The gavel will bang as the last students file into senate chambers Thursday for the weekly Student Government Association (SGA) meeting. As the president calls order, Andres Vargas will take his seat among his fellow senators.
Vargas, the former SGA president, was forced to resign his position and leave campus in September after the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR) found him responsible for hosting an illegal party in his Mission Hill residence last August. Now, as his suspension ends and a new semester begins, Vargas said he is simply trying to get on with his life.
“I’m taking a lot of classes and just trying to get ready to graduate in April,” the senior political science major said.
In September, during the senate meeting in which he resigned his position, Vargas said he would be back for the spring semester to act as a senator. Now that the time has come, Vargas said he will do his best to attend meetings and remain a part of the organization he once led.
“I will be in senate every day that I’m not in work,” he said. While he said he has tried to keep in contact with the executive board, he said they’ve done a good job adapting to the situation and have moved on well.
“I’ve been away for a little while so that kind of separated me from them for a little bit, but I’ve been trying to keep track with what’s been going on [in SGA],” he said.
Although Vargas appealed the sanction given to him by OSCCR, he found out a few weeks after his resignation that the decision would not be overturned. Vargas, along with George Gottschalk, a senator in SGA, both had to serve out their semester-long suspension.
Gottschalk, Vargas’ roommate over the summer, was also found responsible for holding the illegal party. While Vargas lost his presidency, Gottschalk lost his scholarship and was forced to pick up three jobs in order to stay financially afloat.
“Before, I had a scholarship, and it was significant, $6,000 a semester, and now I have to come up with that on my own,” said Gottschalk, a sophomore international affairs major. “Losing my student loans, it was really hard to just pay rent and live for the time I was suspended.”
Gottschalk said he, too, will return to student government, but will be unable to serve as a senator because he is not a full-time student. Instead of taking on a full class load, Gottschalk will only take two classes this semester in order to focus on his position in real estate, which he took because of his suspension. The months off from school gave him a chance to focus his life, he said.
“Before [the suspension] I was bouncing around; I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he said. “I was forced to go out and find a bunch of jobs and now it looks like real estate is what I want to get into full time. It gave me an opportunity to explore a whole new realm of career options.”
Although the brunt of the punishment is over, both Vargas and Gottschalk said they thought the sanctions brought against them were too harsh.
“I’ll never agree with the sanctions Northeastern gave me and George,” Vargas said.
While there were others who stepped forward to take the blame, Vargas said he was blamed for the entire incident.
“I think the punishment did not fit the crime. I chose not to get involved and just let it be and walk away,” he said, “and somehow the responsibility was found to be all mine.”
But now that it’s all over, Gottschalk said it’s time to move on.
“Everyone that supported me before this happened continues to support me,” he said. “One of the things I’m trying to do here at this university is to try to grow up, to try to become a little bit more mature, as well as pursue academic achievement, and I’m trying to take everything with a grain of salt.”
