Editorial Note: This article has been changed and reposted from its original February publishing date.
INTRODUCTIONS
“I feel like politics, ultimately, is just kind of an extension of what we what we think as humans about what makes the good life lived in community. And so SGA became this grounds for which talk about, Hey, what is the good life lived at Indiana Wesleyan,” Aaron Morrison, a former SGA president said.
By current Sojourn records, there are only two SGA presidents to formally resign for two radically different reasons. The most recent resignation happened in 2018 when the SGA president was caught consuming alcohol off campus.
The other resignation happened in November 2011.
What happened that led to this resignation, and what was its impact on IWU?
TABLE SETTING
Morrison came in as SGA President in the fall of 2011. But before the semester’s end, he resigned.
“There were a few events that led to his resignation, the first one being some of the complaints that we had fielded from some of the SGA senators about how we were following the Constitution and what rules looked like,” Stephen Weeks, one of Morrison’s former cabinet members, said.
Morrison’s predecessor was Cory Sprunger.
“He had been present for two years, and his focus was on making SGA professional as much as possible, respected in the eyes of the student body,” Morrison said.
Sprunger and his cabinet were involved with recommending people for Morrison’s cabinet, including Nathan DeMasie.
Morrison said that there was this expectation that his administration would be a pseudo-continuation of Sprunger’s. After the election the previous school year, there was a transition meeting in which Sprunger’s team detailed how they approached Student Government.
“I was carrying that expectation on the one hand, but on the other hand, I was feeling this growing sense that something was wrong with that philosophy,” Morrison said.
Morrison said he had a sense that he didn’t want to do the same things as his predecessors, but something more radical. He thought more about what Student Government should be about. That is, representing the students first and foremost.
CONTRADICTING PHILOSOPHIES
“Because [Sprunger’s] theory of change was, if we make ourselves respectable and very mature and very professional as SGA, the administration will take us seriously and thus be willing to listen to our concerns and maybe make changes,” Morrison said.
Morrison went into his senior year changing a couple of things from Sprunger. Morrison changed the SGA dress code from formal business attire to casual, as well as the meeting location.
Sprunger had the meetings set in the Student Center Commons to make SGA relevant in the eyes of the student body. Morrison held his SGA meetings in the biology building (Most likely Burns, as Ott was not finished until 2016).
“It went from being this very open, very public setting to this more closed, intimate setting. And that was intentional. I wanted to encourage students to feel comfortable sharing their opinions genuinely,” Morrison said.
Morrison said he didn’t get initial pushback from these changes. But later on, these choices would be a part of the critiques on how Morrison was running SGA.
“But then, when Occupy Wildcat happened, it cost me the trust of my cabinet because it was something that I had done without their consent or approval,” Morrison said.
THE RIFT GROWS
[The TLDR; of The Vault: IWU and Occupy Wildcat; In 2011, IWU renewed their contract with the catering service Pioneer. With that came a price increase to certain foods in Wildcat. Morrison and his friends saw the price increase sign and Morrison organized and participated in what became Occupy Wildcat.]
“What I remember is Aaron’s choice to participate in that protest and be kind of a leader of it. He was trying to act as a student and not as SGA president, like he was trying to make a distinction,” Lauren Sawyer, a former Sojourn writer and current professor, said. “He was trying to act separate from that role. And I remember that kind of being at the heart of the Sojourn’s critique.”
“(The other SGA members) were wishing those things would have gone through them first, where he would at least talk to us about them before going ahead with them,” Weeks said.
Morrison said that how he went about Occupy Wildcat was a flaw in his leadership style.
“I thought I could be both an activist and SGA president at the same time, and I couldn’t be both,” Morrison said.
GRIEVANCES AND AMENDMENTS
About a week after Occupy Wildcat, SGA held an emergency cabinet meeting in the Lodges to discuss the protest. In that meeting, Morrison and his cabinet came to an understanding about why Morrison organized the protest, but to not do anything like that again without consulting the cabinet.
However, Occupy Wildcat had shown the campus and the IWU administration how Morrison was running SGA. The differences between Morrison and Sprunger were being looked at more closely. Some of the senators believed Morrison violated the SGA Constitution.
Dani Wolowec, a senator from the Lodges brought forth these concerns.
At the same time, while not related to what Wolowec was doing, Aaron Sharp, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, had been working on a formal impeachment clause for the SGA constitution.
“It was just unfortunate timing,” Weeks said. “That whole subcommittee was trying to establish things in the Constitution that needed to be addressed, that could have been missing. And I think looking at some of our own country’s legal documents being like, ‘Oh, but we don’t have an impeachment or removal clause, and we do have a national [impeachment process], so we should have that here too.’”
On November 28, 2011, the grievances and impeachment clause were brought to the SGA meeting. Immediately afterwards, there was an emergency cabinet meeting.
THE POINT OF NO RETURN
“And so we went down the list, and I can’t even remember all of the things she specifically accused me of. I only remember the one that ended up making the difference,” Morrison said.
The Cabinet and Morrison decided that most of the accusations were just a difference in interpretation and he had not broken the Constitution. The one that made the difference:
According to the SGA Constitution, every SGA cabinet member needs to be a professed Christian.
“And one of my cabinet members, Nathan DeMasie, was a professed agnostic. Nathan had come in as a recommendation from Corey Springer’s cabinet, and so I brought Nathan in,” Morrison said.
Morrison did admit he did break the Constitution on that point, but let it be known that the rule should not be enforced.
“This is a bad rule in the SGA Constitution, and we should not be obligated to enforce it. And I can remember, like even debating that particular part,” Morrison said. “Nathan was asked to step out of the meeting — super awkward. The whole thing was super awkward because it was about him.”
Luke Nelson, Morrison’s Senate chair, told Morrison that the rule should be enforced and that Morrison was wrong.
“It was like a silence fell across the meeting. It was kind of this final breaking moment of like we can’t get past this,” Morrison said.
After that meeting, Morrison and the Cabinet decided it would be best for Michael Moffit and Bill Millard, both SGA advisors, to come in and mediate this situation.
Part Two coming March 22…
