News: Breaking news
Kurt Gosselin resigns from SSFC
SSFC Vice Chair Carl Fergus to take over responsibilities
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Associated Students of Madison Student Services Finance Committee Chair Kurt Gosselin announced his resignation at midnight Thursday morning.
According to an ASM press release, Gosselin stepped down in order to focus on academic commitments.
“Although I will no longer be chairing the committee, I have the utmost faith that budding leadership will continue to provide high quality services to students on the Madison campus,” Gosselin said in the release.
SSFC Vice Chair Carl Fergus will take over Gosselin’s responsibilities and preside over the committee.
“It is unfortunate that the resignation had to occur at this point in the year, but we are confident that SSFC will remain in good hands for the remainder of the session,” said ASM Vice Chair Hannah Karns.
CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, this article originally identified Hannah Karns as SSFC’s vice chair. She is actually vice chair of ASM. The correction has been made in the copy. We regret the error.
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Hannah Karns is not the Vice Chair of SSFC, she is the Vice Chair of ASM. Carl is the Vice Chair, now acting chair, of SSFC.
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I call shenanigans. Kurt is resigning SSFC so he can campaign for the ASM constitution without a conflict of interest and, if it passes, run for president.
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Thank God. Just make sure everyone knows what a sleaze ball he is when he tries to run for ASM President this spring.
This would be dripping with irony if the constitution doesn’t pass. THEN Kurt would be screwed.
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Kurt is a shady player in ASM. He is willing to do pretty much anything to get his constitution passed so he can be president.
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He’s a sleaze ball for wanting to run for ASM president? Are you kidding? You’re a sleaze ball for posting anonymously.
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I’m the newly-elected of the SSFC. Kurt’s service as chair was invaluable to this university and we’re all better off for the work he’s done.
I believe it was two years ago when Chancellor Wiley told ASM and the SSFC that if the GSSF budgets kept expanding as they had been, the system wouldn’t survive more than a few years. Working with former chair Alex Gallagher and others in ASM, Kurt helped turn the GSSF into a sustainable funding stream for services to students.
I doubt that there is a student on this campus more adept at navigating the intricacies of Regent policy F-50 and 36.09(5). Kurt used this knowledge recently when he and I went to a meeting of the Regents’ Capital Planning and Budget Committee, where he argued that a transfer of funds from the Memorial Union Theater Wing to the Union South project, which hadn’t been presented to the SSFC first, was against the spirit of F-50 and the shared governance model. Because of Kurt’s successful argumentation, he secured a meeting with Facilities Planning and Management and the Chancellor to discuss the methods by which referenda are proposed in the future.
In his resignation letter to the SSFC, Kurt mentioned only obligations to himself and his loved ones as his reasons for resigning. I take Kurt at face value.
Instead of posting anonymous comments smearing someone so intimately and successfully involved in the preservation and expansion of students’ rights, why don’t you recognize the good things that Kurt has done and take a moment to thank him.
I might also add that in my conversations with Kurt, he hasn’t expressed anything resembling interest in running for president. He’s put in his time with ASM and will continue helping students in ways not related to the powerful seats in student government, from my understanding.
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Kurt is not a sleazeball for wanting to run for president.
Kurt is a sleazeball for making thinly-veiled threats against members of GSSF groups.
Kurt is a sleazeball for using his (unfortunately, substantial) political influence to remove all legislation protecting GSSF groups from the ASM constitution in draft 2 and leaving this legislation to the blank slate of bylaws which won’t be drafted until after the ASM constitution is voted on. Hint: There are many hoops to jump through to change something in the constitution, but it is much, much easier to change the bylaws (especially for the president). This is not a coincidence.
I’ve heard rumblings that Kurt intends to do away with the current system of GSSF groups and change it to a contract system: a group of higher-ups will decide what activism and student education will be made available for the next fiscal year, then activists try to get the contract by laying out the most grandiose plan for the least amount of funding. It’s bad enough that activists will be forced to compete against each other instead of collaborating, but let’s say for a second that this group of higher-ups is a group of straight, white people sitting on thrones of unchecked privilege. Example: If the Multicultural Student Coalition, MCSC, is dissolved because the existing GSSF system is ripped apart and this group of higher-ups decides that, since a black man was elected president, obviously racism is gone, then there will be no ASM-funded black activism for the entire fiscal period by these higher-ups not making such a contract bid available. Or if these higher-ups decide to lend some credence to LGBT people and the committee formed to execute this contract never thinks to lend attention to bisexual or trans people, these subgroups will be squashed silent.
And if the GSSF protection is left to the bylaws instead of a more robust status in the actual constitution, then the possibilities of the previous paragraph is exactly what Kurt intends to happen. The scary thing is that he seems to think it’s a good idea (or he’s so focused on padding his resume with an ambitious project on a giant campus that he doesn’t actually care what happens).