After two years of serving as an elected president in Mountainview College and subsequently being promoted by Dillon Schade to serve as chief of staff of the Student Association (SA), it’s safe to say I found myself in what’s colloquially known as the SA Insiders’ Club. I’m writing about my involvement in the SA for two reasons: to expose the Insiders’ Club for what it is and to help people understand the effect it will have on the approaching SA elections. This is a personal account of my experience, and it’s important for the student body to hear certain secrets that the insiders don’t want you to know about.
The “Insiders’ Club” is a loose and informal name given to an inclusive social circle of people who have accumulated experience and leadership positions under the SA. The SA at Binghamton University is actually one of the only completely student-run undergraduate governments in the entire country — we aren’t held answerable to any administrators, only the students. That means that the annual SA budget of over $5 million is controlled completely by the students we elect to SA leadership. While this is something we should be incredibly proud of because it gives us freedoms that other colleges don’t have, it puts the SA E-board under immense pressure.
Now, I can’t speak for past SA E-boards, but ever since I was appointed to chief of staff last May, I’ve been drafted into a social circle where the lines between professional conduct and social life have become intentionally blurred. As the E-board became more comfortable with each other, my office hours transformed from getting the job done into a haze of interpersonal drama, closed-door gossip and rumor mongering.
The insiders, myself included, were frequently invited to Facebook groups and private parties hosted by other insiders. Nonetheless, I hosted my office hours every day and narrowed my focus to the professional goals I had. Namely, I wanted to open an on-campus barbershop, revamp the Food Co-Op so students have a locally sourced food alternative and create the SA-GIVES program. My progress in pursuing these student-centered initiatives was met with resistance from SA leadership for reasons that were intentionally never made clear to me. When I asked for answers, they were evasive.
Ultimately, my efforts to professionally distance myself from this informal atmosphere ended up negatively affecting my job. If you weren’t willing to make the affairs of the SA the primary focus of your social life, you were deliberately left out of touch. My job security in the SA became dependent on who likes whom, as opposed to who accomplished what. Other assistants began confessing that they felt the same way and either resigned or were fired for social or political reasons.
In my official resignation email to Dillon Schade and Zach Vigliani, dated Nov. 21, 2015, I explained, “I don’t feel comfortable in the office anymore and I feel like the recent advancements have undermined the SA’s credibility as a professional space.” Needless to say, they offered no response to my resignation and didn’t pay me the stipend that all SA assistants earn per semester — instead, the other assistants received a cut of my share.
The reason people should know about this is to recognize the importance of the upcoming SA elections. Over $5 million of our money shouldn’t be concentrated into the hands of a fraternal clique of insiders. Rather, we need to elect a transparent board of people with diverse backgrounds of experience who can respect the professional integrity of the SA.
I’m not here to endorse anybody, but it ought to be known that Justin Santabarbara and Ruslan Klafehn are the establishment candidates running for the top two most influential positions who offer an almost-certain continuation of the Insiders’ Club via their platforms and affiliations.
First, Justin needs to be called out regarding the outstanding falsities in his platform. On his official campaign Facebook page, he takes credit for having been the chief of staff of the SA. This is untrue. In an email dated May 5, 2015, Dillon Schade explicitly appointed me to that position, which I served in until my resignation at the end of last semester. It should be noted that he took over for me, as his original role was to be Dillon’s assistant.
Second, Justin incorporates the SA-GIVES program — which I created — into his platform to appease clubs who may ask him what he will do for them. From inception to finish line, I built an SA partnership with the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) wherein we devised a system for clubs to be able to fundraise money through volunteer service in the Binghamton area. In my multiple email threads with the CCE staff, I have the proof that shows Justin had no role in bringing this idea to fruition. I even created the acronym “SA-GIVES” which stands for Group Incentives for Volunteerism and Ethical Services. By assuming the credit for my work and my role, he attempts to build an electable platform so he can perpetuate the SA’s current state of affairs.
After all of this, Justin’s biggest claim to fame is the work he’s done for the “It’s On Us” campaign against sexual assault on campus — the only project he was responsible for last semester. However, after buying T-shirts, spending two days tabling for awareness and garnering press coverage, Justin has little to show for his success other than marketing.
As chair of the sexual assault task force, Justin spent hundreds of dollars on T-shirts and an “awareness campaign,” but women’s groups have complained that there have been no functional steps taken to prevent sexual assaults. One member from the Women’s Student Union texted me, criticizing him for not organizing a meeting with the Title IX coordinator appointed to BU, as well as saying that he did not make a great enough effort to contact women’s groups or other groups that work with the issue of sexual assault. By assuming ownership over the “It’s On Us” campaign, the SA and Justin should also accept responsibility for its shortcomings.
A look at Ruslan’s campaign for president reveals an even more dismal outlook. How can we trust a candidate who incorporates “off-campus safety” as a core component of his platform, meanwhile, he gets arrested for a DWI in the midst of campaign season? A DWI is a criminal offense because of the clear danger it presents to the community. How are we even considering a candidate to hold the highest office for a student at BU who could present a criminal danger to our community? If he can’t conduct himself as a student, how can he represent students to the administration? Nonetheless, Ruslan is the presidential candidate offered to us by the insiders who build a platform off of insidership.
I’m not writing to endorse anyone and I have no vested interest in the outcomes of this election. I just want people to know the real interests behind the insider candidates, the failures behind their platforms and the truth. These upcoming elections are critical because they decide the fate of one of the last-remaining fully student-run governments in the entire United States. Let’s keep our SA diverse, transparent and honest.
Daniel Pantelo is a junior in the individualized major program