Mehdizadegan removed from VPSE

During an executive session of the General Student Senate on Tuesday, Abtin Mehdizadegan was not reappointed as vice president of Student Entertainment, a position he had held since spring.

Eleven senators who voted against Mehdizadegan and six who abstained prevented senate from having the two-thirds majority necessary for appointing executives. Eighteen senators voted to keep Mehdizadegan in his seat. Concerns of Mehdizadegan’s professionalism were raised, which caused more debate over whether the quality was necessary to hold the post.

Because Sen. Nate Wildes called for an executive session, reporters were not allowed inside to record deliberations. Several senators and members of the executive council spoke with The Maine Campus on Wednesday.

“Quite simply, he was not professional in anything he did,” Wildes said. Despite Mehdizadegan’s success in the position, Wildes cited examples of the lack of “a basic level of professionalism.”

“Myself as well as many others — senators, executives and constituents — have had enormous difficulty and a number of complaints regarding working with Abtin.,” Wildes said. “Abtin did a very good job selling tickets. I’m not arguing against the fact that he did a successful job selling shows, because he did. … In my mind, that’s only part of the job of VPSE.”

The problems he cited included unapproachability, rudeness, unavailability during office hours and misuse of student activity funds.

“He had printed cards that said ‘James Lyons’ virginity card’ or something like that,” Sen. Ryan Gavin said. “He had those printed with Student Government money.”

Mehdizadegan claims the cards were printed while he was “in and out of the office” by one of his brothers in Senior Skulls Society.

“One of my Skulls brothers … went in there and goofed around and made some ‘James Lyons virginity cards.’ Inappropriate? Yeah. Funny? Yeah, absolutely. James thought it was funny, he had no issue with it and knew the Skulls brother who made it,” Mehdizadegan said. “I think people saw that it came out of my office and assumed that it was my fault. It was all a big joke in good fun, and was blown way out of proportion”

“As far as I know, he printed them,” Gavin said. “Maybe he didn’t place the order, maybe he didn’t print them, but it came from the VPSE office and he’s the VPSE. … He had oversight on it. Who cares who hit the ‘print’ button?”

“Some people didn’t like his sense of humor, the way he dealt with other people,” said incoming vice president of Student Government Nyssa Gatcombe. “He’s a big jokester and likes to pull pranks. They didn’t feel it was appropriate.”

Sen. Joseph Nabozny, assistant VPSE, voted to reappoint Mehdizadegan. He said that while a reprimand for a lack of professionalism may have been called for, ousting Mehdizadegan was not.

“I don’t think he was perilously unprofessional. I don’t think he realized that so many senators felt that he had been unprofessional lately. That’s kind of what frustrated me, is that they didn’t let him know until he was yanked out of office,” Nabozny said.

Sen. Mary Emmi also voted to keep Mehdizadegan on.

“I voted to have him stay because I think he’s done a good job at his job,” Emmi said. “Some people brought up other issues about his professionalism and I felt like he did a good job as VPSE so we should keep him on for that.”

During the course of debate, Emmi asked whether any formal complaints had been lodged against Mehdizadegan. Sen. Pardis Delijani indicated that she had brought one.

According to reports from Delijani and Mehdizadegan, the cause of the complaint occurred shortly after Delijani had joined six other senators in walking out of a special meeting of GSS to discuss a complaint filed by Mehdizadegan. Delijani entered Mehdizadegan’s office, a confrontation ensued and Delijani left.

“He said ‘Shame on you. Get out of my office,’” Delijani said. Mehdizadegan says he never told the senator to leave his office, and that he and Delijani had made amends.

“He did apologize to me about it,” Delijani said. “However I still felt that no executive should be saying something like that to a senator, or a friend or anything like that. I find it very inappropriate.”

According to James Lyons, who resigned from his senate seat Tuesday, Mehdizadegan “has always been a somewhat controversial figure on this campus.”

In 2007, former president Bill Pomerleau resigned from office after Mehdizadegan circulated a petition and gathered the five percent necessary for a recall. The petition cited failure to keep office hours and a “poor and condescending attitude towards senators.” Senators Tuesday made similar complaints about Mehdizadegan.

“I think I did a really good job building relationships,” Mehdizadegan said. “I can assume some of [the decision to remove me] was personal, and the rest of it from what I’ve been able to gather was a bit of misinformation — that I’d be unwilling to meet with certain groups or run certain bands. … People said I wouldn’t bring The Roots which I was trying to do.”

“It was something I honestly didn’t expect. I think I did my job really well, and I think the senate and the new administration has a few challenges ahead of them.”

Mehdizadegan doesn’t plan to run for a senate seat again, but does plan to assist the next VPSE by giving “a little guidance from the sidelines.” He defended his perceived lack of professionalism in terms of keeping a relaxed attitude around the office.

“I look at it as a kind of fun, hanging-out office. And I think that as long as you keep a balance, that’s the way it should be as long as we’re getting work done,” Mehdizadegan said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

One of the things the former VPSE said was a concern to some senators was the nickname his office earned: “the man cave.”

“We turned the lights off, listened to music. More after hours, and we’d get more work done, listen to music. It’d be nice. We wouldn’t not let anyone in,” Mehdizadegan said.

“We’d still work there and it would be a fun little area. It was kind of like a Bull Moose vibe to it. I think people said ‘It’s not professional, it’s not professional,’ but I just say, you know, we’re not the U.S. Senate. We are Student Government. We’re on a college campus. We just take ourselves too seriously.

“As long as we’re getting the job done — and I don’t think anyone disagreed last night that I do a damn good job and I did — And as long as that’s getting done, I think that’s fair,” Mehdizadegan said.

The new Student Government president, Brian Harris, said that an application process will be used to choose the next VPSE.

CORRECTION:
An earlier version of this article stated that the GSS vote on Mr. Mehdizadegan was 17-11-7 due to faulty information from Student Government. The roll-call vote was not available at press time.

---

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009, 11:55 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.