Board of Governors meetings to remain unfilmed
Concordia’s Board of Governors has voted not to further accommodate people interested in sitting in on a BoG meeting.
The board rejected a series of motions aimed at accommodating a wider audience at their meetings last Thursday, as per the suggestion of their executive committee. The motions called for open sessions of the board’s monthly meetings to be broadcasted, a set-aside time for an open question period every meeting and an emphasis on only resorting to closed session when absolutely necessary.
However, many board members expressed concerns that the increased publicity of their meetings would result in governors feeling camera shy and hesitant to talk openly. Graduate student representative
Erik Chevrier presented the four motions at the Nov. 17 board meeting in an effort to “increase transparency.” His proposal became the subject of heavy debate, with the members discussing the motions for nearly a full hour. Of the four, a motion asking for meeting rooms to accommodate a minimum of 50 seats for non-board members was voted down immediately, but the remaining three were sent to the board’s executive committee for further review.
ASFA breaks rules to allow affiliations in upcoming elections
In an effort to make campaigning easier, candidates interested in running in the upcoming Arts and Science Federation of Associations elections will now be able to affiliate with one another.
At a meeting held last Thursday, ASFA voted to make a change to Annex A, the document used to govern their elections, to give individually-running candidates the right to support each other’s platforms. In order to make the change, ASFA also had to vote to temporarily lift Article 93 of Annex A, a rule which prohibits amendments to Annex A within a thirty days “of the nomination period for the annual general election.”
The decision to change the rule was not unanimous, some student association reps worrying that the new rule would return ASFA elections to the bullying and team-versus-team antagonizing that darkened previous elections.
Now amended, the old rule, which forbade any sort of co-operation or party-forming between candidates, came as a response to ASFA’s 2010 general elections which were marked by animosity and sabotaging between slates, as well as multiple contestations. ASFA’s elections are tentatively set for Feb. 15,16 and 17.
