[RANT]
As I have stated before, this is not about the amount. $350? Would it make sense for me to be wasting my valuable time on a mere $350 when I received scholarships and grants worth over $3000 from outside organizations and my new university who truly believe I deserve it for my work? No it does not. $350? Might as well use that on the students. But that's besides the point.
What is really the point is: is the dean really so interested in conflict of interest? Why, so many of what she has done as a dean and as advisor to the ASSMC involved blatant conflicts of interests. Since when did the dean become interested in a conflict of interest issue? Was it when she illegally used student money, essentially betraying the students' trust, for a friend's baby shower? Was it when she had every thank you letter from students and organizations benefitted by ASSMC sent to her in her name to pad her resume? Was it when she intentionally, maliciously walked out of an ASSMC board meeting when an action item was to reduce administrators' involvement in the beloved Constitution of the ASSMC, causing a loss of quorum since the advisor (her) must be present? Was it when she vetoed one $1,000 club scholarship a club proposed because she spoke out against it and didn't want to look bad, even though the ASSMC board unanimously passed it afterwards when the club appealed because there was no rule forbidding that?
And NOW, she's interested in a conflict of interest issue involving me because I spent more than 2 years of my life looking out for the cause of the students and the clubs, not afraid to speak out against any mismanagement of funds or abuses of power even if the offender is someone on top, that being against her interests? No, it isn't about conflict of interest. She's out "to get" me and she will stop at nothing, including getting her friends up top to join in a ploy, to get an honest student, me.
I am not from Los Angeles. I moved into this strange land three years ago as a stranger to attend UCLA, eventually going to SMC instead. I live out near where the farms are north of Elk Grove. I will be going back and living there for the next several years, in a week. But my passion does not stop in Elk Grove when it comes to students because I know what it's like to be a student being tossed around by administrators who just don't care about the students but rather their jobs. These administrators are not the same types as teachers, no. At least teachers meet with students everyday, continually teaching them to become eventually better than them. Administrators like this dean gets paid almost six figures in salary and bonuses, plus the benefits she steals from the ASSMC. Each year she is given an award, as is the rest of her staff, for doing what they were paid to do, sometimes less. Us Directors, students with no salary, no benefits, who quit our jobs (I quit working for Best Buy's PCHO to work for ASSMC) for the benefit of students, do not even get an award at the end, not even a card or a notice. It's the Directors who get nothing these days; those who would risk lower GPAs so that other students would get better campus lifestyles, better GPAs, and a better experience through activities, scholarships, and political representation.
Even if it was a question of conflict of interest, which it isn't, doesn't that clause in our beloved Constitution say:
"SECTION 3: CONFLICT OF INTEREST
No member should vote on a question in which he/she has a direct personal or financial interest and said director shall disclose such an interest if it exists. "?
Doesn't the bolded part merely suggests that in order to prevent even the slightest suspicion of conflict of interest, no one should vote if any personal or financial interest exists? I tell you the truth that it is Directors in a Constitution committee who come up with these words in this Constitution. Most of these Directors are not in law or anything pertaining to political science. Our ASSMC president is a film major, our Dir. of Student Service, an International Relations major, our Secretary, a Linguistics major, our Dir. of Financial Support, a Sociology major, and some others undecided. We students would much rather have a shortcut than to go into detail over what is and what isn't a conflict of interest; and that shortcut comes as the word "should". It is my direct personal interest to help the students because I see other students as myself at one point; is it a conflict of interest to vote on anything that would help students? I say nay; that's just ludicrous. Only if my interest as a Dir. of Budget Mngt. and as Mr. MillionaireNextDoor conflicts with each other is there an actual Conflict of Interest. In this case, there is no such conflict.
Let me tell you, and let me say what is so, If you help the dean in getting what she wants; a final resounding revenge for my looking out for the students' interests rather than her own selfish ones, so be it. But until she stops her behavior in putting herself first, second, and third on her priority list, and to wise up, issues like this will pop up over and over again, just in another school. They will come as the earthquakes in LA. They will come as the hurricanes come in the East, and sometimes the West. When they come, we as a people will be responsible for our acquiescing in condoning her actions, and we will be forced to look at ourselves as human beings of morality, honor, truth, and integrity.
This is about the principle of it all and am I not a student too? A paying ASSMC sticker holder officially signifying that I am an ASSMC member? There are sell-outs like the dean, and the ASSMC president (flatterer) who would love to see me fail. There are also those students, club officers and members, and members of next year's ASSMC board who agree with the merits of my case regarding this issue. If this case turns in her favor, there will be people who will congratulate her on her success. However, if this case turns the other way, towards justice, there will even be more people who will thank all those involved on this side for providing justice where one doth not exist, til someone speaks out.
[/RANT]
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