. The traditional procedure in such cases is for the president to appoint a candidate who would then be approved by the SU Senate and Treasury, though Patel says he may want a committee to replace Forman until the end of the term.
“We need someone or a group of people to pick up the tasks and finish the year strong,” he said. “People are already committed so it may be hard to find one person to do the job.”
Forman’s resignation, according to Patel, will be a big loss for SU. He noted her weekly SUpdate emails and overall demeanor as her biggest contributions to the group.
“A lot of people have talked to me about the SUpdate,” said Patel. “She infuses her train of thought into it, it makes it more human. She put jokes in it. It gives the SUpdate a personality that matches her own.”
Forman also took pride in her SUpdates, but said that her greatest pleasure as secretary was being able to reach out to people and get them involved in the Washington University community.
“Nobody will write SUpdates like I do,” said Forman, who served in SU Treasury and on the Budget Committee before becoming secretary. “The reason I got involved in the SU Exec was that I really wanted to make sure that as many students as possible could find a place for themselves. I wanted to help them. I tried to make myself readily available. That’s something I was really passionate about.”
Forman, however, feels that SU will continue to succeed in her absence.
“I have complete and total faith in Student Union that they will go on and do a better job than I would have done,” she said. “The most passionate and dedicated people at Wash. U. are in SU. I never would have resigned if I thought it wouldn’t continue to be successful.”
Although no immediate policy changes will result from Forman’s resignation, the structure of the SU Executive will shift next year so that the secretary’s position will be divided in two. This change will allow a more definite split of duties such as minute-taking, the SUpdate, public relations work and internal SU work, all jobs that the secretary now performs.
“The job next year will be a lot easier,” said Forman. “The role of secretary is incredibly spread out. It will be very interesting to have multiple people working on the job.”
Whatever happens next, Forman feels good about the job she did.
“My goal was to make Student Union have a softer, friendlier face,” she said. “And I think I might have done that.”