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OU Student Union member Daniel Kington pushes back against the resolution to use Robert's Rules of Order at the first Student Senate meeting of the year. The resolution eventually passed and Kington resigned as a result. 

Six members of Ohio University Student Senate resign

Six members of Ohio University's Student Senate resigned during Wednesday night's meeting.

Student Senate is short six members after Wednesday night’s meeting.

Casi Arnold, the LGBTQA senator, Daniel Kington, the Honors Tutorial College senator, Hayley Oliver, the College of Arts and Sciences senator, Keelan O'Sullivan, an off-campus senator, Kim Oswald, another off-campus senator and Grant Stover, environmental affairs commissioner resigned from their positions following a resignation speech delivered by Kington.

All six members resigned because a resolution to have students vote on a direct democracy model for senate failed to pass in the general body meeting last week.

“We feel it is more valuable to focus our time outside of this room since this room has shown itself unwilling even to pursue the reality we desire,” Kington, a Post columnist, said.

The members resigned during the student speakOUt portion, which occurs at the beginning of the meeting and allows students to voice their concerns to the general body.

“Creating a directly democratic senate was an attempt to create a structure capable of such movement building,” Kington said. “It was an attempt to institutionalize an honor collective bargaining power for the student body, and more directly combat larger issues than Blue Books.”

Kington invited Student Senate members to attend the Student Union’s first general assembly Thursday.

“The Student Union has power on this campus and is gaining ground and growing, meanwhile, we feel this body is regressing,” Kington said. “For those of you remaining on this body, we wish you the best of luck in accomplishing all of your goals. However, we hope you will consider helping the six of us as we continue striving for greater change. “

All six resigning members left the meeting immediately following the speech.

Because of Oliver’s resignation, Senate’s budget committee no longer has enough members and can’t pass a budget or spend any senate money. The budget committee requires five to seven active members to function. It now has four.

Earlier in the semester, two other members, Leanne Ketchum and Sasha Estrella-Jones resigned from the budget committee for unrelated reasons. Oliver was the third member to resign from the committee.

“For us to use any money, we have to have five people,” Jacob Haskins, residence life commissioner, said. “Next week we need to fill hopefully all three seats.”

Senate President Gabby Bacha said it will be easy to find students to fill the vacancies.

“We’ve had a lot of people come in and talk to us and want to get behind what we’re doing,” Bacha said. “We won’t have trouble filling vacancies, we just want to make sure we get a good sample from everywhere.”

Students must complete an application and interview process before being appointed.

Bacha and Vice President Jared Ohnsman agree all of the positions should be filled in two weeks.

Kington officially resigned last week and his position was filled during Wednesday’s meeting by Jack Davies, who ran for the HTC position on the Phoenix ticket in the spring and is a Post columnist.

“There are a lot of forms of advocacy on this campus and avenues that people think work and would like to take,” Bacha said to the body. “This might not be someone’s avenue and that’s totally fine. But I want you all to realize that what you do is important work and we do more than just have Blue Books.”

@mayganbeeler

mb076912@ohio.edu

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