Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Your School. Your Paper. Since 1936.

The Suffolk Journal

Editor’s word: Dec. 9, 2009

Yesterday, the SGA hosted an open forum with Provost Barry Brown, Vice President and Treasurer Francis Flannery, Vice President of External Affairs John Nucci, and Vice President of Student Affairs Nancy Stoll to give students the opportunity to ask questions about the negativity that has plagued Suffolk in the wake of a PR nightmare regarding President Sargent’s salary and the school’s complete lack of a fitting response to all the controversy.

Most notably missing from the event was the man of the hour himself, David Sargent, who, so far, has had nothing to say to the ever-growing pile of scathing stories in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. As the supposed “face of Suffolk,” it is deeply disappointing that Sargent was not at the event to field questions and his conspicuous absence demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the student body.

But, the student body itself demonstrated its utter apathy by producing a dismal turn-out. The students of Suffolk have every right to be upset about Sargent’s exorbitant salary, but those who did not attend forfeited their right to complain, as they passed up a great opportunity to air their grievances to the Administration. Even the students who were there failed to address the real issues at hand, and not a single person brought up Sargent’s salary, which was the driving force behind the forum.

Other questions regarding problems such as the budget, expansion (which was talked about to death) and the Ride Along program provided good opportunities for discussion, only to be squandered by the panelists who gave long-winded, irrelevant answers that pussy-footed around the subjects.

VP Flannery said that 95 percent of the school’s budget was based on tuition. In other words, we are paying Sargent’s salary, but no one picked up on this or asked the panel how Sargent’s salary can be justified.

VP Nucci stated that he is always available by phone. The Journal has tried numerous times to contact Nucci for an interview to no avail.

And Provost Brown simply took every opportunity to avoid answering questions and instead talked about how great Suffolk is. (The way we heard it: Thanks for giving me 45 minutes to ramble, Brian… I’ll get to your questions about where President Sargent is, but I’ve got 44 more minutes to talk about how awesome Suffolk is.)

Overall, nothing was accomplished, but that is not because of a lack of effort from the SGA who sent countless emails reminding students to attend. This was a missed opportunity for students to finally speak up about everything that’s been going on.

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Editor’s word: Dec. 9, 2009