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the Unlversi_ty of Florida.A. r was erected to the stui] rt senate fi-ve times,starting in fall of 1989. And r wa rlected student bodytreasurer 1993-spring of ,93. And s. rdent body president,spring of L994. r was also invorved in Accent and severalother student government organizations.a. would you please describe the Florida Blue Keytapping process, and particularly the role of group leadersand the house and group system in the process, if any.A. The process of tappingr, from my tenure there, was onof students submitted their r6sum6s on regal-sized sheets ofpaper. They were compiled and heard by a tapping committeeexcuse me-by evaluations committee, based on rules set by atapping committee.

And the evaluations committee, r believe, had fourstudents and three facurty rnembers. They ranked thosestudents highly recommended, recommended, not recommended, ornot qualified.

And then we went into a ser-ection process whereindividuals got together and came up witrr a list, a floatlist. And sometimes that r-ist got approved; sometimes itdidn't. Numerous times students who were not on the list gotin.a. well-, telr us about the float rist and how .they werecreated.

) ) Vanl-andingirrr". l)y6e6"t & Vanlandinghaln <

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A. Individual_s from the di_fferent_from differenthouses would tal-k to whoever their group leader was abouttheir priority-their people that they wanted to get in. Anthose people would come up with a l-ist based on-you know,al-most generally speaki-ng, all the highly recommended peoplegot in first round. only hiqhry recommended or recommendedpeople could be considered first round. And then they kind ogot debated out of there from there.

a. welr, what is ig-your opinion as to whether thepeople that were most favored by the various group leaderswould ultimately end up being tapped?A. A pretty high percentage, unless there wereextenuating circumstances. rf a student had had probrems,either disciplinary or criminal or academi_c or something,regardless of whether they were on the float or not, thenwould probably not get in, because they sti_ll needed two-thirds of a secret ballot.

thenthey

a. What role does the Florida Blue Key group leaders--the group l-eaders and the house and group system-have inselecting candidates for the student qovernment, presidency,for the Fl-orida Blue Key president, for the chairman of thepolitical party that/s going to run in a particular studentgovernment election to support candidatMR. BOBEK: Objection; leading.

BY MR. LITTLE:

Lr "t LJ) ) Vanlandingharn, Durscher & Vanlandingham ( (

{ifi[r i

8/9/2019 Thompkins Deposition, Part 1

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a. -and the selection of Homecominq director and GatoGrowl chairman, ML. Tompkins?A. A l-ot of question there.

Depends on-each one of those is-is sometimesrel-ated. The-the group leaders obviously had more ofmore of an interest and more of a say j-n thi-ngs that werei-nternal Blue Key positions. They al-so had some sort ofimpact on the student government elections.

But that varied by election and varied by people.The parties were usually-personnel were usual-Iy picked by-well, w may have been divvied up by group leaders, but theywould have been picked by either candidates or otherindividuals.

a. Wel-l, you say divvied up by group leaders. I wonder,are you familiar- Well let me ask you this:

Describe in particular the process by which thecandidates for the 1-995 spring student government electionwere selected.

A. As best I can recall, the-that particular agreemenwas a kind of a superdeal. It involved the Gator Growlproducer, the Homecoming gieneral chairman, the student bodypresident, vice-president, and treasurer slates. Studenttraffic court was in there. And then the party chai-rman andthe associate party chairs would have been there too.

a. Now, you in effect were the head-or were you in

) ) Vanlanclingham. Durscher rt Vanlanclingl.rani ( (ll,i ,;1 rlii'i'-r

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effect the head or the titular head of a group that-at thetime those choices were made?

MR. BOBEK: Mr. Little, thi-s arrangement isunsuccessful. I/m making the objection that I'm notgetting to voice my objections before you begin your nextquestion. I/m just barely able to hear the witness.

I would move to strike the witness' last answer asunresponsive to the question.

MR. LITTLE: Which-Mr. Bobek, which one do you wanto strike?

MR. BOBEK: The last answer. It seemed to describenumber of different offices, which wasn't the question.

BY MR. LITTLE:a. Mr. Tompkins, would you please tell the jury the

names of the groups in existence in connection with thespringt 1-995t student qovernment electi-on.A. It would have been Spe-De1ts, Pi-Tau, Supergroup, andAlpha-Delt.

a. And would you te11you were connected with.

A. Pi-Tau.the jury which one of those groups

0. And would you tel1 thecandidacies your group was ablesuperdeal you referred to.

jury what offices orto achieve out of the of the

A. Student body president, Gator Growl producer. We go

) ) Vanlandingharn, Durscher & Vanlandingharn ( ({jfiil l5t$7

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) ) Vanlandingharn, Durscher & Vanlandingham