STUDENT SENATE will know soon what approach Senate Judicial Committee will take with Vice President of Student Life Ben Cooper. Photo: Sarah Andrews
View the full text of the Oct 15 Motion.
In the coming weeks, President Ben Olson (AS4) will refer Vice President of Student Life Ben Cooper (AS3) to the Senate Judicial Com¬mittee through a written statement to the com¬mittee for his failure to submit a report required by the by-laws.
At 5 a.m. on Oct. 15, Olson sent the pro¬posed agenda for that day’s Senate meeting to the roster of senators. The agenda included pre¬vious notice of Motion [091022], “Removal of Vice President of Student Life.” When a mo¬tion is filed as previous notice, it is placed on the agenda to notify senators that it will be debated and voted on at a future meeting.
The motion was removed before the official agenda was printed for the meeting. The agenda is flexible and susceptible to changes until the meeting begins at 9 p.m. on Thursday.
The Times-Delphic has obtained a copy of the motion. It outlines four major unconfirmed allegations against the vice president of student life.
Cooper allegedly failed to file a report on Senate’s status at the beginning of October, vio¬lating Senate By-law II.01.3. According to the bylaw, “The Vice President shall make a report to the Student Senate at the first meeting in Oc¬tober certifying the status of the standing com¬mittees and shall furnish each Student Senator a list of meeting times and locations of each com¬mittee and subcommittee.”
According to the motion, this information was not included in the Student Body Presi¬dent’s report to the Board of Trustees because Cooper had not filed the report.
The motion also alleged that Cooper used his influence as the vice president of student life to convince a Student Life Center worker to give him “lost and found” Drake ID cards. Cooper then allegedly used the cards to access Cline Hall after the building was closed.
These actions violate three sections of the Drake University Student Handbook, including misuse of student identification card, theft and trespass, according to the motion.
The motion also states that, “interviewed applicants for Student Senate committees were severely mishandled,” and criticizes Cooper’s organization of standing committees, a duty outlined in By-law II.01.3.1. It was also alleged that Cooper violated By-law II.01.3.3, which assigns the Vice President of Student Life the duty of assisting the Stu¬dent Body President.
It’s moved “that the current vice president of student life be removed from office for con¬duct not becoming of an executive officer and failure to complete his duties as outlined in the Student Senate by-laws.”
According to the motion, when approached about the student handbook violations, “the al¬leged misconduct was confessed directly to the Student Body President.” Cooper said that the motion was “document full of lies” and only half-true.
Cooper said that he is innocent of the al¬leged charges against him.
“I maintain my innocence, and I don’t want to make any hasty decisions,” Cooper said.
Cooper was able to access the motion prior to it being sent to the senators on Oct. 15.
“I thought it was appropriate that he saw what was coming,” Olson said.
Cooper said he was not comfortable ad¬dressing any specific allegations before the ju¬dicial hearing.
“I want a fair trial or I want a fair judicial hearing, and I don’t want the judicial commit¬tee influenced by my statement or anyone’s statement on this issue,” Cooper said.
Four hours before the Oct. 8 Senate meet¬ing, Olson showed Cooper a print copy of the motion that he intended to bring forward that night. Olson said he asked Cooper to step down at that time. Cooper verbally agreed to start writing a letter of resignation and did not attend the Senate meeting that night, as Olson made is clear that the motion would not be brought up if Cooper did not attend the meet¬ing. Cooper said that he had been asked to step down prior to that date on Sept. 17.
After talking to Drake administrators and close friends, Cooper decided three days later not to step down from his position.
“I just couldn’t write it,” Cooper said. “When I thought about it, I had to defend my character. I knew I was doing my job for the student body.”
Olson said that all past senators who have been asked to step down have done so.
“We are the highest representation of the student body, and we should act accordingly,” Olson said.
After Cooper refused to resign, Olson ex¬plored other means of addressing the alleged misconduct.
Olson said that “a significant number of senators” had approached him, taking is¬sue with Cooper’s leadership. Olson also ap-proached some senators to gather opinions and feedback on Cooper’s performance.
After consulting with Judicial Committee chairwoman Samantha Haas (AS3), Olson de¬termined that drafting a motion would be the best means of moving forward.
According to the motion, Olson “believed it was the best and only remaining option for the good of Drake students.”
However, after the motion was made avail¬able to the governing body on Oct. 15, several senators were surprised and confused by the development.
These sentiments resulted in several meet¬ings of various factions of senators between the motion being sent and the meeting the fol-lowing night.
During the Speakers and Issues portion of the meeting, Olson initiated a discussion of the miscommunications surrounding the motion and the actions of executives and other sena¬tors involved in the matter.
“Was it a complete representation of what’s going on?” Olson said. “Probably not. But, it seemed to be the best option.”
The following week, Olson announced that he would refer Cooper to the Judicial Commit¬tee rather than pursue the motion.
“Too many senators had already formed opinions,” Olson said. “It seemed to be the best course of action.”
The motion did not cover the full scope of the violations, Olson said. However, his refer¬ral will only include Cooper’s alleged failure to file the status report in October.
Olson said he understands that other sena¬tors plan to ask him to submit referrals against Cooper on their behalf for other alleged vio¬lations. Only the three executive members of Senate – Tisleen Singh (J4), Cooper and Olson – may refer a senator or fellow executive to the Judicial Committee.
“Before students make their final call, I would wait until the final motion comes out from judicial because that will cover the full scope and include Ben Cooper’s opinion,” Ol¬son said.
Olson said he would accept the verdict of the Judicial Committee., whatever it may be His main concern is that the issues are ad-dressed in the appropriate way.
“Whatever the decision of the Judicial Committee is, I will fully support it,” Olson said.
Olson said that Senate has continued to proceed with other motions and issues, allocat¬ing funds and making other improvements.
“Senate is still performing strong,” Olson said. “This is an important issue to be ad¬dressed, but not the only one.”
Olson said that he and Cooper still have a good working relationship.
“He’s handled it very professionally,” Olson said of Cooper’s reaction to the allegations.
Cooper said that he plans to continue serv¬ing students and fulfilling the duties of his posi¬tion.
“Ben and I are still working together and I remain serving the student body with the best interests,” Cooper said.
Many students have questioned if the chal¬lenges to Cooper’s leadership ability are re¬lated to this being his first year as a senator. Cooper was a senate committee member for the last two years.
Olson said that not sitting around the table can pose challenges to senators coming in, but said that the questioning of Cooper’s leader¬ship was not solely related to this matter.
Cooper said that he was not given appro¬priate guidance when he began his term as vice president of student life.
“Yes, I was transitioned, but I wasn’t transi¬tioned as well as I’d hoped,” Cooper said.
According to By-law II.01.4.2, “In the event of the resignation or removal from office of the vice president of student life, the student body president shall appoint, with approval of the Senate, a member of the Senate to complete the unexpired term.”
Olson said he did not think it was appro¬priate to discuss any potential replacement of Cooper at this time.
“The student body has elected us to be here, and they should know that we are han¬dling this and will convey to them the decision we reach,” Olson said.
This photo really describes how the senators view their jobs.
The senator in the purple obviously is trying to get away from Whitmer’s advancing moves. Just sit up straight Ben. She doesn’t want you.
Who’s texting under the table?
$10,000 says Gudmundson becomes V.P. Conflict of interest: Olson and Singh both have relationships with him………
THE TEXTER IS CARLA OLZESKI!
Looks like someone else is texting too (white shirt two seats to the left of actual texter- Norah Carroll?) is texting too. If Carla is the one in the picture actually shown texting, maybe her and Norah were texting each other? Any way, my point is that this is unacceptable. Can’t they put their phones away for an hour or so one night a week?
Can we wipe Student Senate clean and start all over again?
How convenient. There just happens to be potentially criminal charges to go along with the impeachment. This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
I don’t get it. Does senate EVER want to be taken seriously?
And I think it’s hilarious that someone pointed out Carla texting. Perfect example of any senate meeting, and as a senator, Carla is especially worthless.
I’ve never understood why we pay the executive officers. They run the equivalent of my high school student council, and my high school student council didn’t do anything. They did have more respect though.
how is tisleen and the phone coming aling?! i be tired of ‘dis textiN!
I think that senator olzeski is a fine representative. got a nice caboose too!
Senate is a joke, and a pathetic one at that. I expect my representatives to at least FEIGN interest in their jobs for the hour they are at these meetings. I mean, not one of them is dressed up, nor even sitting up properly, not to mention the obvious signs of boredom that have already been pointed out here in the previous comments. It’s disgusting. And no matter what happens with Cooper, it doesn’t MATTER. Senate exists solely as a resume-padder for the “Senators.” They represent themselves, NOT the student body.
I am disgusted at these remarks. The Senate is a governing body. NOT THE END ALL – BE ALL – OF THE UNIVERSITY! If you want something done, get off your ass and do it! If you’re not around that table, you have NO IDEA of what goes on. It doesn’t help the senate if the university doesn’t support the important actions they take for the university. If you people think senate is such a pathetic joke, you should have ran to take a stance in what you believe. Moral of the story: stop bitching if you can’t back it up!
Standard blowhards crowding around a table acting “important”. Is Drake really so big that it takes a whole conference room to fit all the resume-padders? And, what exactly have they accomplished? A lot of printed papers, speeches, maybe some rudimentary parliamentary procedure demonstrations. To respond to “senate supporter”, if we have “no Idea” what senate does, doesn’t that serve as an indictment of senate as a do-nothing organization? At the very least, they lack basic public communication skills (not amongst themselves, but with the rest of the Drake community). And why the hell are they drawing salaries? I guess it explains where some of my money went while I was a student! What a waste.