Hours after Ju-Sun Lee, the Student Association’s vice president for multicultural affairs, announced his resignation at Monday’s meeting, plans were underway for a new election.

Lee, who dropped out of school more than two weeks ago, said he wants to pursue a lucrative career in software programming for online social networking.

He is already making waves in the online software market through the company he created called Createblog.com, which sells software for familliar online social networks like MySpace.com and Xanga.com.

Lee’s decision to leave office spurred immediate action from the Elections Committee and the office of the executive vice president to coordinate an election within the time frame outlined in the constitution.

According to David Hagerbaumer, director of Campus Life, only two or three members of the executive board have resigned in his 26 years of experience with the S.A.

“The people who wrote the constitution did not have the foresight to know that an executive board member would ever step down,” said Fiona Peach, the chairwoman of the Elections Committee.

The election will take place on Nov. 17 and 18 and is open to anyone who has submitted letters of intent to the office of the executive vice president by Mon. Nov. 14 at 4 p.m., and who has collected 100 signatures on a petition by 5 p.m. on Nov. 15. After submitting their paperwork, the candidates will speak to the individual communities at their weekly meeting.

Due to a discrepancy between the Assembly’s constitution and its bylaws, however, the candidates will not be able to visit the Hillside, Susquehanna and Off-campus communities.

According to Peach, the bylaws demand that candidates speak at every community government meeting, but the constitution mandates that the election be held within fifteen days of any resignation. It would be impossible to fulfill both criteria.

“Right now our constitution is more current than our bylaws,” said David Belsky, executive vice president of the Student Association. “That does not cause a problem, because the constitution always is more important than the bylaws,” he said. Belsky said that this is the first instance he’s seen where the bylaws and the constitution do not match up.

While in office, Lee also had amendments for the constitution in mind. He said that the objectives for the vice president for multicultural affairs are “very vague” as they are outlined in the constitution, and one of his goals was to create a more defined role for his office.

Linda Morales Husch, the director of the Multicultural Resource Center, said that she encouraged Lee to clarify the duties of his office.

“The way it is right now, it doesn’t give inexperienced students a framework,” Morales said. “What Lee wanted to do would give them a better sense of direction and of how to operate,” she said.

Lee has written a letter, which he plans to give to whoever is elected, that will outline his agenda, suggestions and “set precidents for the VPMA.” He said that he will give a copy of the letter to his pick for interim VPMA, Annie Faya. Faya is currently the chair of the Intercultural Awareness Committee and an off-campus Assembly representative.

“I’m happy with the vision of the VPMA office,” Faya said.

In addition to defining the responsibilities of his office, Lee also worked to expand them. He collaborated with Pat Craig, the vice president for University Programming, to use the budget appropriated to the multicultural affairs office more effectively and to have more cultural performances on campus.

“He’s very passionate about getting cultural programming up there,” Craig said. “There are enough people that are passionate about it still that it’ll work.”

Lee, who is leaving to further his career in software development, began to think about leaving school during the summer, when it became clear that his projects could become very lucrative. He said that he will stay in the area to work, and is looking into hiring two or three BU computer science students to help him.

“I came to the realization — when the venture capitalists approached me — that I could do this for the rest of my life,” said Lee. “I’m making more money than I ever could with a Binghamton degree.”

He came back in the fall semester, he said, because of his responsibilities and his position on the assembly.

“One of my goals was to work on campus inclusiveness,” he said. “Events are usually for one group and I wanted to bring it all together.”