Opinion: Why I Resigned From Student Senate

Skylar Hammes

They/Them

Contributor

10/28/24

The following essay reflects a mindset and set of principles I cultivated during my time with the Student Senate. Though I’ve appreciated this experience, the wonderful and well-intentioned people involved, and the good that has been accomplished, I stepped down due to an unexpected opportunity (that I mentioned in my official PSSS resignation) and moral obligations (that I did not). 

As I told The Clock last year, after students attended a PSSS meeting to protest for transparency, my choices are based on my role as a representative, student, and person. When PSSS was met with the decision to move to a closed session, I voted no to make the environment a better place for the people we represent. From the beginning, I put my name “on the ballot” to amplify our community’s voice and make productive change for my student peers, for our community, and systemically. All I knew was my goal to amplify my peers’ voices and spread the empathy I haven’t always received. 

Growing up, I wondered why the world is the way it is. “Life is unfair,” was the common justification for the classism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and racism committed against myself and my loved ones. I refused to accept there was nothing we could do about insecurity-taught, discriminatory beliefs, and adopted a new mindset. I would become the change I hoped to see, and create a system that serves the community by tackling systemic problems and removing policies that serve the interests of a few at others’ expense. 

Joining the Student Senate Executive Board opened my eyes. PSSS cannot create systemic change, rendering my goal implausible. Influence trickles down to student representatives from the Executive Board, in turn from the advisors’ supervisory authority, and is superseded by the Presidential Cabinet’s retractionary power. This means that though PSSS’s General Board and Executive Board conduct agenda business and craft resolutions, they are ultimately influenced by the strong suggestions of advisors following the interests of the Cabinet, or vetoed by the Cabinet on any unapproved resolutions. The PSSS Constitution only gives advisors the power to attend meetings and participate in discussions. 

PSSS changed its name last year from Student Government Association to Student Senate to clarify its purpose, as the organization does not function as a governing body. This is contrary to the Student Senate’s purpose in Article II of its constitution: to enact and enforce policies that promote high academic standards for personal conduct. The constitution suggests an ability for internal influence through policies, but PSSS does not function that way. This differs from other universities with student government autonomy. 

Therefore, I resigned from PSSS because I no longer believe it is a place where I can accomplish the institutional change necessary to support the environment students need, desire, and deserve. Moving forward, I’d like to ask your alternative to “life is not fair.” What actions can you take to become the change you’d like to see? 

With last year’s protest and protestors, our peers laid the foundation for the question of if it is possible to make institutional change outside of the system. Recent experiences have answered and echoed that question with a new one: Is it even possible to make that institutional change inside of our current system? 

Editor’s Note: Hammes is the former Parliamentarian of the Plymouth State Student Senate.