An agenda for disaster

Frustrations continued to escalate among students as they anxiously awaited thefinal shipment of the Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) handbook last week. It was delayed due to a series of misunderstandings between the CSU and printing company SAMCO Impressions.
About 8,000 have been received out of the 14,000 that were ordered. “It’s just really frustrating that it’s the fourth week into school and we don’t have agendas, especially when you have five classes, it’s hard to get organized,”
says Bana Abdul-Haq, a political science and economics student.
The agendas are created annually by the CSU and are distributed free of charge to students. It was expected that this organizing tool would be available as soon as classes began. However, this year there was a marked delay in their arrival.
According to CSU president Sabrina Stea, the initial CD copy of the agenda was supposed to have been handed in by Aug. 6, a date Stea said was mutually agreed upon by the student union and the printing company. The printing company owner Osama Hassan refuted this and said the date agreed upon was actually Aug. 9.
A series of misunderstandings between the two parties ensued soon after the initial submission of the CD to the printer. The CSU complained that Hassan did not make them a priority and was not efficient in his work.
On the other hand Hassan, lamented the CSU’s lack of understanding of the printing procedures, alleging that the numerous technical errors the union made slowed down his job considerably and affected his business with other clients.
“A kid from day care could do better, than they did. They [the CSU] are not business people and they are not serious. Their graphics guy had no idea about printer specifications,” said Hassan.
He added that he regrets the day that he ever took on the CSU contract. Hassan said that he would rather do his client’s artwork because his employees know what they are doing, but the CSU insisted that they would supply the artwork.
Brian Apka and Malin Holmquist, both third year design students from the fine arts department said that the graphics were unbelievably bad. Apka added that there were a number of basic errors of design. Holmquist said that she would not use the agenda.
“We have some excellent people here [design students] and they could have done a way better job than this. They should have consulted somebody from our department,” said Apka.
Laith Marouf, vp internal for the CSU and who was expelled said that no one had come forward for the job and they gave it to Chadi Marouf, who had designed CSU posters the previous year.
Responding to Hassan’s accusation, Stea said, her committee took on a job they could handle by claiming many of the people working on the agenda had done it the year before and knew what they were doing. She added that she did accept some responsibility for the delay, saying the CSU was a little late handing in their final draft on Aug. 20.
Hassan said that the final copy was in fact given to him on Aug. 29 and that the time allotted for printing was 27 days, meaning that if he delivers by the time this article goes to print, he would not have been late at all.
Hassan has been paid two thirds of his quoted price with the last third to come upon final delivery. The contract allows Hassan to charge for delays caused by revisions and corrections and the CSU will pay the bill. The student union would not comment about that.
Handbook causes controversy Students who were quick enough to actually get a copy of the student handbook, entitled Uprising, have a different kind of complaint. Frederick Lowy, Concordia’s rector and vice-chancellor, has received many negative comments on the publication. He stated in a press release dated Sept. 21 that the CSU is an
autonomous corporation and the opinions expressed by its members do not reflect those of the university.
Lowy added that the handbook contained inflammatory and possibly libelous statements about the university and that the student union is has the full legal and moral responsibility for the contents of the handbook.
For many students, the problem with the handbook is its theme. “I am all for free speech but something was really off about the agenda. It seemed like a handbook for revolution,” said Adam Tzemopoulos, a fine arts student.
“A handbook is supposed to be something that gives information, not try to change your point of view,” said Saira Khalid, a Management Information Systems student.
Orel Tapiro, an economics student said the handbook was a disaster and had nothing to do with student life at Concordia.
A Muslim student, wearing a hijab was shocked at the content on page 81, which showed a drawing of a woman who is topless with a sex-toy strapped on. The woman refused to give her name, but did say that the pictures had very little to say to her.
“I don’t expect all students to feel the same way,” held Stea in defense of her editors’ opinions, “but our goal was to collect different points of view.”

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