Four executive officers of Kennesaw State’s Student Government Association resigned this past week before their first general body meeting of the semester on Jan. 16.
The president, director of procedural operations, director of communications and the secretary of KSU’s SGA resigned during the week of Jan. 13. According to Ron Lunk, an advisor for the SGA, he and now former SGA President Matthew Hunnicutt received the resignations via email on Jan. 13 before Hunnicutt resigned the following day at 1 p.m.
Several members of SGA said Hunnicutt issued a public statement mentioning the toll the position had taken on his grades. Hunnicutt concluded this statement by saying it was in his best interest to focus on being a student and resign from his presidency.
The entire SGA senate was not made aware of all four resignations until their most recent meeting on Jan. 16, according to Lunk.
“I think there’s a lot of question[s] and a lot of speculation about what happened and why,” Lunk said.
“The only public statement that was issued was by our president and he said it was an honor to serve, however, his grades did suffer a little bit last semester, and it was in his own best interest that he was not planning on continuing SGA next year,” Senator for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Helen Smith said. “Anything else is pure speculation and [I] cannot confirm.”
The SGA’s first meeting was led by acting President Masood Salaam following Hunnicutt’s resignation.
“Things may have gone wrong, but none of that matters right now,” Salaam said. “I would ask you all to be calm.”
Vincent Coakley, senator for the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, presented a resolution during the meeting which, if approved, would remove acting President and former Vice President Salaam, Treasurer Stephen Harr and Senate Lead for the Marietta campus Soham Bapat from the executive board of SGA.
The presented resolution provided the SGA senators with evidence that these three executive officers did not uphold the constitution during the previous semester. After a motion to change the wording in the original document, so as to make it more clear, the general body of SGA approved Coakley’s resolution.
Salaam, Harr and Bapat will soon face impeachment hearings which will dictate whether they remain in their current positions in SGA. According to Coakley, the resolution was made to right the wrongs ignored by the prior director of process operations by calling for disciplinary action against Salaam, Harr and Bapat.
Weese said that the previous officers who resigned had been informed of Coakley’s proposed resolution at the beginning of the semester and planned to resign before their inevitable impeachment from SGA.
“The stuff that was up on the executive board resolution — [President, DPO, DC and Secretary] — were on that list as well,” Director of External Affairs Matthew Weese said. “They found out previously and decided it would be better off to resolve it before.”
According to the SGA website, the goals of SGA are to represent students, serve as a median between students and members of the university, enhance student success, foster an environment of campus engagement and advocate on behalf of the students’ welfare.
According to the SGA, any student at KSU can apply for the vacant officer and senator positions.
Cade Lanktree contributed to this article.
