By By Rob Tokanel, News Staff

In a Resident Student Association (RSA) meeting last night, an address from Northeastern President Joseph Aoun was overshadowed by the ongoing controversy regarding the intentions of newly elected RSA Vice President for Housing Services and Student Government Association (SGA) presidential nominee Matt Soleyn.
Aoun opened the meeting and stressed the importance of community relations and the need for RSA members to be the ‘best ambassadors’ for the university.
‘You are not only residents of Northeastern, you are also residents of the city of Boston,’ he said. ‘We are all living in challenging times, and more than ever we need to be present [in the community].’
After he spoke and answered questions for about 20 minutes, two elections took place at the meeting; Brittiny-Rae Gagnon won an unopposed election for vice president for programming for RSA, while Jillian Rose Butler, who also ran unopposed, was elected national communication coordinator.
Several RSA members nominated Matt Soleyn for each of the positions; to the first nomination, he replied that he was ‘not going to even answer to the nomination.’
As the meeting came to a close, a council member motioned that Soleyn formally apologize and explain his future intentions for RSA after making statements in last week’s RSA meeting that some members thought were contradictory to what he told The News the day after.
Soleyn last Wednesday was reelected to his vice presidential post in RSA, telling The News in a phone interview after the RSA election that he would ‘maintain both jobs’ if he were elected SGA president.
However, according to the minutes from last Wednesday’s RSA election, Soleyn was asked about his plans ‘for student body president if elected.’ His response was, ‘My priorities are to this organization, so if I win both, I will not accept the student body president position.’
In an interview with The News last night, Soleyn said ‘the minutes got recorded incorrectly’ and that he had said ‘I probably would not accept student body president, which left it a little bit more in the air.’
When asked about the discrepancy between maintaining both jobs and probably dropping one of them, Soleyn said he hadn’t made a firm decision at the time of RSA elections.
RSA General Councilor Steven McBride said Soleyn made several motions in an attempt to avoid having to address the group last night to explain and apologize, none of which passed. Two RSA members who wished to remain anonymous said that at 9:03 p.m., Soleyn made a motion to adjourn the session at 9:05 p.m. in a last effort to avoid responding to the request, which was shot down by an overwhelming majority.
‘I think we just wanted it explained because we had two different sides of the story,’ McBride said. ‘Some people were obviously upset, but others just wanted to know what was going on; they wanted the truth told to them.’
Several RSA members reported that when Soleyn finally stood up to address the group, he spoke for several minutes without addressing the topic of his intentions or offering an apology.
‘He said that he hadn’t put a lot of thought into it, he had been bogged down with school and different projects, and then when asked to respond directly to the question in the end, he declined to comment,’ McBride said.
McBride said the council voted to allow Soleyn 10 minutes at next week’s RSA meeting to explain the miscommunication. The meeting, which will be held Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in 305 Shillman Hall, is open to the public.
McBride said he felt the decision to allow Soleyn to gather himself and prepare a response was fair because RSA should not force anyone to speak.
‘It was done in a democratic fashion,’ McBride said. ‘It got a little bit heated, but it was fairly civil, and I think we we just trying to get done what everyone in the council wanted to see happen.’

‘- News staff Maggie Cassidy
contributed to this report.