It took about 1,300 votes to put them into power, and it will take 26 votes to get them out.
Ohio University Student Senate’s voting members will evaluate the four executive members — President Nick Southall, Vice President Anna Morton, Treasurer Austin LaForest and Chief of Staff Emma Wright, who was appointed to her position — by an anonymous written vote of confidence during their weekly meeting Wednesday.
The body will go into an executive session, during which all non-voting members and the executives, if they choose, will vacate Walter 235 so the 39 voting members can cast their votes.
A two-thirds majority is needed to keep the executives in their current positions or to immediately remove those in whom the members express a lack of confidence. The results of the vote do not have to be announced, though if an executive officer is removed, it would be hard to keep it private, said Gerrod Schirtzinger, chair of the Committee on Conduct and Discipline, who will be heading the executive session.
“The information of them being impeached would become general knowledge at that point ... but the means of the why (can be kept internal),” Schirtzinger said.
The executives’ performances are evaluated at senate’s week four meeting and the vote of confidence, which is typically held week 14 but was moved to this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, is a way that the body can check the executives’ power through a vote.
The week four evaluations are private and offer suggestions for how the executives can improve through anonymous evaluations.
For Southall, increased professionalism was a common suggestion in feedback from fellow senate members.
“I believe that I’ve upped my standard of professionalism,” Southall said. “I feel pretty good. I feel confident.”
Earlier this semester, Graduate Student Senate unanimously passed a statement stating the body’s lack of confidence in Southall’s ability to properly represent graduate students and its support for removing him from office. A statement Liz Volpe, vice president for Committees and Legislative Affairs in the graduate senate, says the body stands by.
“(Senate members) represent us as well,” Volpe said. “I just want them to really take a step back and see … how they’re representing the student body of Ohio University.”
Morton would not discuss specifics of the week four executive review, though she emphasized that the impending vote is in the hands of senate members.
“It’s just how the body views us,” Morton said. “We’ll just wait and see.”
The internal procedure is one way in which the executives can be held accountable in their roles, Wright said.
“I’m excited for the vote … because I think it’ll be a good way to kind of gage the temperature of senate again.”
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This article appeared in print under the headline "Senate to vote on confidence in executives"
