Courtesy of Katherine Fishman
By James Bennett III
After two years of leadership, Student Government Senate President Katherine Fishman has resigned.
Multiple SG members resigned last year, starting in spring. In April, four people resigned over the course of two weeks. Fishman is the second senate president to resign during this term, after Alexandria “Lexi” Bishop resigned in July.
Now, senator Veronica Jimenez, who was the senate president pro tempore under Fishman’s leadership, will become the senate president. Senator Michael Johnson, who was the policy chair, will become the new senate president pro tempore.
Both of the senators will assume their new positions after a vote of confidence at the SG general assembly Jan. 27. Fishman said she has faith in both senators.
Fishman said her resignation felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
“Not that it was bad, but it was time,” Fishman said.
“There was a lot of responsibility that I was expected to live up to, I felt, and my job requires being in many aspects of Student Government and in many places at once. And although I know I’m capable of that, doing that while also trying to focus on full-time school or even part-time school is just a difficulty that I don’t want to intermesh.”
In her resignation letter, Fishman explained that her first semester as senate president had a negative effect on her grades, and that she can no longer graduate on time. She added that the “drama, constant work and often thankless weight of responsibility” contributed to her departure from SG.
“As such, I have to solemnly tip my hat farewell and go on to other ventures,” Fishman wrote in her resignation letter.
“I am aching to get into the real world and make money in a full-time job, one in which I can grow and potentially be in for the long-term. Student Government simply isn’t that place. I’m tired, jaded, and frustrated in Student Government nowadays, and that’s not healthy.”
In an email, Director of Student Government Relations Peyton Johnson said that Fishman “did not mention her desire to leave SG, nor did she mention her struggles before her resignation.”
“I plan on reaching out to all members of SG sometime this week to do a wellness check and provide resources should they need them,” Johnson said.
Fishman believes the highlight of her SG career was reforming the University Community Affairs Committee, which aims to write resolutions and inform students of community resources or events.
Fishman also reformed the senate voting system. In an attempt to mitigate the pressure to vote with the crowd, Fishman changed the voting order so senators with the least experience or seniority voted first.
Fishman’s resignation comes just before budget season, over which she would have presided, and while St. Petersburg’s SG is consolidating with the other campuses’ student governments.
Under the new consolidated SG, regional committees on each campus will make budgetary recommendations and a “federal” student senate based in Tampa, with primarily Tampa-based senators, will be in charge of the final allocations.
“Fishman’s resignation will not affect the budgeting process. We have several special funding meetings coming up, as well as Committee on Appropriations meetings chaired by Kevin Jimenez,” Peyton Johnson said in an email.
“Kevin spent the fall semester reviewing the finance codes and preparing the committee for this semester. As chair, Kevin is qualified and ready to take on this budget season,” she wrote.
Johnson added that, going forward, people should remember that SG consists of “students serving other students.”
“Life does happen; school gets hard. SG is a large time commitment, and we are working hard to make the lives of students on this campus better,” Johnson wrote.
Fishman said she was drawn to join SG because, at the time she campaigned, she was interested in politics, wanted to get involved with the community and wanted to get out of her comfort zone.
SG was also the first community in which Fishman felt comfortable coming out as a trans woman.
Although she was nervous, Fishman knew there was an award ceremony coming up and didn’t want her dead name to be on the award if she won anything. Her coworkers made her a new name tag and a new name plate. At the end of the semester, she was given an award with her preferred name on it.
“It was just so lovely. It felt so good,” Fishman said.
She said that she’ll miss the camaraderie of SG.
“Even if we weren’t friends, we were all family, essentially,” she said.
