Students to be elected to Concordia’s senate & Board of Governors

In an attempt to further legitimate and democratize the university’s
senate and Board of Governor’s (BoG), the CSU council of representatives passed a motion at its May 8 meeting to change student seats on the bodies from appointed to elected positions.
Not only will the move help to give the positions more credibility, said
interim CSU President Patrice Blais, but it will also increase the
visibility of these two very important decision-making bodies.
The motion calls for the four undergraduate positions on the BoG to be
changed from four appointed students to: the CSU president, one
councillor appointed by council, and two elected student governors
elected by the entire undergraduate body.
The ten seats reserved for undergraduate students on the university
senate will be changed from appointed seats to the following: one seat
will be given to the CSU president and the CSU VP academic, but without
voting rights. Two councillors appointed by council will fill another
two seats. A CSU member appointed by council will fill one seat. A
student elected from each of the undergraduate faculties will occupy the
remaining five seats.
The change for the BoG was met with some opposition.
Engineering and computer science councillor Chae Dickie-Clark expressed fears that students in the faculty of arts and science would dominate the seats, since they form more than half of the undergraduate
population.
Dickie-Clark’s motion to amend the resolution to have one seat from fine
arts, engineering and computer science and the John Molson School of
Business and the other from arts and science and independent students
was rejected. In the end the motion passed seven to one.
It is not known when the elections will take place.