Following events at the end of the fall semester, Samantha Pop ’11 resigned from her position as senior class president. According to Pop, Assistant Director for Student Activities and Leadership Development (SALD) Elisa Del Valle and Dean Noel Garrett informed her that her position would be left vacant.
“I did not follow the standards set by the code of behavior on the senior contract form at the last senior event and as a result I will not be attending the future senior events which the senior class officers and I have already planned,” Pop wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “Additionally, I will no longer be working with the SALD office to facilitate the planned senior events.”
However, Adrian Chan ’11, who was elected as Senior Class Vice President last April, said he received an e-mail on Jan. 28 informing him of his appointment as the new senior class president.
“I was told that I was going to be the Senior Class President and I’m just going to try to assume the responsibilities and continue doing what we started last semester,” Chan said.
Del Valle sent Chan the e-mail regarding the new position, and said she felt confident in his appointment as the new class president.
“The Senior Class President has stepped down and, as a result, the Vice President, Adrian Chan is now the president,” Del Valle wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “The remaining Officers are confident in their ability to finish out the year with just the three of them as am I.”
Chan said he plans to continue with the work the senior officers started last semester.
“We put in a lot of work last semester with the senior events and fundraising for financial aid and for graduation and commencement, so now it’s more just executing it and taking care of the things that come up,” he said.
Del Valle and Chan said that Senior Events would continue this year and in the future.
“Senior Events this year will continue as planned with an event in February and two during Senior Week,” Del Valle wrote.
Chan is also optimistic that the Senior Events will continue without any major problems.
“The student body is very respectful of the opportunity the University gives us to have these types of events off campus, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t continue,” he said. “It’s a great bonding experience for seniors, and it’s something that a lot of the younger grades look forward to.”
Despite her resignation, Pop plans to continue to organize events for the senior class in the upcoming semester.
“I plan to continue fundraising for our senior gift, organizing senior community service activities, and planning non-SALD senior events, like last semester’s senior pub crawl,” she wrote.
Moving forward, Chan hopes to bridge the gap between alumni and seniors during the Commencement Weekend in May.
“I’m going to try to really use the Commencement Weekend venue with the returning alumni to create some more unity and interaction between students who graduated 25 years ago and current seniors,” he said. “I think the alumni really enjoy speaking with current students and sharing stories back and forth and seeing how Wesleyan is still the same and how it’s evolved.”
Editors-in-Chief Bea Lomongo Paterno and Amanda Schwartz contributed reporting to this article.