Student body secretary resigns

Student Body Secretary Ashley Earnest resigned Tuesday, citingillness and death in her family, during the Senate’s regularmeeting.

“These personal tests have been so prevalent that theyhave affected my friendships, my Senate work and especially mystudies,” she said. “It is with love for my school andmyself that I have decided that it is necessary for me to step backand cope with my losses.”

The Senate approved Student Body President ThomasKincaid’s recommendation to appoint Parliamentarian Adam Hillas interim student body secretary. Earnest delegated thecoordination of the Student Code of Conduct revision to Hill duringlast week’s meeting. The revision of the code is one of theprimary responsibilities of the secretary.

Dedman II Senator Andrew Baker was approved to fill Hill’sparliamentarian position temporarily.

Hill will hold the secretary’s position until a specialelection scheduled for Nov. 19-20. The new secretary will beannounced on Nov. 21, assuming there is no need for a run-offelection.

“As someone that held that job last year, I know that thejob can lead to stress on top of what Ashley already had to dealwith,” Kincaid said.

In other business, Senate approved a bill to fund $3,405 toProgram Council for a program featuring Clyde “Ace”Amerson from MTV’s “Real World: Paris” andTrishelle Cannatella from “Real World: Las Vegas.”

The bill was voted up despite a negative recommendation from theFinance Committee, which felt that the representative from ProgramCouncil requesting the funds had attempted to deceive them byclassifying the event as educational.

African-American Senator Nina Morris initially submitted a billtwo weeks ago asking for funds for the program, but the Senatevoted to postpone a vote indefinitely because of concerns regardingthe lack of a cost breakdown for the event. This week’slegislation, introduced by Law School Senator Lindsay Germano, hadinformation on where the money would be spent and classified theevent as entertainment.

A handful of senators and Finance Committee Chairman DanielKimes felt that the bill should be voted down to send a message toall campus organizations that all events should be presentedfactually.

But the majority opinion held that the event would be popularamong students and should not be killed because of miscommunicationbetween the Senate and Program Council.

“I don’t think it would kill us to fund a programthat’s fun,” First-year Senator Liz Healy said.

The bill passed 23-9.