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Amidst heated discussion and raised tension, Ryan Gavin resigned his seat on the General Student Senate near the end of the body’s Tuesday meeting.
“I have tried for months to give my expertise to this organization,” Gavin said during the meeting. “Some of it has been received well and some of it hasn’t. But there comes a point when something is a waste of one’s time, and I have reached that point.”
Until recently, Gavin was the parliamentarian for GSS. During his tenure, he tried to enforce parliamentary procedure as is written in Robert’s Rules of Order, the text that nominally governs the way GSS business is conducted. Gavin’s tendency to enforce the rules on a body that could be resistant to observing the letter of the law frustrated some senators.
“Robert’s Rules is put in there to make sure it’s not just chaos,” said President Brian Harris. “We’ve used them in the past, but not in all situations because we’ve adapted to our environment. We’ve seen this year that when people don’t know Robert’s Rules and some are trying to use them and some aren’t, it can be distracting for the meeting. That’s where some of the frustration is coming from.”
Ryan said he didn’t think an expectation to follow what he perceived to be the rules of the senate should frustrate senators. According to Gavin, senators were resistant to observing the rules because “change requires people to read, and to participate.”
“It was clear and evident to me last night that almost everybody who has an influential voice in that body has a fundamental misunderstanding of how the body is supposed to be structured,” Gavin said. “They don’t understand the rules.”
“I understand that he was frustrated with the process,” said Sen. Nate Wildes. “I think it reached a critical point for him, and I think there is a fundamental difference of perspective and opinion on what GSS is and what it should be.”
According to Wildes, Student Government is a “representative body” of undergraduates at UMaine. He said its role is to be a funnel through which students’ opinions are made known to the faculty, staff and administration at the university and system level. He also said its role is to continue to provide services to activity-fee paying students, such as legal services, student entertainment and more.
But Wildes said he thinks some senators have more political goals for the organization.
“Student Government does not, as an organization, effect policy across UMaine. We influence it by funneling student input, concerns and passions,” Wildes said. “Faculty Senate is a political organization. They have direct control over decisions being made at the university level. Student Government doesn’t have that control over decision-making. We are a focused, activist group on behalf of the student body.”
Gavin said it’s not enough only to inform decision makers of students’ opinions.
“I think Student Government should have two equal priorities,” Gavin said. “One is the responsible allocation of student money.” The other is “the accurate and responsible and professional representation of student opinion, and action on behalf of students,” he said.
Gavin said Student Government should work directly with decision makers to pass resolutions with the seal of approval from those in power. In this way, Gavin said Student Government can affect change.
The difference between these two views, one of Student Government as a mouthpiece for the student body and the other as its activist arm, is not a cause for concern for Harris, who heads the organization.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a division,” Harris said. “We all have the same vision of what we’d like to do, which is improving student life as best we can. Some people just differ on how we get there.”
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