After he was charged with indecent exposure in January, Residence Halls Association President Andrew Eastman was pressured to resign by the majority of the members in his organization.

The pressure continued to mount as five of the group's eight other executive board members stepped down when Eastman decided he wouldn't.

Though Eastman has been found not guilty of the indecent exposure charge, some former board members are sticking by their decisions to quit, saying that Eastman's guilt or innocence in the case had nothing to do with their decision.

Jerry Ilar, former RHA vice president for public relations, said his decision was partly based on the arrest, but that the charge was just one of "a combination of things."

"He handled things in a way I did not agree with," Ilar said of Eastman. "And after the arrest, I lost all confidence I had in him."

Dave Xia, former RHA vice president for national relations for the group - which acts as the student government of University residence halls - expressed a similar sentiment.

"The arrest was definitely a factor," he said. "It sort of brought everything together for me."

Despite the five resignations, Eastman said he doesn't anticipate there being any more problems in the organization.

"In fact, now it is even better than before," he said. "There's a new level of excitement. Honestly, we're past it."

Ilar, Xia and Folake Famoye, former RHA vice president for internal relations, said they were disappointed with the lack of communication between Eastman and the executive board.

Xia and Ilar pointed to specific events that factored into their decisions to resign, including Eastman's refusal to quit his post.

Even though the RHA executive board has no power to remove a president from office, board members held a non-binding vote on whether Eastman should resign. A majority said he should. Following that non-binding vote, Eastman made clear that he planned to keep his position.

"After the vote, Andrew said he had never even considered resigning," Xia said.

Eastman said he made that decision to help the group work more efficiently. He said his leadership style changed when he felt the board members got off track in their discussions.

"I think Dave had a problem with me going from 'Let's talk about everything,' to making some decisions on my own," Eastman said.

Famoye said the way Eastman handled the group's displeasure with his arrest was inappropriate.

"The way he handled the arrest was a culminating thing," Famoye said. "I didn't feel welcome by members of the (executive) board, the atmosphere was getting to a point, and it peaked with the arrest."

She also described the atmosphere on the board as "hostile."

Eastman maintained that he only made unilateral decisions to speed up the organization's meetings.

"At times, I wanted to just make the decision so we could move on to other, more important issues," he said.

Despite the issues taking place within the group, some felt compelled to stay.

RHA Executive Vice President Stephen Siciliano was one of those members.

"I knew that even if there was this elephant in the room, we would still be able to get things done," he said.

Siciliano said resigning crossed his mind, but only briefly, as the downsides to quitting would have been too great. But he did say Eastman could have done more to build better relationships with members in the group before they resigned.

"Obviously, if you have five executive board members resigning, there's a problem with the leadership," Siciliano said.

Even those who left the organization seem confident that RHA can rebound from the falling out.

"I have confidence they can recover," Ilar said.