Amid the latter half of a tumultuous year riddled with resignations, transparency questions, censoring controversy and lack of interest, ASMSU president Lorenzo Santavicca announced his bid to run again.

It’s a move which has only been done once before.

Despite the troubles, Santavicca said this year generally went well for the assembly.

Issues with Minority Groups

Of the issues that Santavicca’s assembly dealt with, one major issue during the 2016-17 school year was the relationship they’ve had with minority groups on campus.

One of the earlier issues ASMSU faced was with CORES/COPS group Culturas de las Razas Unidas, or CRU.

The issue began in 2016 when ASMSU sent letters to four presidential candidates, inviting them to campus. Some students, including some students from CRU, were upset that now-President Donald Trump was invited.

When ASMSU published the letters they sent on their Facebook page, many students, including CRU member political science junior Maisie Rodriguez, responded with her concerns. Upon doing this, she was blocked from ASMSU’s Facebook page.

Because of this, CRU protested at the next ASMSU meeting by covering their mouths with gold tape.

On the topic of the issues with CRU, Santavicca said he felt there were many connected problems that were painted as one single issue.

“I think about what happened last semester as a multitude of events that weren’t necessarily linked together, and unfortunately the way it’s painted is as one issue,” Santavicca said. “I also dealt with a lot of internal issues with the team at that time.”

At ASMSU’s Feb. 16 meeting, CRU came to request funds from ASMSU for their Dia de Las Mujer program.

While ASMSU did end up granting the funds to CRU, they tried hard to find a reason to give CRU less or no money. Several ASMSU reps attempted to find places to cut costs in CRU’s program, as previously reported by The State News.

Only two weeks later at the next GA meeting, which was held on March 2, the Muslim Student Association, or MSA, came to the assembly with a bill to add MSA to CORES/COPS. The bill was met with considerable challenge by some ASMSU representatives.

Rather than focusing on the bill at hand, some assembly members opted to focus on how to add a group to CORES/COPS, for which there is already a procedure in place.

After several hours of debate and personal anecdotes from Muslim students, the bill was passed. Students will be able to vote on the addition of MSA in ASMSU’s upcoming elections.

MSA and CRU chose not to comment on these events.

Executive Board Resignations

The other defining issue Santavicca’s assembly faced was resignations within the Office of the President.

Following the first incident with CRU, Jason Porter, the Vice President of Internal Administration at the time, resigned from his position at ASMSU.

Porter left because of differences in opinions with ASMSU leadership. Following his resignation, Porter called for Santavicca’s resignation.

Porter said that he was unhappy with the direction ASMSU had gone in following Santavicca’s election, The State News previously reported.

Porter did not wish to speak with The State News at this time about his resignation, but he did give a statement in an email, reflecting that the decision he made to resign was the right one.

“Although it was difficult resigning from the organization I loved, I still believe to this day it was the correct decision and I do not regret it,” he said. “I resigned because of a lack of leadership on the President’s behalf that included one critical mistake after another, many of which were kept behind closed doors.”

His resignation came after deciding ASMSU was no longer serving its original purpose.

“I could not and never would support these mistakes because they contradicted everything ASMSU as an organization believed in,” he said. “Furthermore, although it has been stated by others that these differences were political or policy based, they simply were not, and are more in-depth than that. I wish all candidates the best of luck, and hope nothing but the best for ASMSU in the future.”

After Porter’s resignation, Katherine "Cookie" Rifiotis was elected as the new VPIA on Nov. 3.

Vice President for Academic Affairs Cassandra Shavrnoch also resigned from her position in late January. Shavrnoch resigned from her position because of personal commitments, specifically her commitment to the North American Indigenous Students Organization, or NAISO.

On the topic of the resignations, Santavicca said it is within the power of the individual to decide whether or not they want to stay in their elected position.

“This organization takes the duties of these positions very seriously, I think it’s a testament to the fact that this organization values the trust, the people that are elected to these positions, value the trust that they’re given,” Santavicca said. “If they can’t do that faithfully, then they make the decision that says, ‘you know what, I think someone else should do this. I can’t do this to the best of my ability.’”

Student Involvement

Another major issue ASMSU has faced over the course of the year is student involvement on campus.

ASMSU has had many open seats on the general assembly throughout this year. Currently, there are 13 vacant seats on the assembly.

As an organization representative of its student body, the vacant seats can be concerning.

Regarding this, Santavicca said he believes while this is an issue, ASMSU also made strides this year by having representatives from colleges that previously hadn’t had seats on ASMSU.

“As much as we see vacancies across our general assembly, I think this is actually one of the years we’ve had the best representation,” Santavicca said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re going to have vacancies, and one of the things that I think the role of the president is to be that external force to attract more people to the organization.”

In addition to a lack of representation, ASMSU’s voter turnout has been less than impressive.

While last year’s election numbers were higher than the year before, they were still low considering the size of the student body.

Last year’s elections brought in roughly 1,500 votes compared to 1,264 votes the year before.

With a student body of more than 50,000 students, ASMSU’s turnout has been notoriously low for years, an issue which many assemblies and presidents have attempted to tackle with limited success.

Regarding the difficulties of getting students involved, Santavicca talked about how people often only recognize ASMSU from their programs and the difficulty of getting students engaged beyond the groups they already have an interest in.

“It’s unfortunate that it has to be a service that triggers the students to say, ‘Oh yeah, I actually know what that is,’” Santavicca said. “When we talk about what we’re doing in terms of serving the student body, it’s very difficult to get students that are truly engaged beyond their circle that they’re really passionate about.”

In spite of all the controversy ASMSU has seen this year, Santavicca still plans to run for re-election if confirmed by the election committee.