The Student Commission for Unity announced in a press release on Sunday that it was cutting its ties with the Georgetown University Student Association. Brian Kesten (COL `10), SCUnity’s chair, cited problems collaborating with GUSA while advocating for the eight recommendations that the SCUnity board formulated based on their research.
“No one is more disappointed than I am that SCUnity is leaving GUSA, and that comes from the heart,” Kesten said. “But at the end of the day, that has not been something that’s been well received.”
While some senators said they were upset by the SCUnity board’s decision but supported the group’s continued efforts, other senators and GUSA President Pat Dowd (SFS `09) argued that there would be serious problems with SCUnity advocating for its recommendations outside of GUSA.
Before Wednesday night’s GUSA meeting, Dowd and Senator Matt Wagner (SFS `11) announced that SCUnity’s name and research were the property of GUSA. Along with Senator Tyler Stone (SFS `09), they also worried that SCUnity was unfairly broadcasting that they had student opinion fully behind them.
GUSA Speaker Reggie Greer (COL `09), who intends to meet with SCUnity members and senators this weekend to discuss the concerns that fueled SCUnity’s break and the problems it would raise, said that SCUnity could not leave GUSA and retain its access to monetary benefits, which GUSA is slated to provide for the remainder of the year.
At the GUSA Senate’s Wednesday night meeting, there was intense debate over the fact that technically, if the SCUnity board votes to operate independently of GUSA, a parallel SCUnity will exist under GUSA charter.
The Senate did not vote on any motions to define the parallel organization, although Senator Irina Varela (MSB `11) suggested Nick Troiano (COL `11) as a possible chair.
Dowd has also voiced concern that without GUSA, SCUnity will lack oversight, and students will not be able to voice their opinions about its recommendations or explore other concerns with SCUnity’s findings.
“The sample size is about one-fifth the size of the population they’re making judgments about,” Dowd said. “That doesn’t mean the research is useless, it’s an important window to the student body at large. But there’s nothing sacred about it … and right now, there’s no external review board or audit outside of the SCUnity reviewing the data.”
Kesten maintains that SCUnity holds frequent open meetings and reaches out to other student clubs, pointing to the town-hall meeting they will hold on March 2.
“Being involved with GUSA actually restricted who we could allow to be involved with the group,” Kesten said. “The group wasn’t allowed to host social events under GUSA.”
As for GUSA’s legal claim over SCUnity, Kesten said that the Student Association contributed to only 30 percent of the Commission’s budget, and he expects that as principal investigators, the research done on the project is his and co-investigator Brian Cook’s (COL ‘09) intellectual property.
