At last night’s Senate meeting I announced my resignation as Secretary effective at the beginning of next semester. Last year I devoted a fairly massive portion of my life to the Student Union, learned, grew, and almost failed out of school. Well, SU wasn’t the entire reason, but it ranked highest as a contributing factor. Despite that, I found the experience invaluable and don’t regret it.
Last night I sat in the Union office as the Senate meeting went on and thought about how many times I had done just that last year. Between parts of the meeting that were important to me for one reason or another, I would hang out in the office with others and we would sit around, talk, chill, whatever. It was really nice. Gratifying. I worked on projects, I made change, I went to meetings, and the like, and I enjoyed it.
But it just takes up a massive amount of time. To do it right, its like a job. A job with no pay and little recognition from the general population. A job when you’re supposed to be going to school. And while I’ll miss it, I think that in my last semester I want to take some time to do some other things that I haven’t gotten to do. I want to have lots of time to hang out with Kelli and with my friends. I want to finish what I started first semester of my freshman year and become an editor of a newspaper — The Hoot, the paper Igor and I are founding to shake things up a bit and get journalism working right again on this campus. I want to do a good job at the internship I hope to get (interview tomorrow, wish me luck!). I want, at the end of the year, to have my affairs in order, so to speak, and to be confident that what I’ve done for the Union will carry on and be improved upon.
And to do all of these things, I need to get away from the day-to-day chaos of being Secretary, pass that job off to an able-bodied and enthusiastic underclassman (with any luck, Aaron Braver. You have my endorsement, buddy!), and start focusing on the major projects that I really care about right now. The aforementioned, plus, with any luck, work on reforming the Student Activities Fee structure and governing process, hopefully in conjunction with improving Student Union business services to the community.
Mark and I are going to talk about an E-Board position where I can continue to contribute to the Union and help to pass on the things I have learned and discovered while having more freedom to do the things I want to do. A consulting job, I guess you could call it. Sounds like fun. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
…to an able-bodied and enthusiastic underclassman (with any luck, Aaron Braver. You have my endorsement, buddy!)
Yes! I’m able-bodied and enthusiastic! Last night Robyn called me “the next Adam Herman” 🙂 Two compliments in as many days?! I’d better not let this go to my head!
And now a more serious comment:
I think it’s really good that you’ll be taking some time for yourself – lord knows you’ve given enough of it. I really hope The Hoot works out and puts a little pressure on certain other campus publications. I’m pretty confident that next semester is going to be a good one. For both of us. *cheers*
Good luck at your interview tomorrow. I think it’d be a really cool place to intern [and if you work there, maybe I can come visit!].
I think that’s a well-informed and good decision. I think the responsibilities involved in being Student Union Secretary and Chief Operations Officer have shifted, particularly since the ratification of the new constitution. The job continues to get exponentially harder as a result of the fact that each Secretary wants to do more than the Secretary who preceded him or her, which means more and more hours to differentiate your Secretary-ship.
If I reflect back on a conversation taht Alwina and I had on a walk last year, it seems that the realm of responsibility assigned to the Secretary of present requires either a Secretary who can delegate to a competent staff, or a splitting in the position: operations and systems/policy.
What’s the answer? I’m not sure. I guess options include a formalized position of Office Administrator that reports to the Secretary in the Office of the Secretary – leaving that person responsible for supplies, office operations, and facilitating workflow….
Or an additional seat in the Executive Office: perhaps a Chief Operating Officer (day-to-day office stuff) and a Secretary (elections, register/long-term planning, and strategy of some kind.
eh, lots of options…
Danny – you should be proud of the work that you did. You fulfilled most (maybe all) of your election promises, and you brought a new level of service, transparency, and commitment to the organization. Perhaps most importantly, in the era of the celebrity CEO, you never lied – at least from my recollection – while executing your duties…and you didn’t seem to be looking for the easy way out of problems.
Congratulations on a terrific public service career. You were in it for all the right reasons. Now you can fade away into the sunset upon a white ship like so many elves and other mystical creatures before.
-JS
and to comment on my comment, since someone asked me, I was not referring to a student government CEO in the last paragraph. 🙂 All of the presidents who appointed me to positions were upstanding people. …. It was a reflection on the U.S. cultural problem with “celebrity CEOs” — think Enron, Worldcom, etc.
Ditto to what Adam said.
You did a lot of great things for the Union. God help the person who has to figure out how to keep all those things running :-). Although, from what I hear, its in good hands with Braver.
It is/was an incredibly massive time committment if you want to do it well.
Good luck with the Hoot! It’s much needed…..
J-Dawg
P.S. “All of the presidents who appointed me to positions were upstanding people.” – Thanks Adam!
Yay Hoot! Igor showed me the website. It looks awesome. So functional and elegant. Igor wants me to run for UJ next semester. I kinda like my current post (Clerk of the Court), but I might go for it.
You’ve given so much to this school and more people recognize that than you seem to think. We all love you!