Vice president trend continues
Danny Gillham
Staff Reporter

For most of his 17 years at TCU, Student Government Association adviser Larry Markley said people leaving executive positions in SGA was not a problem.

“For the first 14 years, we had no problems like this,” Markley said. “It seems like the last three years we have had the problem.”

Markley said in the last three years, all three Programming Council vice presidents have left over the summer, midway through their terms. Two years ago, the student decided not to come back to school, and last year’s vice president remained on council but didn’t have time to fully commit to the position, he said.

CiAnn Ardoin, who quit her position in May, is the most recent PC vice president to step down.

“CiAnn decided that she needed to do other things this fall, instead of putting all her time into Programming Council,” Markley said.

Ardoin, a senior sociology major, said she needed to concentrate more on school.

“I’m a senior this year, and I have to be more focused,” Ardoin said. “I want to increase my GPA, because school is my first priority. It’s the reason I’m here.”

Markley said according to the SGA constitution, if an officer drops out of SGA during the summer, their replacement is decided by the other SGA officers. If they drop out in the spring semester, then elections will be held, he said.

He said many of the people taking over officer positions are younger students who may not know how much work to expect.

“I think people who have applied for the job didn’t have a full concept of what the job entailed,” Markley said.

Mara Grove, a junior fashion merchandising major, said she voted in last fall’s SGA elections and would have wanted to vote again for Ardoin’s replacement.

“It kind of bothers me,” Grove said. “If these people are representing us as students, then the student body should have a say on who should be taking their place.”

Ardoin said she wasn’t ready when she took over the position.

“You say you want to do something because you love doing it,” Ardoin said. “What you don’t realize though is that there is much more behind it. It’s a full-time job, and other things get sometimes pushed aside.”

Her replacement is Katrina Shutt, who said Ardoin’s leaving was unexpected.

“It kind of came as a shock to me,” said Shutt, a junior marketing and finance major. “When I heard, I wasn’t necessarily surprised seeing how busy she was. I could see her reasons for leaving.”

Shutt took over only three months before the PC’s three big events, Howdy Week, Family Weekend and Homecoming, were to take place.

Shutt said the job was pretty chaotic at first, but she had a more than capable staff.

“All of our projects were already well into preparation,” she said. “I have very responsible project directors for each event. It was more me catching up with them than them catching up with me.”

Markley said some structural changes are already in place to encourage younger SGA members to stick around and work up to executive positions.

“We now have project directors and project teams,” Markley said. “The younger students can parlay up through the system and maintain familiarity with areas. They can become team leaders, and maybe flow up to the top.”

Monique Bhimani contributed to this story.