In March, CCSU’s Student Government Association tabled a motion that would deny club executive board members from holding a senator position.
SGA’s negligence of this motion and failure to approve it represents a missed opportunity to clear up a major conflict of interest problem inside CCSU’s student government. Should the motion be brought up again, the senate should absolutely vote yes. A large amount of current and recently elected SGA senators publicly double as executive club officers for a variety of campus clubs and organizations.
For example, Chris Leahy, an outspoken senator that is in favor of allowing overlap between SGA and clubs, is also Vice President of Programming for the Central Activities Network. Even though CAN doesn’t receive their money from SGA, there shouldn’t be an overlap in control. If Kelly Fournier had beaten Andrew Froning for SGA president a year ago, she could technically have been both SGA president and SUBOG president, the position she also ran for and ended up winning. Ethically it isn’t fair for the same people requesting money to be the givers of money. It’s a simple, serious and clearly unethical matter of conflict of interest.
And even if there hasn’t been one problem or one honest issue of conflict of interest inside SGA, it still looks bad from the outside. In the end, perception and image is the most important thing when it comes to gaining the trust of the student body and the clubs that look forward to receiving budgets. It also doesn’t mean that just because there hasn’t been a conflict of interest issue yet that there isn’t the potential for one down the road. The longer SGA ignores the motion they quickly batted away, the longer an unethical threat remains in the near or even distant future.
Governmental organizations represent the people, in this case it’s CCSU’s student body. According to current SGA President Andrew Froning, the group handles the appropriation of roughly $660,000 in student activity fees. Froning also stated that around 65 percent of those funds go to various CCSU clubs while the rest, approximately $221,000, stays inside SGA. Given the large amount of student money being handled, there should absolutely be serious restrictions on who can be a senator and how they can appropriate money. These restrictions would go a long way in preserving the ethical values surrounding conflict of interest, something any serious government organization should be concerned about upholding.
When Leahy spoke out against the motion, he called it “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” In full, Leahy went on to say that “To deny students the right to run for SGA is appalling to me. We could lose fundamental possible SGA members based on them trying to better themselves, and that is wrong.”
The idea behind Leahy’s argument is flawed. Because SGA is the body that distributes the money that clubs need, they get a constant flow of attention and membership from all club executive officers. Are SGA members really fundamental when their arrival to the group is based on bettering themselves? If the motion was put into immediate action, a large chunk of the senators would have to choose between the SGA and their clubs. If an individual chooses being an executive officer for their club, it’s clear as to why they were in SGA in the first place. If SA/LD appropriated money and SGA was merely committees planning their events, membership might be a lot different than it is right now.
The matter of conflict of interest shouldn’t be ignored simply because those inside SGA don’t want to have to deal with a major overhaul. If SGA is serious about what they do, they should reevaluate this matter as soon as possible and clear up any potential unethical issues.
