Student Government Association (SGA) President Austin Calvo announced that Vice President for Student Experience Esau Greene would resign effective immediately at its weekly general board meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 19. 

Greene said that he needed to refocus on school and improve his grades. SGA has several requirements for remaining a member, including GPA requirements. Greene says that his resignation was his decision and that there is no animosity and it is an amicable split. 

“I’m saddened because it’s something I held a lot of value in,” Greene said. “It’s kind of devastating to not be a part of that.”

Calvo said that there will not be a special election to fill his seat. Calvo said that he did not want to give the appearance of the SGA general board endorsing a candidate four weeks from spring elections.

Calvo explained that, since he previously held the position before becoming president last year, he will be taking on the role until the general election. He added that he plans to continue Greene’s goals and initiatives so students can feel as if the person they voted for is finishing the job.

“I know I’m going to do my best to finish out everything that (Greene) was doing,” Calvo said. “I want to make sure that the platform that he ran on and the culture that he wanted to create is fulfilled and followed through because I don’t want people that voted for him to feel their vote has essentially been wasted because he’s not here for a month.”

Greene became the second executive board member to resign this year. Former Vice President for Finance Glenn Adams resigned from his position back in October. Adams was recently elected to the senior cabinet in a special election. 

Calvo said that the issue shines light on the importance of mental health problems at Quinnipiac. 

“I think it’s a work culture, a Quinnipiac culture that everyone just feels, ‘Oh, I can do this on my own,’ and we see it around campus,” Calvo said.  “People don’t really go to a counselor until they’re already in a bad mental place. They don’t go to the Learning Commons until they’re already failing their class. They don’t go when they’re slipping. They go when they fall.”

Calvo said that SGA Vice President Sophia Marshall is going to be putting on more SGA general board bonding events to foster community and help general board members feel they can speak up. 

A major goal Calvo ran on during his presidential campaign was to minimize general board turnover, a goal that Calvo admitted he has failed at as 25% of the general board is currently made up of special election senators. Calvo believes that SGA resignations are more about the individual, and he said that he hopes it does not deter future prospective SGA candidates. 

“Very few people say it’s the workload from SGA (when they resign),” Calvo said. “More people blame it on themselves and being able to balance everything. They’ll say, ‘Oh, I’m bad at time management and I just can’t do this with this.’”