Documents reveal mixed reviews for Mehdizadegan

Overall, I wonder who supervises the Student Government in their work. It seems that every year, members of Student Government are resigning, terminated, or they are simply not hired for another term. This is all due to UNPROFESSIONALISM by certain members. And this is a huge embarrassment to our university. Student Government members are suppose to be leaders of our campus. But time after time, we hear of members of Student Government who are let go, due to unprofessional actions.

It is not just ONE or TWO students government members. The Student Government board, as a whole, seems to have a habitual problem with professionalism. Not to mention, it seems to be full of egotistical and immature students. Student Gov’t should not be about being a popularity contest amount board members. “If you say something that pisses me off, I’ll have you fired, or not rehired”. That is absurd. All those Student Government members need to grow up, and act like mature students.

Again, they are suppose to be representing our community, NOT embarrassing it with child like arguing and fighting.

The following letter, written by Senators Ryan Gavin and Nate Wildes, is also available for public viewing on the UMaine Forum.

“Mehdizadegan not ‘removed’, GSS actions fully warranted”

As two Senators who voted against the confirmation of Abtin Mehdizadegan for the position of VPSE, we feel it is necessary to respond to the article entitled “Mehdizadegan removed from VPSE”.

First and foremost, the General Student Senate did NOT remove anyone from office on Tuesday, December 8th. Former-President McCarthy fulfilled his constitutional responsibility of nominating a candidate for the executive positions; VPFA, VPSO and VPSE. The GSS then fulfilled its constitutional responsibility of assenting or dissenting to those nominees. The GSS voted to assent to the nominations of VPFA and VPSO, rehiring Justin Labonte and Samantha Shulman for those positions, respectively. The GSS did not assent to the nomination of Abtin Mehdizadegan for the position of VPSE, and thus he was not rehired for the next semester. Specifically, the GSS did not remove former-VPSE Mehdizadegan from his post; the vote taken allowed the former-VPSE to remain in office until Inauguration Day, at which time newly elected President Harris is responsible for nominating another candidate. The GSS will then use the same confirmation procedure to confirm or reject that candidate.

The previous week, GSS fulfilled its semesterly duty of formally reviewing each executive, with comments and rating numbers kept on record. For the two of us, a major reason why we voted against the confirmation of Mr. Mehdizadeganís nomination, was that the three previous formal executive evaluations clearly showed that he had a number of issues regarding his professional behavior both in the office and representing UMSG, Inc., and little to no progress had been made in rectifying those issues.

The vote GSS took was whether or not to hire the candidates presented to us by the President. A decisive number of Senators felt that former-VPSE Mehdizadegan should not be rehired for the post, thus the former-VPSE finished his term in office on Inauguration Day. With the interest of the student body and Student Government in mind, we know that President Harris will nominate a fully competent, personable and professional individual to succeed former-VPSE Mehdizadegan, and continue the recent trend of successful entertainment events on campus.

Senator Nate Wildes is a sophomore political science major. Senator Ryan Gavin is a first-year political science major, and UMSG, Inc. Parliamentarian.