Outgoing Student Government Association President Kaiyi Xie said he hopes the changes he began implementing last long after he leaves.
While forwarding his ideas often led him to clash with administrators and members of his own organization, outgoing SGA President Kaiyi Xie hopes he set the stage for campuswide change that will continue long after he leaves.
Xie said he accomplished much of what he set out to do when he ran for the Student Government Association presidency a year ago, including drastically reforming the funding process for student groups, spearheading work on a new policy to require professors to post syllabi online earlier before each semester and working with state lawmakers and university officials toward creating a university-run online voter registration system, which Xie said he hopes may be up and running in time for this year’s presidential election.
For initiatives such as student group funding reform, Xie said his goal was to give more autonomy to the student body rather than increase the power of the SGA.
“I still think my vision for making the SGA redundant is a valid one,” Xie said. “I wanted to give students the tools to take charge of their education, and the SGA’s here as a resource.”
Xie also campaigned tirelessly for college affordability in Annapolis, working with other student leaders across the system via grassroots lobbying efforts and looking to give students a voice before state officials.
“What set him apart from other presidents that I’ve worked with is that he cares so much about higher education for every student in Maryland,” said Staci Armezzani, who served as Xie’s chief of staff this semester.
University President Wallace Loh said it was the work of Kaiyi and the other SGA members who campaigned alongside him that truly got lawmakers’ attentions.
“They are so passionate and eloquent in advancing the interests of students. I felt very, very proud of them,” Loh said. “Of course we have disagreements, but on the really major issues – holding tuition down, avoiding big cuts to the university, advocating for more funding for the university, making sure students have a voice in the decisions of the administration – they were extremely effective.”
However, Xie’s tenure often set him at odds with the University Senate. The SGA fought unsuccessfully to have the senate overturn its decision to implement a new plus-and-minus GPA system, and Xie battled with senators for months to consider increasing transparency and student participation in reviewing the student fees students pay each year on top of tuition.
Xie protested when the senate’s Student Affairs Committee drastically amended his original proposal to reform the student fee review process, which he submitted alongside outgoing Graduate Student Government President Anna Bedford in October. Last month, the senate sent the measure back to committee after Xie submitted a minority report urging the organization to do so.
As one of his last acts as president, Xie and the SGA executives submitted a proposal to the senate to improve accountability and transparency in senate proceedings.
“I understand there are concerns about respecting people’s time, because we all volunteer for this,” Xie said. “But at a certain point, when it affects the lives of other people with the fee money they pay, I think there should be a higher standard for our representatives and leaders to uphold.”
Matthew Popkin, who served as Xie’s senior vice president, said while the SGA saw a “very productive” year, Xie’s greatest weakness may have lay in his adversarial dealings with the senate.
“He took an approach that may or may not have been the most productive in terms of fostering collaboration, particularly between undergraduate senators and the SGA,” Popkin said.
At times, Xie also found himself at odds with his own legislators over some of the body’s decisions. He vetoed two resolutions – one to support the plus-and-minus grading system on the condition it only apply to incoming freshmen and transfer students, and one that was later overrode with his support, after he reached an agreement with site founder and former Diamondback columnist Ben Simon to fund $2,500 to the student-created website, MyMaryland.net.
The SGA also lost a significant number of legislators over the course of the year, which former Speaker Pro Tempore Andrea Marcin said may have been the byproduct of a disconnect between the body’s executives and the legislature.
“I think [Xie] is incredibly bright … and he provoked a lot of antagonism from legislators, which was a good thing,” Marcin said. “But I’m not sure if he involved legislators in the process as much as he could have.”
Xie said he wished he had been more hands-on with the legislature early in the year, noting members did not have the opportunity to bond after canceling the annual early fall SGA retreat to save money.
“Some might have felt I didn’t empower them enough in the SGA for them to take charge of their involvement in the SGA,” Xie said. “If I give people something, it’s my idea, not theirs. I see myself as more of a resource, fostering them to think more about ideas and initiatives that they want to do. But perhaps if I’d worked with them more at an earlier stage we could have accomplished more.”
Incoming SGA President Samantha Zwerling said she plans to continue much of the work Xie started, especially with regard to reforming the student fee review process.
“He was a very good advocate for students,” Zwerling said. “He was a good bridge between the students and administrators, and I think he led the way for what I’ll work on next year.”
And Xie – who plans to go to law school and continue a business he started with a few fellow students – said he would rather see the changes he sparked continue at the university than have students remember the name and face behind them.
“A lot of things I stood for don’t develop in a year. A lot of things on this campus have been moving in one direction, and it’s difficult to change course,” Xie said. “My actions ought to speak for myself – what I did, and not myself personally. I think that’s what matters most.”
villanueva@umdbk.com
