Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) president Nicole Dionisio mistakenly attached an executive member’s letter of resignation to an email inviting UTSC students to the SCSU’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). In the letter of resignation, Eilia Yazdanian, SCSU vice-president operations and chief financial officer, stated that he was resigning due to physical and mental health issues.
The Varsity asked when Dionisio had originally intended on announcing the resignation, and she said that she had not considered putting out an official announcement. “It’s not something that I have really thought of doing. It’s not something that’s outlined in our by-laws to do. I do intend on bringing it up at the AGM, which is a public meeting for all our members to attend,” Dionisio said.
However, Dionisio mentioned that the resignation is public information and not confidential. Commenting on the nature of the release of the information, she said, “I do know that it may not be the most comfortable for that person. But I did, right away, as soon as I found out, I contacted the provost’s office to see if I could take back that email. I also called the Freedom of Protection Agency to see what I could do and I also contacted Eilia to see what he wanted me to do.”
With Yazdanian’s official resignation on October 30, four months before the end of his term, the SCSU will not be filling the vacancy. Rather, Dionisio will be serving interim, and the vice-president operations’ responsibilities will be divided among the other executive members.
Dionisio explained that the SCSU will not be hiring a replacement for Yazdanian due to time constraints. “[Given] the timeline right now, we are looking at a heavy period with the AGM, the elections just finishing, and the winter break coming. We are also hiring the executive director right now, so we have a lot of responsibilities currently,” she said. “Given the rest of the term is only four months, it wouldn’t be very reasonable to have that person transitioned and hired in a reasonable amount of time to fully complete their term.”
The executive director, who will be taking on most of Yazdanian’s responsibilities, will be hired by early December. In the meantime, Dionisio will oversee operations and supervise the staff, while Camille Galindez, SCSU vice-president academics, will chair the services commission. The rest of the team will organize events at Rex’s Den.
Responding to the concern that distributing the responsibilities might overburden the other executive members, Dionisio said that she does not believe the extra responsibilities will interfere with the team’s primary duties. “I think we’ve been working really well as a team for this whole year, and we’ve been really good at picking up where there are gaps in anything, so I don’t think that it will hinder any of us.”
As for the vice-president operations’ salary, Yazdanian will receive payment for the time he worked. The rest of the designated salary will go into the SCSU’s reserves.
