Student Assembly's Academic Affairs Committee passed a "Statement Expressing No Confidence in the Leadership of Student Assembly President Tim Andreadis" during its weekly meeting Tuesday. The statement was brought forth by Adam Shpeen '07, the former vice president of the committee and a current committee member who has recently undertaken an effort to reform the Assembly and impeach its president.
Now that the vote has passed through the committee, the issue will be addressed by the Assembly's Executive Board, which must bring the legislation before the General Assembly within the next three weeks. At the meeting, Shpeen also presented a piece of legislation which called for the dissolution of the entire Student Assembly, as well as a resolution to redistribute the organization's funding. The voting on both these pieces of legislation was tied.
Shpeen said that the legislation was the first step in his plan to "reform" Student Assembly, a process which he has previously said could include the impeachment of Andreadis.
"[The statement] reflects student opinion that Andreadis has done little to nothing on the major goals that he set forth for himself, and that students outside the Assembly and students within the Assembly are disappointed with that leadership and have very little confidence in that leadership," Shpeen said.
In a BlitzMail message sent Monday to students involved in his effort and obtained by The Dartmouth, Shpeen said that he and other leaders had decided to change their focus from Andreadis' impeachment to the dissolution of the Assembly as a whole.
"I think the goal was always to reform SA and I think we had a lot of ideas, and the conclusion we came to was that this would be the most constructive," Shpeen told The Dartmouth on Tuesday, adding that the students "recognized that SA in its fundamental nature is flawed, and that only a new student body would be able to solve the problems inherent in SA's structure."
Michael Herman '07, who is involved in the reform effort, explained that the new body that the group envisions would be an umbrella organization combining entities like the Committee on Standards, the Undergraduate Finance Committee, Programming Board, and the Committee of Student Organizations.
In a Jan. 14 post written on his blog, Andrew Seal '07 alleged that Shpeen was motivated to begin these reform efforts by a personal conflict with Andreadis. Seal alleged that Shpeen became angry after Andreadis reported to Undergraduate Judicial Affairs that Shpeen had served alcohol to minors in the Assembly's offices in Collis.
Shpeen said he would not comment on his disciplinary record.
"I'm not going to speculate about Adam Shpeen's disciplinary record either," Andreadis said. "The reason why it was reported was not just because he had alcohol at his meeting, but because of a series of instances that had occurred at his meetings which I had approached him about."
Andreadis also expressed his overall displeasure with Shpeen's efforts.
"In all frankness, I think that this is an awful lot of a waste of all of our time," Andreadis said. "Unfortunately I think what's happening now is that because of a personal vendetta, Adam Shpeen is appealing to those individuals who have issues with the direction of Student Assembly rather than its effectiveness."
He did, however, acknowledge that structural problems within the Assembly exist.
"There are structural things about Student Assembly that don't make it as effective as it perhaps could be," Andreadis said. "But in the absence of a body that is structurally more effective, abolishing SA is just to leave all the issues completely unaddressed."
At Tuesday night's General Assembly meeting, Student Body Vice President Jacqueline Loeb '08 also clarified the specifications needed for membership in the Assembly. Membership stipulations have gained attention as a result of Shpeen's alleged efforts to integrate many of the reform-minded students into the Assembly's ranks. Last week, Loeb mistakenly said that students gain voting rights at their fourth meeting, rather than on their third as the Assembly's constitution specifies.
"Considering the issues at hand, it's necessary that we are all aware of the real rules," Loeb said, "My clarification does make it easier for these issues to come into fruition -- but my clarification is only what is fair."
Some of the students who have recently begun attending Student Assembly meetings chose to leave the General Assembly meeting early, prompting Andreadis to ask that students stay until the meeting's end.
"We obviously love having a lot of new people here, but if you want credit for being here, we expect you to stay the whole meeting," he said during the meeting.
Legislation approving funding for a "Student Legal Services Initiative" was also passed at Tuesday night's meeting. The initiative will bring a local lawyer to campus later this term for five hours to provide students with 20 minute sessions of free legal consultation on a first come, first served basis.
