Courtesy of Zoe Dukas
By James Bennett III
There’s a new vacancy in Student Government senate.
On Nov. 1, Zoe Dukas left the SG senate, leaving the administration with 10 senators and eight senator-elects.
Each year, the senate appropriations committee is responsible for allocating $3.1 million in Activities and Services fees to various USF St. Petersburg organizations, like the Harborside Activities Board, The Crow’s Nest and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
The committee is also responsible for writing SG’s own budget.
But, with the adoption of a new SG constitution that reorganizes all three campus’ student governments into one centralized organization, that responsibility will fall on a Tampa-based senate, led primarily by Tampa senators.
The USF St. Petersburg senate will be tasked with making budgetary recommendations.
Although Dukas refused to cite specific reasons for her departure, she said she had “very, very personal reasons” for leaving the senate and said she was not fired. She also insisted that The Crow’s Nest not report on her departure or mention her in any way.
However, Senate President Katherine Fishman said Dukas was removed because she had accumulated too many negative points — most of which were appointed because she failed to attend SG meetings.
Fishman explained that when members of Student Government reach negative seven points, the administration is statutorily mandated to remove that person from SG.
“Zoe, since early September, has not been attending any meetings. And, for a while, I excused her because I thought she was going through some stuff at home,” Fishman said. “But it dawned upon me when I started to see things on her Facebook of her doing fun stuff that she might like.”
“I still don’t know if that’s true. But she didn’t seem to push back very hard when I warned her ‘you’re getting a lot of points,’” Fishman added.
Dukas missed the Aug. 29, Oct. 14, Oct. 21 and Oct. 28 general assembly meetings, which resulted in her losing 3.66 points.
She also missed the Oct. 9, Oct. 17 and Oct. 31 special funding meetings, which cost her an additional three points.
The final entry that resulted in Dukas being “pointed out” states that she “failed to choose or attend office hours at all.”
The document that outlines the senate point system shows there are 15 ways that senate members can earn positive points.
On the high end, photographic evidence that shows an SG member talking with four constituents earns them one positive point. On the lower end, a month’s perfect attendance at any assigned committee meeting or the general assembly earns SG members two-twenty-fifths of a point.
Negative points are earned by missing office hours without excuse; being “out of decorum” with clothing or behavior; and by missing general assembly or committee meetings. A full point is deducted from SG members who miss entire meetings, while half points are deducted when members arrive late or leave early from those meetings.
Fishman said some meetings can be excused by SG’s discretion, or if senators give 24-hour notice.
Students need to be enrolled in at least six credit hours and have a 2.5 cumulative GPA to qualify for senate elections. Dukas was elected in fall 2018 with 128 votes — more than any of the 10 other candidates.
