Selena Legacy
Equinox Staff
In the beginning of last week it was made known by Student Government that the Class President of 2022 Samantha Welch, has been impeached.
The Student Body President of Student Government Sarah Dugas said, “An election was held last semester, and that’s how all the officers for the class gets elected. Everyone who got elected right after the election got an email sent out to get everything going.” She said nothing was heard from Samantha Welch.
Student government as whole thought that this was because of the timing.
“There were mishaps, making the election for the first year class get pushed back, making the eboard not fully elected til November,” Dugas said.
They kept trying to reach out and start building plans.
“We had two or three assembly meetings after and [Welch] didn’t go to those, then the semester ended,” Dugas said.
Once the semester ended there was still no word or reply from Samantha.
“We had the expectation that the Class President is the one to reach out to the eboard to start planning things and that hadn’t happened,” said Dugas, “We have straightforward guidelines in order to be in that position.”
Student Assembly Secretary Victoria Bergstrom and Speaker Davis Bernstein did not respond for comment.
The class secretary of the class of 2022 Lydia Mardin stated, “I didn’t know Samantha personally, because usually when we tried to meet up, she wouldn’t be there.”
Mardin said in her opinion, Samantha seemed “unreliable.”
Mardin said everyone felt like they were all trying harder than the Class President.
“We tried to have a couple meetings and even put something together on Facebook or even a group chat, but nothing seemed to work,” Mardin said.
When Mardin was running for her position, she thought this was supposed to be fun and a commitment, but feels she has yet to do any of that.
“I felt definitely discouraged about the whole thing,” Mardin said.
The impeachment wasn’t for unlawful reasons, it was simply because the President never showed up. Dugas stated that, “it’s hard to get things in motion,” without the president.
“It sounds like scary wording that we impeach someone, but it’s really just the technical term,” Dugas said.
Dugas shared how the voting process works to impeach someone on campus.
“An eboard-wide decision was made after giving her time, and after we hadn’t heard back from her,” Dugas said.
This was after Welch was sent a notice saying that the impeachment would happen if action wasn’t taken.
Dugas said,“Student gov. eboard then had brought it to a vote in assembly, if everyone there feels comfortable moving forward. It was voted yes, needing a two thirds vote to pass for an impeachment.”
After that decision was ruled, they went on to looking for a replacement.
“We have a few options here on out, letting the first-year eboard make the decision on their own, meaning the secretary, Lydia Mardin and treasurer, Phoebe Baade to step up in their positions or within their eboard do an election to fill those spots,” Dugas said.
As of yet, no action has been taken.
“It’s all up to their class to elect, we have no say in to who gets elected,” Dugas said.
They strongly encourage getting this sorted out sooner rather than later.
April is when the yearly open election is held for all the positions for student government, but Dugas said that,“It’s too close to call to open it up to the class because this is an eboard that needs to get going now,” Dugas said.
Dugas wants to spread light on the word impeachment, as we hear it in politics tied with scandals.
“Impeachment sounds like some juicy gossip or that someone did something completely wrong,” Dugas said.
Instead, for the future, Dugas suggests more information behind each position before students run as a candidate.
“Student government as a whole wants, in the future, to do a meet-and-greet with the people who are intrested to get an idea of what is required,” Dugas said.
Something she would like to see happen, for example, would be events the first week of the semester for next election. As for now, Dugas strongly hopes for this be figured out.
“We are hoping to have everything back in place either this week or next week,” Dugas said.
Dugas said this is obviously a loss, and the eboard has been suffering from it.
“Whatever happens, it makes me sad to see someone not be able to stay on, but our goal is to make every class eboard successful and we need people who want to be there and get the ball rolling,” Dugas said.
Impeachment is going to be avoided as strongly as possible in years to come.
Mardin shared her opinion of what she thought needed to be brought to the table, “A good president for a class is someone who is reliable, is going to stand out, make opinions heard. Also someone who takes the opinions of the class and the campus into consideration for larger decisions.”
Selena Legacy can be contacted at
selena.legacy@ksc.keene.edu
