Letter to the Editor: Impact’s Kelley failed to fulfill his duties this school year

To the Editor,I want this letter to be purely factual. I feel there is information pertaining to the upcoming Senate election that should be shared publicly. This year I’ve had the honor of serving as both the Rules and Procedures Chair and Co-Director of University Relations. In these positions I’ve gotten to see the leadership skills of current Senate members.In my duties of being the Co-Director of University Relations, I’m to solicit and make judgements on applications for students to serve on external university committees. Last fall the opportunity opened for a student to serve on the Outstanding Administrator Award Committee and in making sure that a student voice was heard to bring light to A+ OU Administrators, applications were made and a student was appointed. That student was Jordan Kelley, the Presidential candidate on the Impact ticket for OU Student Senate. Keeping in lines with my duties as Co-Director I reached out to the current Chair of the Outstanding Administrator Award Committee to see how our student representative, Jordan Kelly, was representing the interests of the students. An email from the chair shows that nothing was ever “heard from Jordan (Kelley) about serving. I sent an invitation…with no response.”  Being that he never reached out to the Chair for giving his feedback about awards for administrators, an outside student was asked to fill his vacancy.  I would also like to point out that the President of Senate is expected to attend university standing meetings regularly, as well as communicate effectively with university administrators.In mid-January an issue had come to light that the Senate was in need of a new Rules and Procedures Chair. The former Chair, Jordan Kelley, had failed to schedule regular meetings for the committee regardless of the numerous rules changes they were examining. The meetings that were held had a plethora of proxies, approved by Jordan, as opposed to the students actually asked to sit on the committee. Jordan did not keep regular meeting minutes as chair and even failed to turn in correct formats of senate resolutions as he delegated those duties to a non-member of the committee. This set us back in the agenda and in terms of business within the Senate Body. The inability to fulfill his duties lead to Jordan receiving a formal warning. When this did not remedy the situation or increase productivity, he was removed. This resulted in my involvement on the committee as a non-voting advisor, after which the decision was made to appoint me as the new Chair.In all, I feel this information is imperative in contributing to the dialogue surrounding Student Senate elections. I hope the readers will evaluate my observations and factual reports accordingly.Landen Lama is the lead Parliamentarian on Student Senate.EDITOR’S NOTE: TNP Managing Editor Austin Linfante and Impact presidential candidate Jordan Kelley were roommates during their freshmen year at Ohio University.