Author: Sarah Deshaies

After a fraught 18 hours after news broke that both of the slates running in the 2011 CSU elections were disqualified, the April council meeting took place with almost nary a mention of the unprecedented decision. Chief electoral officer Oliver Cohen, who put out the decision late Tuesday night, was not present at the council meeting.
Before presenting her presidential report, CSU president Heather Lucas issued a statement on behalf of her executive that highly criticized Cohen’s move.
“It is shocking and unfortunate that the CEO has made the decision to disqualify both slates, as it makes a mockery of the CSU, and ultimately does a disservice to the most important people at this university, the students.”
She reminded meeting attendees that any recourse would not happen through the council or the executive.
“Please don’t believe for a second that any of us will have a hand in any of the rulings,” she said. “We can only hope that the judicial board will render a decision that is in the best interests of the 30,000 students at Concordia.” As if following Lucas’ lead, there were no discussions about the disqualifications at council.
Speaking after the meeting, current councillor and, up until late Tuesday night, president-elect Lex Gill stated that she and rival Khalil Haddad would be filing a grievance with the judicial board about Cohen’s ruling. After the meeting, she confirmed that they would be filing within the five juridical day limit to speak out against the CEO’s decision.
Gill also motioned to establish the CSU annual general meeting on May 9 and have Cohen present a report to the CSU.
Many disqualified candidates, either elected or defeated at the polls, showed up at the council meeting, including several current councillors and students-at-large like Haddad and ex-VP sustainability and promotions Morgan Pudwell. The entirety of the meeting proceeded as usual, ending in under three hours.
Cohen disqualified all the candidates on both Action and Your Concordia in separate emails late Tuesday night, citing violations to postering, polling procedures and campaigning rules, among other regulations. However, the exact details of the violations were not released. In addition, YC candidates have been banned from holding or seeking office for the next two years. The slate was accused by Cohen as having submitted false election expense reimbursements. No one, including candidates, have been able to contact Cohen since he sent out the ruling.
Four independent candidates were the only ones to not be disqualified by Cohen . Former arts and science councillor hopeful Alex Matak was present at council. She played down any suggestions that she might be able to take the seat she lost two weeks, citing that her big concern is the democratic process and that students’ voices are heard.
“I’m most interested that the way students voted shines through,” Matak said, adding, “I didn’t get elected, and that’s fine, but the most important thing was that the democratic process is honoured.”

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CSU Notes

Lex Gill was voted by acclaim onto the presidential search committee to replace interim president Frederick Lowy. The Board of governors secretary Danielle Tessier specified to Lucas that the one student member must be a current councillor, but did not set a timeline for the committee.

VP Loyola Hassan Abdullahi will be writing a presentation to the external governance review committee on behalf of undergraduate students. He stated it will urge the university to allow students more say in governance. Some councillors encouraged students to submit their own opinions to the BoG secretary. Abdullahi stated that he will make his comments open to students before he submits the the extended deadline on May 2.

Council first rejected a motion to match fundraising by first-year club Humanitarian Affairs at Concordia University. The organization is sending 13 students on a trip to a leadership symposium and refugee camp; the total cost for expenses, including fees, flight costs and medical and school supplies for distribution at the camp is almost $38,000. HACU asked council to grant the group $5,000 to match their fundraising efforts. Had the CSU made the donation, it would have defrayed $380 from each student’s total cost to $2,121.54.
Most councillors spoke out against the motion, citing concerns that the costs would impact too few students. HACU founder and 2010 trip participant Teresa Seminara spoke in favour of the motion, highlighting that the students on the trip would return to the campus and spread what they had learned to other members of the student body.
Councillor Michaela Manson shared those concerns. “It just doesn’t seem to be justifiable to give $5,000 for13 people to participate, where you could put $5,000 locally and achieve a lot more,” she argued.
VP Loyola Hassan Abdullahi said he was concerned that the fact that HACU did not apply to financial committee for funds was setting a precedent for clubs who skip applying to fincom or special project funding and go straight to the CSU for support.
VP finance and clubs Ramy Khoriaty added that the clubs budget, which has $2,000 remaining, would not be able to accommodate the cost. The motion failed with no votes in favour of the motion.
But towards the end, Khoriaty motioned to cover the costs of the medicine. Finally, council voted to award $575 to HACU to cover the cost of the medicine.

The Hive is set to open by fall 2011. Meanwhile, fine arts students will present their designs for the Loyola student space next week. VP Loyola Abduallahi said a soft launch is being prepared for this spring.

Disorganized, lacking in leadership and neglectful: this is how former councillors and one employee who have worked with Morgan Pudwell are characterizing her after the former CSU executive resigned from her position as VP sustainability and promotions.

Both her detractors and supporters have come out swinging since she emailed her three-page resignation letter shortly after midnight Friday March 4. In it, Pudwell levelled a number of accusations against the CSU.

At council on Wednesday, March 9, both Pudwell and the executive she left restated letters shared earlier in the week. Members of the executive laughed quietly, seemingly in cynical disbelief while Pudwell read, and the former VP sighed while president Heather Lucas read their comments.

After an intense stand-off of supporters ended that meeting early, Pudwell circulated another statement she didn’t have the chance to read aloud because of the ensuing brouhaha.

Shortly before the meeting began, however, Arts and Science councillor Teresa Seminara circulated a letter signed by 16 out of 27 CSU councillors. In it, Pudwell is singled out for having failed as chair of the women’s caucus, a committee started last year at council that is allotted $500 to plan pro-women’s activities. As council took place the day after the 100th anniversary of the international women’s day, it was clear that there were few if any activities to commemorate the annual event.

“Over the past academic year, Pudwell has demonstrated a lack of leadership and accountability as our student representative, especially with regards to her role as chair of the women’s caucus,” the letter reads.

Pudwell, however, said that the blame does not fall squarely to her shoulders. She and Lucas, she said, were co-chairs. But in an email forwarded by Pudwell to the Concordian, Lucas informed Pudwell on Feb. 28, before her resignation, that she was not a co-chair to begin with, but only there to help. Pudwell believes the accusations that she bungled Women’s week and that the event was cancelled because of her resignation, are attempts to “discredit” her character. She claims that she sent out two emails to caucus members, but that a meeting never materialized due to lack of response, and that Seminara herself failed to inform her of any ideas she had for the week’s events.

Pudwell also suggested that women’s week could have gone forward regardless, since she had prepared promotional material for the event.

Alexandra Baptista, a graduating JMSB councillor not seeking re-election for any position, sat on the women’s caucus committee with several other councillors. She did not sign Seminara’s letter, but is not sure where to assign the blame. “I think there was a lack of organizing there, at the chair level. [Women’s week] was just brought to our attention twice,” she said, referring to the emails sent out by Pudwell. “I think more could have been done in that respect, for sure.”

She was also under the impression that Lucas and Pudwell were co-chairs.

Beyond the women’s caucus, one former CSU employee alleges that Pudwell was never prepared with promotional material for other campaigns, which falls under her portfolio. Daniel Shakibaian, a JMSB student on leave from the CSU as a campaigns manager, who is seeking both a council and senate seat on the Action slate (which is running two executives that Shakibaian worked with during his tenure, Hassan Abdullahi and Ramy Khoriaty) said that campaigns were hurt because Pudwell did not have posters and materials prepared when required. Shakibaian worked with the new executive from the start of their term in June 2010, to January 2011. He said working with Pudwell was “a little frustrating, to be honest.”

When reached on Monday night about Shakibaian’s comments, Pudwell countered that she was not given enough notice to request graphics from CSU designers. “At the end of the day, they’re artists, and they need to be given a reasonable amount of time, and to expect all types of flyers and posters in an hour after just giving them the information that the event was even happening is unreasonable.”

Pudwell highlighted the fall Peace week campaign as a rushed project, while Shakibaian said the $1 campaign, his first, faltered because of promotional material. Because Pudwell failed to delegate tasks, he could not get promotional material for two weeks, and he had to launch a campaign without flyers and posters.

But communications, Pudwell said, are behind the snafus.“The executives didn’t talk to me very often, especially [Adrien Severyns and Shakibaian] when they were planning events, gave us very little notice in time to get their posters done.”

Speaking after the council meeting, members of the executive seemed to still be in shock by Pudwell’s resignation.

“I must have read that letter probably 50 times,” said VP Loyola and advocacy Hassan Abdullahi of Pudwell’s resignation letter. “Trying to make sense of it and just where she was coming from, it completely knocked us off guard because on the day before Heather and her were out singing karaoke. It was baseless accusations I’ve heard a million times over and I found them very silly, a joke honestly.”

But Pudwell maintains that she is being attacked by a specific group of people: “I think it’s interesting that a lot of these people are from the same group of friends, or the same group of political ideas.”

As for the questions raised about her competency as an executive, “I think that [the executive] is starting to feel they’re being questioned too much,” she said, “and rather than dealing with those issues, […] all they’re trying to talk about right now is whether or not I printed posters in time […] I think that’s completely inappropriate and not the point at all.”

When school resumes in a little more than one week, one familiar face will be missing from Concordia. Judith Woodsworth stepped down Dec. 22 as president and vice-chancellor, posts she held for slightly more than two years, effective immediately.

The reasons for her stepping down are personal, according to a university-issued statement that was emailed to students.

“Dr. Woodsworth loved the students, and got to know many of them despite the sheer size of the student body,” the statement reads. “She was approachable, and was indeed approached [by students] in the library, in Le Gym, in elevators and hallways, in coffee shops around the campus and even out on the street. Convocation was her favourite time of year, and she exuded her characteristic warmth as every student crossed the stage.”

Despite the affectionate and appreciative statement, some university staff members have said Woodsworth was forced to leave. One university employee told the Concordian that she had been let go a few days before the statement was issued.

Woodsworth has declined to comment for the moment, according to her husband and former chair of Concordia’s journalism department, Lindsay Crysler. He told the Concordian she had been into work earlier in the week, including Dec. 22, the day of the announcement.

Woodsworth served less time than is needed to complete a bachelor’s degree at Concordia, for a period of just 28 months. She had two years remaining in her contract, and will receive a severance just over $700,000, the equivalent of two years’ salary.

Her successor will be the third president to serve Concordia in five years.

Prior to Woodsworth, Claude Lajeunesse served only two years of his five-year contract before walking away from the job in 2007, amidst reports he was disliked.

Despite the abrupt news, the doors will apparently remain open to the former president: “Dr. Woodsworth will be welcomed back to the Faculty should she avail herself of that option,” said Peter Kruyt, chair of the Board of Governors. Woodsworth was a member of Concordia’s Département d’études française in the “80s and “90s.

The sudden departure comes shortly after two of the university’s vice-presidents vacated their jobs this fall. VP external Michael Di Grappa took a position at McGill, and Kathy Assayag stepped down from her post as VP of advancement and alumni relations.

But Concordia dismisses this trend as a symptom of anything serious. “There’s comings and goings,” said communications officer Fiona Downie. “We actually don’t feel that there have been more departures than there are at other universities of senior administration.”

Vice-president of external relations Bram Freedman will be filling in as acting president over the holidays, and an interim president is to be named in January. The search for a new president will also begin shortly, Downie said.