Tag: Concordia Student Union

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Concordia Student Union News

CSU survey: Financial security leads to better grades

The Concordia Student Union’s general undergraduate survey reveals that, for every $1,000 of debt, students see a five per cent decrease in their grades. Photo by Matthew Coyte

Council also debates CREM endorsement, increased funding for First Peoples Week

The consensus was clear at the last Concordia Student Union (CSU) council meeting: financial security seems to lead to higher grades.

A review of the May 2017 General Undergraduate Survey at the latest CSU council meeting revealed that for every $1,000 of debt, students saw a 5 per cent decrease in grades, and scholarships result in a 4.5 per cent increase in grades.

The survey also asked the student body to answer questions about income, food security, financial stability, and experience with sexual assault and violence, as well as discrimination.

Former CSU Loyola coordinator Marcus Peters presented the findings to the council, but stressed that the results are not completely representative due to students unsubscribing from the CSU Live newsletter, which is how the survey was distributed. Another factor to consider,  according to Peters, was the survey’s lack of questions regarding religion.

When students were asked if they had experienced any kind of sexual violence by someone within the Concordia community, two per cent of the respondents answered “yes.” An overwhelming majority of students who answered “yes” to questions about whether they had experienced discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity said the incidents had taken place in classrooms or other departmental spaces, such as lounges and libraries.

“That should be something that we’re addressing—there is discrimination happening, and mostly in the classrooms where we wouldn’t expect it to occur,” said Rory James, a councillor representing the John Molson School of Business.

According to Peters, a total of 2,991 students completed the survey. The goal of the survey was to “make accessible all information on student life,” he said.

Peters added that the lack of interaction between the general student body and the CSU made a survey the most efficient way to gather information about undergraduates at Concordia.

Another portion of the survey concerned student food security. The survey found that the People’s Potato was serving an average of 265 people per day, with the cost coming to 73 cents per plate.

Support for CREM

According to a report presented by external affairs and mobilization coordinator Ahmed Badr, the CSU council decided on Oct. 4 to support the eight recommendations presented to municipal electoral candidates by the Montreal Regional Student Coalition (CREM).

The CREM is a political coalition composed of various university and CEGEP student unions. According to Riaz, coalition members approached the CSU about supporting the recommendations. These recommendations covered topics the coalition hopes candidates will address once elected, including transportation and the consultation of Montreal’s youth on issues around the city.

This became a contentious point at the meeting, as some councillors voiced concern over the lack of communication between executives and CSU representatives on the matter. General coordinator Omar Riaz confirmed the executives met and decided to support the recommendations, but the rest of the council was not consulted.

Councillors Rowan Gaudet and Rory James, and Arts and Science Federation of Association (ASFA) President Julia Sutera Sardo, among others, questioned the legitimacy of the CSU’s support since the matter had never been discussed at a meeting.

In response, Badr stressed that the CSU had only supported recommendations that fell in line with the CSU’s beliefs.

“[The CSU] supporting the demands is essentially us joining the coalition,” James countered. He and others argued the issue wasn’t the recommendations that had been supported, but rather that the CSU was endorsing the coalition—something the entire council should have been consulted about.

Representatives motioned for the CSU to rescind its support of the CREM immediately until the topic could be properly discussed by the entirety of the CSU council.

Continuous support for First Voices Week

The CSU moved to increase its financial support for the First Voices Week, an “Indigenous-led initiative to acknowledge and celebrate local Indigenous peoples and communities at Concordia and within the Montreal area,” according to the event’s Facebook page. First Voices Week is held in January and hosts events including speeches, concerts and discussions.

Last year, the CSU spent $4,000 to finance the event, but will now commit an additional $1,000. The goal of the additional funding is to secure this money for future years, to facilitate the funding process for the event’s organizing committee and to ensure the event has “room to grow,” according to Riaz.

Photo by Matthew Coyte

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News

QPIRG Concordia to expand student resources

QPIRG Concordia focused on research stipends and expanding resources available to students. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

Organization turns focus to the future following annual election, fee levy increases

Following the recent election of new board members and an eight-cent fee levy increase, Concordia’s chapter of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) is focusing on increasing research stipends and expanding their student resources.

The grassroots organization, which has historically focused on funding research and community-based projects aligned with their progressive political views, elected 12 members to their board of directors on Sept. 27 during their annual general meeting.

Since the organization works with both the Concordia and Montreal communities, it has two separate boards: one consisting of students and the other made up of community members. Any Concordia student with a valid student ID and all community QPIRG members (non-students who have donated at least $10 to the group or who volunteer 10 hours per year) were able to vote in the election.

Eamon Toohey, who was elected to the community board of directors on Sept. 27, said the board will spend the year developing and funding “radical, grassroots social justice initiatives” and will be prioritizing marginalized voices.

“I’m really excited to work with a whole new crop of board members to support the folks working for a brighter tomorrow in the city and beyond,” Toohey said. “Especially folks at the margins fighting for Indigenous sovereignty and migrant justice. Those two fights are brutally suppressed and forgotten, but absolutely vital.”

In addition to new board members, the organization recently received an increase to their annual student fee levy. According to the group’s 2016-17 financial report, between January 2007 and November 2016, the group received 31 cents per credit per undergraduate student, with the exception of students who chose to opt out in the first weeks of each semester.

Through a referendum vote during the fall 2016 Concordia Student Union (CSU) by-elections, the QPIRG was granted an eight-cent fee levy increase. Under this new model, undergraduate students pay 39 cents per credit per semester, or $11.70 annually for a 90-credit degree. The graduate student fee levy of 50 cents per credit was unchanged.

“It was up to Concordia undergraduates to decide at the polls,” Toohey said of the referendum. “When voting closed, our fee levy was raised, allowing us to support social and environmental initiatives all over the city.”

While the group’s primary source of income is fee levy funding, it’s impossible for the QPIRG to predict how much funding that will be, as all students have the option to opt-out each semester. According to financial records from October 2016 to August 2017, the group’s total revenue for the 2016-17 fiscal year was $238,586 with approximately $220,000 coming from student fee levy funds.

The QPIRG insisted the increased funding will be put towards community-based programs and research projects. According to Hesser Garcia, a newly-elected community board member, the fee levy increase has already allowed the group to fund a $3,000 summer stipend, which they granted to Captive Minds.

According to the QPIRG’s 2016-17 annual report, Captive Minds is a Little Burgundy-based mentorship project that connects black, low-income youth with an adult mentor in the prison system. Garcia said this stipend is “the first in many to come,” now that the group has increased funding.

“We were also able to provide better support for our alternative agenda, School Schmool, and our alternative library,” Garcia said. School Schmool is a free student planner that features articles and resources, including food banks and low-cost mental health services in the Montreal area. The alternative library, in QPIRG Concordia’s office at 1500 de Maisonneuve Blvd., offers books, magazines and audio-visual media focused on environmental and social justice issues.

In total, the QPIRG invested $20,000 in community and campus projects in 2016-2017. Several board members said they are hopeful the increased fee levy will allow them to expand funding for these programs even further in the coming year.

Photo by Kirubel Mehari

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Concordia Student Union News

CSU coordinators issued formal warnings

Archive photo by Nelly Serandour-Amar.

General coordinator and finance coordinator accepted gifts: CSU council

The Concordia Student Union council issued formal warnings to CSU general coordinator Omar Riaz and finance coordinator Soulaymane El Alaoui during a regular council meeting on Sept. 20. The council learned the two coordinators were given plane tickets to Vancouver by Lev Bukhman, the CEO of Alliance pour la Santé Étudiante au Québec (ASEQ), which is the CSU’s insurance provider.

The CSU coordinators did not report the gifts to councillors in their executive report of the Student Union Development Summit (SUDS) conference that they attended at the University of British Columbia from Aug. 18 to 21.

According to CSU councillor and signing officer Rowan Gaudet—who motioned for the formal warning—the coordinators should have called a special council meeting in the summer to ask if they could accept the gifts, as per a motion passed by the council on Feb. 8, 2017.

Gaudet and fellow signing officer Rory James knew about the trip, but never got to sign off on cheques for plane tickets. “To go to B.C., I was assuming they hadn’t hitchhiked, therefore flights would be necessary [and] there were no flights expenses to the CSU,” Gaudet said.

According to Gaudet, ASEQ, also known as StudentCare, offered CSU coordinators plane tickets for the same event last year, but the coordinators refused.

The February 2017 motion read that “should the CSU or its coordinators be offered any benefits or gift […] the council will have final approval as to whether it can be accepted or not.”

Gaudet told The Concordian that “according to Quebec law, they have to declare any gifts from corporations they represent.” ASEQ renewed its contract with the CSU, worth about nine or 10 million dollars, on April 12, 2017.

“It’s absolutely a motion we didn’t oversight,” El Alaoui argued. The CSU finance coordinator said he didn’t consider the plane tickets to be a gift.

Riaz and El Alaoui have 90 days to individually pay the CSU back the cost of the flights and of a meal in Vancouver, according to the motion. The finance coordinator said this amounts to about $900 each.

“When we accepted the flights, it was an opportunity that we saw to reduce the cost of going to the conference because, at the end of the day, all these costs the CSU would have paid for anyway,” El Alaoui said.

During the council meeting, signing officer James told the council that Riaz and El Alaoui’s recommendation to bring health insurance services in-house—meaning creating a space for ASEQ services on-campus—would necessitate a “transactional relationship” between ASEQ and the CSU.

CSU general coordinator Omar Riaz and finance coordinator Soulaymane El Alaoui issued formal warnings by CSU council for accepting gifts. Photo by Etienne Lajoie

“If they receive the benefit of this company, they shouldn’t be involved in the future with this company: negotiations, contracts, nothing,” James told the council. “Regardless of what happened in the past, [going] forward they cannot negotiate on our behalf.”

According El Alaoui, a lot of students are unaware that they have an insurance plan as part of their fee-levies.

“There are 20,000 students enrolled in the health and dental plan. A lot of people that are enrolled are having difficulties and they come to [the CSU] reception to ask questions, but because the receptionists are not the frontline customer service providers, they have to redirect them to [ASEQ’s] customer service on the phone,” Riaz explained. The CSU general coordinator said that is why in-house ASEQ services would facilitate the procedure.

The contract signed by the CSU with ASEQ in April allows the union to bring some of the insurance company’s responsibilities in-house, according to El Alaoui. The CSU finance coordinator explained during the council meeting that one of the goals of the visit to UBC was to see how UBC’s Alma Mater Society (AMS)—the university’s equivalent of the CSU—operated ASEQ’s services in-house.

Riaz told The Concordian he and El Alaoui arrived in Vancouver on the evening of Aug. 15 to meet AMS executives.

El Alaoui explained that a meeting is scheduled on Sept. 26 where he, Riaz, Gaudet and James will discuss how the two CSU coordinators will move forward if they can’t be in contact with ASEQ.

Other points of contention

The paid flights were not the only problems Gaudet and James addressed at the council meeting. They also took issue with Riaz and El Alaoui’s report about the SUDS conference.

“A lot of points were just three or four lines. I expect that you should get details out of this conference.”

Riaz explained the report was only to present recommendations to the council.

Gaudet also criticized Riaz and El Alaoui’s use of the Health and Dental Plan Premiums budget line for the trip’s expenses, arguing that “this [was] not just an expense line to just incur expenses for the trip.”

El Alaoui later told The Concordian that the money was put there as a holding because he didn’t have the authority to create a budget line without council’s approval.

“Since there’s [no line for the budget] and those costs were already coming in, we put it in Health and Dental Plan Premiums because it’s related to [that], and the [expenses] are not going to stay there,” El Alaoui stressed.

In addition, Gaudet was critical of a section in Riaz and El Alaoui’s report called “Number of execs.” In it, the two coordinators wrote that they “realized that the CSU is the only [union] with a large, even number of executives.” The report continued to say that the “main issue brought up with having an even number of executives is that [fewer decisions] can actually be made” because of the increased likelihood of a tie during votes.

Gaudet also took issue with El Alaoui’s arguments regarding the high number of executives at the CSU. “Technically the CSU could function no problem without a Loyola coordinator or without a sustainability coordinator,” Gaudet told the council. “But we’re greatly advantaged by having someone whose sole focus is sustainability [or] the Loyola campus.”

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Anti-black assimilation in academia

Concordia alumna and BIPOC Committee bring attention to academic racism

Concordia University alumna Sophia Sahrane has had more than enough first-hand experiences with academic racism. Her account is only one of many, highlighting a bigger problem—the anti-black rhetoric ingrained in university education across North America.

How committed is Concordia to ensuring a positive university experience for students of colour? According to Sahrane, not very. Until she hosted an orientation event earlier this month featuring Angela Davis in conversation with Robyn Maynard (both black activists, feminists, educators and authors), Sahrane said she had never seen that many black people in the same space at Concordia.

Furthermore, the event featured an unofficial priority seating policy for anyone who was black, Indigenous or a person of colour (BIPOC), despite the objection of several CSU executives.

“The [priority seating] was important because it recognized that universities were not built for us, our experiences, our realities, our identities,” Sahrane said. “We have been pushed to the margins of academia, but in this moment, we had a place in this academic space and it was in the front row.”

According to Sahrane, the proposal for BIPOC priority seating was initially made by Leyla Sutherland, the Concordia Student Union’s student life coordinator, and the rest of the CSU orientation team, but was overruled by other CSU executives before the event.

Sutherland and the orientation team pursued Angela Davis as a guest speaker and originally brought up the priority seating policy after consulting with the BIPOC Committee—a student group founded last year by Sahrane herself when she was a CSU executive.

“Universities are not built to welcome racialized people, but student movements, associations and spaces aren’t built for it either,” Sahrane said. “I was lucky enough to occupy a position of privilege within the community, so I decided to create the BIPOC Committee in an attempt to balance out the lack of resources for BIPOC folk.”

While she wanted to ensure that racialized students could have a voice at Concordia, Sahrane said attempting to end institutionalized racism in universities is a much loftier goal. However, she said she believes the creation of a black studies program at Concordia would be a step in the right direction.

“Course curriculum at Concordia doesn’t even scratch the surface of discussing BIPOC individuals’ roles and contribution in history, politics or society,” Sahrane said, referring to her experience in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Throughout her four years of study at Concordia, Sahrane was never taught by a black professor. “Even black history and black literature is taught by white people,” she said.

According to Sahrane, she and many other Concordia students and scholars have advocated for the creation of a black studies program, but have been met with a severe lack of action by the university.

Concordia spokesperson Mary-Jo Barr said that while there are many conversations happening on campus about diversity issues in course curriculum, “at this point, nothing specific has been proposed” regarding a black studies program.

Despite the lack of progress, Sahrane said a black studies program would drastically alter a black student’s university experience.

“I don’t think assimilating or integrating black students within a white-dominant framework will ever work,” Sahrane said. “We should make sure that the black experience [is] never forgotten or dismissed within existing academic structures.”

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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Concordia Student Union News

CSU daycare set to open its doors in March

Concordia Student Union daycare to open in March on Bishop St. on Concordia’s downtown campus. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Waiting available as of December, according to CSU coordinator

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) daycare is set to open in March, according to the CSU general coordinator, Omar Riaz.

The daycare, which was first proposed in 2011, will begin construction at 1424 Bishop St. after the building contract is approved at the CSU council meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

According to Riaz, the daycare will be able to care for 50 children at a time, and will accommodate newborns and toddlers. There will also be a study space on the upper floor for parents. The waiting list is set to open up sometime in December, Riaz told The Concordian.

Once open, the daycare will be subsidized by the CSU which will bring the cost below the government-subsidized rate of $7 per hour.

According to an article published by The Concordian in February, the daycare was scheduled to open this fall. However, Riaz said difficulties in obtaining construction permits and unanticipated structural work on the partially demolished building delayed the project.

Riaz said the project is still well within its nearly $1.5-million budget. This is despite the partial demolition of the original building having been discovered to cost $15,000 more than anticipated due to an incorrect quote for the project distributed within the CSU, according to an article published by The Link in December 2016.

The project is a welcome addition for many student-parents. While Concordia currently has a daycare located at each campus, the spaces are limited and the waitlists are long. Larissa Buss is an education student who has two sons, aged two years and three months.

She said her oldest son was on the waiting list for Concordia’s daycare service for a year and a half before being admitted. Waiting lists for other daycares are similar. “They tell you, ‘Put your name on the list when you’re pregnant,’” she said.

Like all international student-parents, Buss does not have access to subsidized daycare services. She said daycare services are “absolutely necessary” for any parent who wants to study.

Christine Manendez, who works at the Concordia University Student Parents Centre (CUSP), also testified to the difficulties of being a student-parent. She said Concordia daycare services never returned her call when she was a student-parent. She said many parents delay or forego their education because they lack the time and money.

The idea for the CSU daycare came about as the result of a study commissioned by Concordia in 2011, titled “Student-parents and their children: How can we help them? An analysis of the student-parent experience at Concordia University.” The study found that “many student-parents do not have access to flexible, affordable childcare that would allow them to attend classes,” due to limited daycare spaces and the students’ financial restrictions. Furthermore, the study stated that “student-parents frequently report missing class, missing exams, handing in assignments late and even dropping out because there are simply no timely, safe, flexible, affordable childcare options.”

Although Concordia does not track the number of student-parents currently enrolled, the aforementioned study estimated that student-parents likely represent about 10 per cent of the university’s student population, which is comparable to the national average of 11 per cent.

Photo by Alex Hutchins

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News

Pregnant Concordia student, Bissan Eid, prevented from leaving Gaza

Photo by Nelly Serandour-Amar.

Bissan’s father joined a Concordia professor and CSU official to discuss her circumstances and next steps

Concordia University held a press conference to discuss the circumstances and future of Bissan Eid, a pregnant Concordia student who has been stuck in Gaza for four months awaiting Israeli permission to leave, on Thursday, April 13.

The press conference, which was moderated by journalist Stefan Christoff, featured speakers Rami Yahia, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) internal affairs coordinator, Norma Rantisi, a professor in Concordia’s geography department and Hadi Eid, Bissan’s father. The three speakers made statements regarding Bissan’s circumstances, and laid out their plan of action.

According to Hadi, his 24-year-old daughter went to Gaza, where she was born, in June 2016 to visit family and get married. Under Israeli law, all citizens must obtain an exit permit from the Israeli government in order to leave, regardless of citizenship. Hadi said his daughter, who has been a Canadian citizen since 2005, first applied for the permit four months ago, but has yet to be approved. He claimed she has not been informed as to why she is being denied the permit.

Bissan is working towards her master’s degree in civil engineering, and is currently eight months pregnant. Hadi said Bissan wants to return to Canada before her due date in May, both to ensure she is surrounded by her loved ones and that she has the best possible medical care.

However, since she is in her third trimester, there is a high probability airlines will not allow her to fly for health reasons. Yet, Hadi said, if Bissan is given an exit permit, she will at least be able to give birth in Jordan, where he claims the medical care is better than in Gaza.

“Doctors have said that it is a difficult pregnancy,” Eid said. “If airlines deny her, that’s one thing … but we would prefer for her be in Canada to give birth.”

Efforts to bring Bissan home include a petition calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to intervene in the situation, and a social media campaign using the hashtag #BringBissanHome intended to raise public awareness about Bissan’s situation and put pressure on the Canadian government to act.

The CSU has posted on their website a list of ways Concordia students can help support Bissan. The list includes a link to the Change.org petition to be sent to Justin Trudeau, a letter template students can use to mail to their provincial and federal MPs, and Concordia President Alan Shepard’s contact information which can be used to implore him to play an active role in calling for the government to help Bissan. The CSU has also asked students to share Bissan’s story on social media to increase awareness and support.

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Concordia Student Union News

CSU holds special council meeting to approve expenses

Council approves to allocate funds for renovations and new IT Software

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) held a special council meeting on April 5 to discuss a motion regarding renovations to the seventh floor of the Hall building and a motion to approve the financing of an IT transition from the software company VMWare IT to Google Apps.

Aloyse Muller, the CSU’s external affairs and mobilization coordinator, motioned to have the CSU council approve an expense of $25,300 for the Student Space, Accessible Education and Legal Contingency fund (SSAELC) to renovate the CSU’s legal information clinic and the seventh-floor lounge.

Muller presented a powerpoint, which included graphics to give an idea of what the final product would be following the renovations. According to him, the entrance of the legal information clinic will have a window added on the side, which will make the clinic more welcoming. As for the CSU student lounge, the space will be rewired to become a multimedia-friendly space that students can use for student-run events and presentations.

CSU’s coordinators and executives during the special council meeting. Photo by Nelly Sérandour-Amar

CSU finance coordinator Thomas David-Bashore motioned to have the council approve the allocation of $32,848.70 to transition their IT structure from VMWare to Google Apps. In his motion, it was also specified that the hardware costs, which are estimated at $27,557.09, would be spent over a period of five years.

According to David-Bashore, the current CSU IT infrastructure, which hosts their website and CSU e-mails, isn’t user-friendly and comes with technological glitches which compromise the CSU’s capacity to operate efficiently. According to David-Bashore, it is a good investment, since the hardware would last many years.

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News

UPDATED: Official Results: Concordia Student Union elections

Graphic by Florence Yee

CSU CEO announces the official results to the elections this morning

UPDATED:

The official results for the Concordia Student Union elections were posted on the CSU CEO’s Facebook page this morning. According to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Stephani Moukhaiber, 1076 students voted.

The executives elected for the school year 2017-2018 are:

  • Omar Riaz (general coordinator)
  • Leyla Sutherland (student life coordinator)
  • Soulaymane Al Alaoui (finance coordinator)
  • Devon Ellis-Durity (sustainability coordinator)
  • Maria Gabriela Polanco (Loyola coordinator)
  • Veronika Rydzewski (internal affairs coordinator)
  • Asma Mushtaq (academic and advocacy coordinator)
  • Ahmed Badr (external affairs and mobilization coordinator)

Riaz, Al Alaoui, Polanco and Badr were all running as part of Team Embrace ConU.

Sutherland, Ellis-Durity, Rydzewski and Mushtag were running within Team Connect.

All referendum questions also officially passed. Students agreed for the council of executives to have non-hierarchal positions, meaning that the general coordinator will have the same authority as the other coordinators. Students also voted for Concordia University to become a sanctuary campus, meaning that the student body will not be collaborating with the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) to give out information on any past and current faculty, staff and students.

The fee levy proposals for the fall semester of 2017 which passed include:

  • A decrease in the CSU Clubs fee of six cents per credit
  • An increase in the CSU operating fee of five cents per credit
  • An increase in the undergraduate Housing and Job Bank (HOJO) fee of three cents per credit
  • An increase in the Advocacy fee of two cents per credit
  • An increase in the Concordia Greenhouse fee by 12 cents per credit for undergraduate students
  • A decrease in the Student Space Accessible Education and Legal Contingency (SSAELC) fee of four cents per credit.
  • To transfer four cents per credit from the Student Space Accessible Education and Legal Contingency (SSAELC) fee to the CSU Operating fee to pay for the operations of the Dish Project. This project is a student-run service at Concordia that provides free dishware to student and community around Concordia.

The Concordia Student Union have also been mandated after the elections to work with the Concordia University Administration towards integrating sustainability and indigenous studies courses in all undergraduate programs.

ORIGINAL:

The unofficial results for the new Concordia Student Union (CSU) representatives were published this morning on the CSU’s newly-elected Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Facebook page.

The  executives elected are:

  • Omar Riaz (general coordinator)
  • Leyla Sutherland (student life coordinator)
  • Soulaymane Al Alaoui (finance coordinator)
  • Devon Ellis-Durity (sustainability coordinator)
  • Maria Gabriela Polanco (Loyola coordinator)
  • Veronika Rydzewski (internal affairs coordinator)
  • Asma Mushtaq (academic and advocacy coordinator)
  • Ahmed Badr (external affairs and mobilization coordinator)

The results are deemed unofficial due to the winning margins being by less than 50 votes. Due to this, the votes will be subjected to a recount in the presence of the CSU’s judicial board.

For the referendum question, “Do you, as a member of the CSU, approve of the by-law changes that will render the executives to a more non-hierarchical structure?” the majority voted yes. Since the vote passed, the new council will be acting as a non-hierarchal union.

Approved fee levy changes include (as of fall 2017):

  • An increase of the fee levy for the Concordia Greenhouse by 12 cents per credit
  • A decrease in the CSU clubs fee by six cents per credit
  • An increase in the CSU operating fee by five cents per credit
  • An increase in the undergraduate Housing and Job Bank (HOJO) fee by three cents per credit
  • An increase in the advocacy fee by two cents per credit
  • A decrease in the Student Space, Accessible Education and Legal Contingency (SSAELC) fee by four cents per credit

In addition, both Concordia campuses will officially adopt the “Sanctuary Campus” status, meaning the university will not disclose any information about its current or past staff, faculty or students to the Canadian Border Services Agency, to protect them from the threat of deportation.

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Opinions

Concordia’s plight against HIV

Graphic by Florence Yee

This past week, students and staff were able to get tested for HIV at the Concordia Student Union (CSU) office on the seventh floor of the Hall building. A rapid HIV testing clinic was set up with the help of the CSU, the Concordia University Psychology Association (CUPA), Queer Concordia and Concordia Health Services. This is the second testing session put together by these organizations.

For this test, a certified nurse takes a prick of blood from your finger and, using a special kit, can tell you whether or not you are HIV positive or negative. The whole process, which takes around 20 minutes, includes going over your risks and sexual history, and the nurses can give you advice on how to improve or continue your safe sex practices. If the result comes back positive, the nurses would be able to put you in contact with various HIV-related resources in the city of Montreal as well as provide psychological support.

While we understand that many students might have been wary about getting tested at school, we think this issue is critical, and we applaud all four organizations that facilitated this testing clinic.

Let’s face it, students are sexually active while they’re in university and many are not properly educated when it comes to having safe sex and HIV prevention. In Canada, one in five people with HIV are unaware they’re HIV positive, according to Community AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE). Over one-quarter of all new HIV diagnoses in 2015 were in youth, according to the same source.

The Globe and Mail reported in 2014 that a person is infected with HIV every three hours in this country. In Saskatchewan the rate is nearly three times higher the national average, with 71.4 per cent of cases happening because of intravenous drug use. These figures are absolutely startling to say the least, and reveal the challenges our society has in addressing the epidemic.

One key role these rapid testing sessions fulfill is to help fight against the taboo of HIV. HIV and those who are HIV-positive face a lot of stigma, even criminalization, for having this virus. According to Sarah Schulman’s book, Conflict is Not Abuse, Canada was the country in the world to charge someone with murder for transmitting the disease. This country’s harsh criminal pursuit of HIV-positive individuals actually creates a fear around being tested. By making the testing process public and providing students accurate information about HIV, this project at Concordia helps dispel misinformation and allows the community to better understand and face HIV head-on.

Although we’ve come a long way in terms of scientific research and awareness, we need to press further and forge a discussion. We applaud the CSU, CUPA, Queer Concordia and Concordia Health Services for being progressive and open-minded about this issue and we encourage the school to hold more rapid clinics. We also encourage the student body to get tested for HIV and to properly educate themselves on safer sex practices and harm-reduction strategies like needle exchanges, which help reduce new cases of HIV. If we’re to eliminate HIV/AIDS in the near future, it’s time we start tackling this issue head on and minimize the risk of this virus being transmitted.

Contact Concordia Health Services to get tested for HIV or to speak with a medical specialist.

Sir George Williams campus

  • 514-848-2424 x3565
  • 1550 De Maisonneuve W.
  • Room GM-200
  • Monday to Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Loyola campus

  • 514-848-2424 x3575
  • 7141 Sherbrooke Street W.
  • Room AD-131
  • Monday to Friday 9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
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Concordia Student Union News

CSU to demand academic amnesty at next senate meeting

Photo by Nelly Serandour-Amar

The student union is also proposing to increase the fee levy of Concordia Greenhouse

Academic amnesty and increasing the Concordia Greenhouse fee levy were discussed at the CSU monthly meeting on March 8.

The CSU decided they would demand academic amnesty from the senate for students who might have missed classes in the days following the bomb threat that was made on March 1 targeting the school’s Muslim community. The targeted buildings were evacuated and no bombs were found on-site after an SPVM search. That afternoon, Concordia president Alan Shepard sent a letter to all students saying classes would resume for the rest of the week. “For students whose classes and exams were affected by the evacuations, or if you have other concerns about completing your coursework or exams, please speak with your professor. I hope that professors will be flexible in light of this very unusual situation,” he wrote in his letter.

While the CSU appreciated the gesture the university made by sending this letter, they did not feel it was enough. “It was a nice statement—the [intention] was there but they didn’t go farther,” said Sophia Sahrane, the CSU’s academic and advocacy coordinator. She told The Concordian the student union will try to convince the university senate during their next meeting on March 17 to request amnesty from all departments. “The students cannot just hope that professors will understand. They need to know that, if professors refuse to give them academic amnesty, they have different resources to protect them,” said Sahrane. “Having this academic amnesty ensures students that they have alternatives and that they should feel comfortable about not going to class if they don’t feel good about it.”

According to Sahrane, the only department at the university that have offered academic amnesty so far is the department of Geography, Planning and Environment. “They have sent out a notice to all of their teachers and faculties to not count the absences from March 1 to 3,” she said.

During the meeting, the CSU also passed a motion stating they will be presenting a motion at the Greenhouse’s annual election to increase the Concordia Greenhouse fee levy. Sahrane, who presented the motion, is proposing to increase the fee levy from 12 cents per credit to 24 cents.

“They are having issues with their facilities, but also offer twice as many services as they used to when they initially started,” said Sahrane. She said she believes it would be a great investment. According to her, the Greenhouse has been providing extra services and without ever asking for a fee levy increase. “This increase is to ensure that they can keep going and that their [needs are] answered.”

Students are allowed to use the Greenhouse space to study, for group work and they can also buy plants and seeds. “They also offer internships depending on the students’ needs. It’s a very diverse group that is providing a lot for its community,” Sahrane said.

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Concordia Student Union News

The CSU stands up against planned renovations

CSU held their monthly council meeting in H-767, not far from the location of the imposed wall to be built, funded by Concordia. Photo by Ana Hernandez

The student union believes building a wall would negatively affect student groups

The Concordia Student Union (CSU) has decided to stand in solidarity with the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and other students against a proposed renovation in the Hall building at Concordia’s downtown campus. The renovation in question is the construction of a glass wall on the seventh floor of the Hall building, between a small and large lounge near the CSU office.

While both lounges can be accessed by student groups for free, the larger lounge is bookable through the CSU and the smaller lounge is bookable directly through the university. Currently, the lounges are not separated by any physical barrier and student groups can use both spaces for larger events, such as the MSA’s weekly Jumu’ah prayer.

According to Aloyse Muller, the CSU’s external affairs and mobilization coordinator, both spaces are central to student life on the downtown campus and the pending renovation would negatively affect student groups on campus.

During the CSU’s monthly meeting on Feb. 8, the union welcomed Yann-Lazare Makayat Bouanga and Mohammed Allalou, two guest speakers from the MSA, to discuss their opposition to the proposed wall. They believe this renovation will limit the capacity for weekly prayer sessions and reduce the amount of space available for student groups to meet and hold events. They said the university has suggested the student group place a limit on the capacity of the weekly prayer sessions to prevent the need to use the smaller lounge. However, the MSA is against this idea, claiming it could harm the group’s sense of community and lead to Muslim students being turned away from a public event.

During the meeting, Muller proposed a motion for the CSU to officially support the MSA and officially oppose the construction of the wall. The motion also promised that the CSU would seek to maintain the ability to allow student groups to access the small lounge area, and that, if the MSA struggled to find adequate space for prayer sessions in the future, the CSU would help them acquire it. The motion passed unanimously.

“Concordia claims that the attendance of the Friday prayer must be limited to its current attendance otherwise there would be too many people on the seventh floor for its floor capacity,” Muller told The Concordian, “But this problem, in terms of floor capacity, is not the MSA’s fault. The MSA has enjoyed this space without problems for a numbers of years now, after having been pushed from space to space by Concordia throughout the years.”

According to Muller, the CSU and the MSA plan to meet with staff from the university to discuss possible solutions to this issue.

*Since publication, Meryam Nejjar, VP of communications for the Muslim Student Association said the issue has been resolved at a meeting held Feb. 13 between CSU and Concordia president Alan Shepard. “The school told us they will not be building a wall, but rather keep it as a rotating panel like it is now, which resolves the issues that CSU and the MSA had with regards to the space,” said Nejjar.

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News

Daycare for student-parents to open in fall 2017

The daycare will be located on Bishop Street. Photo by Andrej Ivanov

CSU gets green-light from the city to open the downtown daycare

The Concordia Student Union’s (CSU) daycare will be opening its doors in the fall of 2017. The project was supposed to be completed before the start of the 2017 winter semester, but the bureaucratic process delayed its opening, according to the CSU.

“We got the go-ahead from the city for construction last week,” said Lucinda Marshall-Kiparissis, the CSU’s general coordinator.

“The registration form for the waiting list is also ready and will be sent out in the next CSU newsletter,” said Sophia Sahrane, the CSU academic and advocacy coordinator in charge of the project.

The project was proposed in 2011 after the Dean of Students office and the Concordia University Student Parents Centre conducted a study to determine whether undergraduate and graduate students needed a daycare. Although the study yielded a lot of positive results and got municipal approval, the initiative fell through.

In November 2014, the CSU asked students if they were in favour of a daycare that prioritizes student-parents. The result was an 87 per cent approval rate from students.

There is currently a daycare available at the Loyola campus, but only 25 per cent of the spaces are reserved for student-parents, according to Lisa Comerford, the executive director of the Concordia community CPE Les P’tits Profs daycare. The new daycare will be on Bishop Street, near the Sir George Williams (SGW) downtown campus, and available only to student-parents. The children of undergraduate students will have priority, but the CSU confirmed that some places will be allotted to graduate students’ children as well.

Marshall-Kiparissis spoke to The Concordian last September about the importance of having a daycare on campus. “Not only do these parents have a job, but they have a kid, classes to attend and homework to do,” she said.

The daycare will accept children under the age of five. The nursery will welcome infants under the age of 18 months. The daycare will employ a daycare and nursery manager, four educators, four educator helpers, one kitchen helper, a bookkeeper and an administrative assistant.

CSU is currently collaborating with the university and the Concordia Student Parents Centre (CUSP) to fund the project.

* This article has been updated for accuracy. The Concordian regrets the error.

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