Editor’s note: This letter remains in the condition in which it was sent.
My name is Tom Andrews, and I’m currently in the final year of my masters program. I’ve spent the entirety of my college career at UB, meaning I’ve been here for a long time; specifically since fall of 2018. Since then, there have been many constants at UB. The weather being too cold for comfort, the Improv Club on campus serving as my home away from home, Victor E. Bull sightings cheering up my day, The Undergraduate Student Association (SA) being plagued by scandals year after year, etc.
Almost every year that I’ve attended this university, there seems to always be controversy surrounding SA, none more serious than my Sophomore year. For those who are unaware, SA was hit by its largest scandal that it possibly ever had to deal with; accusations of conflict of interest against the then President of the Student Association, Yousouf Amolegbe, which caused him to be put on suspension.
A Spectrum article from nearly three years ago defines the past situation as such “Yousouf Amolegbe’s suspension is that Amolegbe planned to host rapper Fivio Foreign at SA’s Trap Fest on the same night he planned to host the rapper for an event hosted by RAGE Boyz Entertainment, a company he is co-CEO of,” and that “The [Student Association Board of Directors] source claimed the deal constituted a significant conflict because SA would have paid for Fivio Foreign’s transportation, and RAGE Boyz would have been able to host Fivio Foreign for less.”
All those years ago I attended the hearing where Amolegbe was able to tell his side of the story. To my naive surprise, Amolegbe had packed the room with his friends and allies. Those who went up and asked serious questions about the conflict of interest received boos and hisses from nearly half of the crowd.
I have to admit, that move was brilliant from a political point of view. Amolegbe had created an environment that created fear for the people who wanted to speak up; to express their concern. While some went up and asked the questions that needed to be asked, there were many who didn’t want to get involved due to fears of backlash from speaking up.
Confidence in SA had reached an all time low due to this situation, in which at the start of my junior year of undergrad, the undergraduate student base voted by a 9% margin to remove the mandatory activity fee, effectively defunding SA.
Following this, the Student Association spent the year campaigning incredibly hard to turn the vote. By the end of the year, after spending countless man hours campaigning, the SA held an additional referendum to turn the activity fee vote. For students to vote in this referendum, they had to navigate past an ad, which according to the Spectrum article on the topic from nearly two years ago “cataloging everything that would be “canceled” under a voluntary fee and a statement in large font reading, “VOTE TO SAVE STUDENT RUN PROGRAMMING[.] SAY YES TO MANDATORY!!!”.”
How was I supposed to trust an organization that would keep holding referendums until they got the result that they had wanted? Why did this organization even have that power in the first place?
My senior year, I served as president of UB Improv. I went in with a poisoned opinion on the student association from past scandals, and people who served on prior improv e-boards telling me their horrifying experiences working with past iterations of SA. To my surprise, that year’s executive board of SA defied my expectations. While I believed that there were some things that could’ve been handled better that year, they were incredibly helpful to me all year. There was a sense of public service that that specific e-board had, something that from my understanding is quite rare to have. Coincidentally, it was the only year in recent memory in which SA did not face any major scandals.
Now onto the current events. I’m not familiar with this years (and last year’s) e-board except for one interaction I’ve had with the current president. After the last Late Night at UB, hosted by Brennan Gorman, I was mingling with some of the crew and friends after the show when a clipboard was shoved in my face and I was asked to sign. I wasn’t told what my signature would be used for, I was just prompted to sign some random letter. After an awkward “hey what would my signature be used for?” the letter was revealed to be for the SA president to be able to serve a second year, and the person holding the clipboard was the aforementioned SA President, Becky Paul-Odionhin. I declined to put my signature on two grounds. Firstly, I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to tell people to sign something without explaining the cause first, and secondly, I’m distrustful of those who jump through hoops to seek power.
The only other experience I have with the current SA President is her comment on the latest Spectrum Instagram post. The comment, for those who have better things to do than to read comment sections on instagram, states that The Spectrum is “perpet[uating] hate on your fellow students, barely attempt to understand how things work, and shift narratives negatively under the guise of “journalism” and holding individuals “accountable.”
Like Yousouf, I think this is a brilliant political move, where it seeks to make the people who seek answers and truth out to be the villains, rather than the people who hold power.
But on a more genuine note, this comment is what led me to write this piece. I’m old enough to remember the last time that a Student Association president went out of their way to vilify The Spectrum for just reporting the news. I’m not fond of when people in positions of power use their power to try to vilify journalists. It’s despotic, and the university that I spent the past 5 years of my life at should be better than this.
I think it’s incredibly disingenuous to say that the people behind the Undergraduate Student Association are the only reason for SA’s failings. I think that the concept of putting people who are generally between the ages of 18-22 in charge of $4.5 million dollars is ludicrous. These are young adults who do not have anywhere near enough experience to have that much power over student life.
There are some that would say it’s silly for me to argue against SA, given that the club I held so near and dear to my heart when I was an undergraduate would not exist without the Student Association and its mandatory activity fee. To put this argument into a different perspective, The Student Association’s budget is usually around ~$4.5 million. When I was president of the club, UB Improv’s entire club budget was less than 0.03% of the entire SA’s budget. Improv is so insignificant to the Student Association, that I find it hard to believe that UB Improv couldn’t survive without SA.
I’m not arguing that I know what the solution to this problem is, all I’m saying is that the Undergraduate Student Association at UB is fundamentally broken.
