Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Galen Foulke's impeachment has left many students feeling disenfranchised with USG and administrators saying they are seeing more of the same old problems.

Internal fighting in USG has plagued the organization for years, said Philip Burlingame, assistant vice president for student affairs. He said the bickering often makes students outside USG disinterested in student government.

"We've had all kinds of iterations of the same type of thing," he said. "I don't see how the interests of students are served by the play out of these political infights."

Burlingame said the infighting could be the result of "students who are more interested in internal politics."

Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey said she thinks the organization's current structure fails to give students an effective voice because internal fighting "jeopardized their credibility" in the eyes of outsiders.

"It is unfortunate that student leaders with the best intentions to serve their fellow students repeatedly get bogged down in these battles," she said in an e-mail message.

Students also said they thought infighting was pointless.

"I think it's kind of foolish wasting time arguing rather than focusing on student issues," Bill Cahill (sophomore-civil engineering) said.

The USG Academic Assembly impeached Foulke Monday night on grounds of malfeasance and alleged violations of the USG Constitution.

USG's two legislative bodies, the Senate and the assembly, established a Nov. 30 trial date for the impeachment trial. The trial will be held during a joint session of the two bodies, where a two-thirds vote would be required to find Foulke guilty.

Triponey said Foulke's recently established commission to review the USG Constitution is a step in the right direction, but according to the assembly's impeachment charges, the commission is a violation of his oath of office.

When creating the commission, Foulke publicly criticized the document, which the assembly claims is against his oath to defend it, said Brad Hoagland, the assembly's vice president of operations.

"It's just that the president has spoken against the USG Constitution, that he has charged a commission with rewriting it," Hoagland said.

Judy Albin, associate director of unions and student activities, said she supports Foulke's commission because she feels discrepancies in the USG Constitution cause confusion. She said confusion was evident at Tuesday night's Senate meeting, where senators spent about an hour debating the rules of impeachment as defined in the document.

Jamie Ziegenfuss, USG's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allies community affairs director, said the commission would work to create a system without USG's current flaws.

"I think it's symptomatic of the problems USG has had that Galen is trying to fix," he said.

But Albin said the commission has caused resentment among others in USG.

"I think it's come back to bite him in the butt," she said.

However, Leslie Hubbard, Smeal College of Business representative, said it is too soon to consider the situation a done deal. She said she fears many students think Foulke will definitely be removed from office.

"The point of this process is just to do some research and investigate to see if what we allege is true or not," she said. "For some reason, everyone seems to think he will be removed."

Adena Schwartz contributed to this report for the Collegian.