Tag: campus

It has been a tumultuous year for the Concordia Student Union.

The CSU found itself in the spotlight on a weekly basis this year, but frequently for all the wrong reasons. Executive resignations, accusations of mismanagement and criticisms about a lack of action on student interests plagued the CSU this year and meetings became battlegrounds for a very polarized group of councillors. But president Heather Lucas isn’t apologizing; rather, the head of the union maintains that this year has been a successful one, one that saw more accomplishments than failures.

“Given the special circumstances that this year has brought, […] whether it was resignations at the university level, or at our level in the CSU, I think we’ve done an amazing job,” Lucas said. “I’m incredibly proud of this executive. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished this year given the bumps in the road.”

Of the eight campaign promises that Lucas’ Fusion slate was elected on in the spring of 2010, she and her remaining executive feel as though six were fulfilled, at least to the extent that was possible.

The promise to offer free coffee and snacks during exams and the monthly town hall meetings were completed in full, though the latter was characterized by poor student attendance and marketing.

While the CFS has still refused to recognize CSU referendum results in which students voted to leave the organization, the executive maintains that they’ve done everything in their power to keep their pledge of leaving the CFS.

This year the CSU began taking legal action in order to leave the organization. Vice-president external and projects Adrien Severyns said they did not want to resort to this recourse, but that the CFS left them no choice.

“This is quite an unfortunate turn of events but this is something that we were led to do and we think it will turn out well,” he said.

Other promises that the executive feel they have fulfilled include the expansion of the Loyola luncheon as well as a bottled water free campus.

While water bottles can still be found at Concordia, during last week’s elections a majority of students voted to ban bottled water on campus, something Lucas said is indicative of the success of the CSU and other student groups like TAPthirst in educating students and getting the word out this year.

“Hopefully with the PepsiCo contract we can get bottled water out of vending machines,” Lucas said, noting that she will be presenting the referendum results to the Board of Governors at the next meeting this month. “It’s a step forward and it’s definitely a tangible change that hopefully we’ll get to see before our mandate is officially up.”

A final promise the CSU executive feels they upheld is that of fighting tuition increases. “The CSU did fight it,” Severyns said of tuition increases. “We’ve highly contributed, and we’ve built closer and closer relationships with student organizations across Quebec.”

The Quebec government announced their proposed tuition increases last month despite multiple vocal student protests in the last few months. Ultimately, while Severyns said positive steps had been taken to mobilize students, he said that this fight is an ongoing one that will have to be taken up by the next executive.

While many students on campus might debate the successes of those campaign promises, two failed promises that the CSU will not even debate are those of the greening of Mackay and the student centre.

The student centre campaign was a glaring failure for the CSU this year, bringing them heavy criticism and accusations of ignoring students’ interests. Despite the loftiness of this promise, Severyns maintains that the CSU really felt they could have brought the centre to fruition this year.

“What we expected from [the student centre was] to bring a home to the student body,” he said. “This is something that this executive actually believed in, and we still do believe in this sort of vision.”

While this process appeared rushed, Severyns justified it, saying that, “The issue of student space is something that is reoccurring and is not getting any better. And next year will not be any better. So unless you address this issue with quick and pragmatic means, just like providing a student centre in the shortest amount of time, that is something that we believed in and that is something that we strived to achieve.”

While this year’s CSU was facing with a difficult climate within the university, president-elect Lex Gill said that some of the goals set by the Fusion slate were unrealistic from the beginning, the greening of Mackay in particular. This is why she said her newly-elected Your Concordia team took a different approach.

“We made realistic promises that we believe we can keep. They’re difficult things to do but they’re not big legacy projects,” Gill said. “We tried to make promises that would have long term benefits for students but aren’t glamorous.”

On the student centre for example, she said that Your Concordia is confident they will able to renegotiate the highly criticized student centre contract, but that they wouldn’t promise to bring students their centre next year. Instead, they will be dealing with issues of student space step by step, in the short run with measures like cleaning up CSU storage space to potentially use as club offices.

As for continuing the tuition fight, Gill said that this issue will remain at the forefront of her plans.

The Arts and Science Federation of Associations may be hailing their Ultimate chocolate wrestling Valentine’s party held last Friday as a success, but both administration officials and students believe the event should never have happened in the first place.

On Feb. 11, ASFA VP communications Natasha Launi received an email from Dean of Students Elizabeth Morey indicating that both she and Dean of Arts and Science Brian Lewis strongly disapproved of the chocolate wrestling event to be held that night at PJ O’Hara’s bar.

The event featured four guys and four girls wrestling in a pool of chocolate in order to win prizes. It was created by Launi and Kyle Smith of the Stingers football team, with the help of ASFA’s VP social Allie McDonald. Proceeds from the night went to Concordia’s delegation at the Communication Games and the Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program.

Morey stated in her email that, after receiving complaints from students regarding the party’s promotional material, she decided to take a look at the event’s banner on ASFA’s website, which featured two girls in sportswear wrestling in chocolate.

“Although the event also includes men, so it cannot be ‘technically’ called sexist, the image of your website will be perceived that way,’’ said Morey. “Should this receive widespread publicity, you should expect some very negative reactions from students.’’

Morey stated that the chocolate wrestling competition and the advertisement “cheapens and diminishes the good work” ASFA has done in the past year. However, Lewis never brought up the subject when he attended ASFA’s council meeting for the first time last Thursday, one day prior to the event.

“It is quite possible he had no idea of the event then, he might have only found out about it when the Dean of Students spoke to him about it on Friday,” said Concordia’s media relations director Chris Mota. “There was no question of the deans intervening or imposing sanctions. They were just generally disappointed.”

After reading Morey’s email, Launi took down the banner on the website. She had already put up new posters days earlier featuring a pool instead of the two girls due to complaints from students. She said she simply forgot to change the banner at the same time.

“I was so busy with redesigning the poster and going around putting up the poster after a group of girls had taken the old ones down that the banner on the website was overlooked,” she said. “It was not done on purpose and at the moment the poster was an absolute priority for me.”

Launi admitted that her event was indeed a bit out of the norm, but defended it by pointing out that over 700 people from across the province were in attendance and many offered her positive comments.

“The event was the most attended of the year,’’ she said. “Students thanked us for creating the event and promised to come back to the next one.’’

She pointed out that all participants signed waiver forms. Furthermore, Launi received no negative feedback when she presented the idea at ASFA’s January council meeting. She confirmed that the event has still not received any backlash from councillors.

The student complaint that ultimately led to Launi changing the event’s posters earlier in the month came from Jessica Young, VP internal for the Concordia Association for Students in English. In her Feb. 6 email to Launi, Young stated that “I believe that the event as a whole is symptomatic of the deep and institutionally reinforced weaknesses that contradict ASFA’s policies.’’

Launi maintained that she never meant to hurt anyone, but indicated she herself felt hurt when she once witnessed girls ripping down the party’s poster, and hearing them say that that was the event “Jess’’ had talked about. But Young claimed that no orders came from her.

“I did not tell anyone to take down posters,’’ she told the Concordian. “But think that if students feel strongly enough to take down posters, it strongly suggests that ASFA needs to rethink its promotion strategies.’’

Young emphasized that she was not angry about the event, but rather “the way in which ASFA failed to think about what kind of culture events like this promote.’’

A further complaint came from recent McGill graduate Liam Olson-Mayes, who emailed Launi on Feb. 2 to express outrage at ASFA’s “deeply sexist event.’’ Olson-Mayes, who completed a degree in women’s studies and contemporary sexism, stated that the event’s sexist connotation was not diminished by the inclusion of man-on-man wrestling because “a man’s body can be on display without being reduced to a purely sexual object.’’

In a later email, he said ASFA’s event was “making life harder for those of us who are trying to both fight sexism and support people who have experienced sexual assault. Please stop.’’

Launi defended herself by saying that as a girl, she would never wish to create a sexist event. She continues to maintain that the event was simply organized to have fun. The party succeeded in raising $4,000 for the student projects it supported, and Launi indicated that events a bit out of the ordinary are good for Concordia.

“This is how you create a community at Concordia and get people excited to be part of the university,’’ she said. “If students from across the province came to this party and thanked us for having a great time this must mean we’re doing something right.’’

The Concordia Student Union council respected the will of approximately 150 students who attended an Informational General Meeting last month and passed five motions approved by those students on issues ranging from fighting tuition increase to regulating credit cards on campus. A sixth motion regarding the creation of an ad-hoc student centre and student space committee introduced by councillor Lex Gill, at the behest of the IGM attendees, was also passed.

While each motion was successfully passed with few dissenting, the discussion of the motions was one which highlighted tensions between councillors.

After all of the motions were introduced, independent councillor Ethan Cox moved that all six be passed omnibus but councillors voted this down.

“Last month was bad enough, guys. You clearly went against the will of the students. Everybody knows that, it was demonstrated quite clearly at the IGM and quite frankly by the number of people sitting in this room right now,” Cox replied, referring to how the CSU council responded to the firing of Judith Woodsworth. “If you don’t approve every motion that was passed by our students who elected us at an IGM I will resign in protest from council on the spot […] There’s no question that we have an absolute obligation to pass what was put to us by our students. The insanity of the people’s conception of democracy in this room is beyond belief.”

Councillor Menachem Freedman replied to his comments by asking the chairperson to request all councillors avoid “pejorative comments and rhetoric.” Freedman also explained why he voted against the omnibus motion, saying “We’ve never seen these motions before. I think it’s our responsibility to the students to hear each one of them individually so we actually understand what we’re voting on and passing.” This statement was echoed by multiple other councillors.

Tension among councillors peaked when representative Stephen Brown said “I believe that by looking around, people are growing tired of your belligerence, Ethan. We all respect the will of the students. Personally I’m not going to sit here all night […] while you berate us and pretend that somehow you’re more democratic than we are.” Cox responded with a point of personal privilege stating “I would like the chair to restrain members from personally attacking me please.”

A technical malfunction caused a break in discussion and actually served to calm council, with all motions passing relatively quickly afterwards, with a few minor amendments to the wording.

Notably, council passed a motion which mandates the CSU to call for the resignation of all external Board of Governors members. This stricter stance was rejected by a majority of councillors at the council meeting in January, where they instead called on only those board members who had exceeded their terms to resign.

Cox also followed this discussion with a motion of his own. He moved that any representative who does not comply with part of a motion which called on student representatives on the board of governors and senate, whom they listed by name, “to represent forcefully and persistently to the bodies they sit on,” be asked to resign by the CSU. Some councillors and VP Loyola and advocacy Hassan Abdullahi vehemently opposed the motion, calling it redundant and unenforceable. Pointing out that those in question could not be forced to resign, Cox and supporting councillors responded that the CSU calling on them to do so would act as a symbolic fail-safe, pushing them to follow through on actions they have been mandated to complete.

After a lengthy discussion, Cox’s motion failed in a close vote, 10 to eight.

The meeting was well-attended by students at large, many of whom were at the IGM, as well as organizers of the WHALE day of action who spoke out in favour of the motions. These students also spoke on behalf of WHALE and asked everyone at the CSU to increase their participation in the event and use all the resources available to them to increase awareness about it. With the strong support of certain councillors like Lex Gill, council approved a motion mandating the CSU to contribute $1,900 to the WHALE event, matching the Graduate Students’ Association’s contribution.