Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) Vice President for Facilities and Sustainability Bridgett McCoy ’15 resigned from her position on BSG’s Executive Committee on February 12.
Kyle Wolstencroft ’15, class of 2015 representative, won an in internal BSG election 14-9 against At-Large Representative David Levine ’16 and will replace McCoy.
McCoy said she stepped down because of personal reasons regarding her academic commitments.
“I’m a senior who is doing an honors project and I had to cut out some commitments, unfortunately, to make that work,” McCoy said. “Extracurriculars for me are supposed to be fun, and [BSG] was a lot of time commitment and something I could get out of.”
In addition to her honors project, McCoy’s other major time commitments include working an on-campus job and singing in a chamber choir, which is one of her classes this semester. As a result, her position on BSG was the only extracurricular she could leave without academic or financial ramifications.
“It was unfortunate that I had to leave this opportunity because it has an impact on students, but I decided that I just couldn’t make it happen with all my other things, and it was adding a lot of stress to my life,” McCoy said. “It was a personal decision about my academic commitments.”
McCoy also expressed an interest in pursuing activism outside of BSG.
“I wanted to give back to the school in a way where the time commitment is less rigid,” McCoy wrote in an email to the Orient.
BSG President Chris Breen ’15 supports McCoy’s pursuit of activism, but wishes she would have used BSG as her resource.
“I don’t really see any better way to work on activism projects than to be involved in BSG and to be in a position like the VP of facilities and sustainability,” said Breen. “I think that would be a very good position to advance those goals and motives.”
Although she resigned on Thursday, McCoy remained involved in BSG before its internal election to replace her.
“I just tied up some loose ends—there were a couple of things like getting movie tickets that just needed to happen that I just did, so that the person who’s following me doesn’t have to do it,” McCoy said.
Breen hopes to maintain the continuity of projects of the Facilities and Sustainability Committee between McCoy and her successor.
“It kind of puts the BSG in a tough position in terms of replacing someone with such a limited time span left this year,” Breen said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to finish up the projects—a lot of people in that committee were spearheading some of those, so I think we’ll be in good hands with the people who are in the committee.”
According to the BSG Constitution, vacancies in the Executive Committee are be filled through an internal election.
The bylaws regarding resignation were added to the Constitution in 2007 when a class representative became the first member in the history of BSG to resign, according to a January 2007 Orient article.
The last time a member of the Executive Committee resigned was in 2008 when both Vice President of BSG Affairs Kata Solow ’10 and Vice President of Student Affairs Tony Thrower ’09 stepped down, according to a January 2008 Orient article. Solow left her position as vice president to assume the new role of BSG policy director, and Thrower resigned to pursue other interests.