Political Science Student Association

PSSA has been planning a separation from ASFA since early 2016

The Political Science Student Association (PSSA) will vote on Feb. 13, during their general assembly, on whether or not they will leave the Arts and Science Federation and Association (ASFA). According to PSSA president Nora Molina, she and the members of her association have been disappointed with the relationship ASFA has been has had with their member associations.

“We want to leave ASFA to have a more [organized] student association,” said Molina. “We are going to have an open discussion with our members to figure out what do we want to do.”

ASFA is currently the largest faculty association at Concordia, representing 15,000 undergraduate students within its 31 member associations.

Molina said ASFA is unorganized with regards to their scheduled office hours, among other things. “We were supposed to have a workshop to help and guide our members in their jobs within the association, but they were never well prepared,” said Molina, who has been involved with her student association for three years now.

According to Molina, being part of ASFA requires a lot of time and effort. “It’s also a weight for us,” she said. “We are associated with the ASFA name, and every time that ASFA does something they should not have done, it involves PSSA into it without us having anything to do with that ‘scandal.’” Independent from ASFA, the PSSA would be able to make their own decisions, such as when it comes to organizing their own workshops, Molina Said.

In February 2016, students from the association voted on whether or not the PSSA would be accredited to be their own association. More than 96 per cent of voters supported PSSA’s decision to legally represent the political science students at Concordia.

The future relation between the PSSA and ASFA will be decided at the PSSA’s general assembly on Feb. 13, where members of the association will vote.

Graphic by Florence Yee

A petition calling for significant changes within the department of political science was endorsed by the Concordia Student Union and the Arts and Science Federation of Associations this week.

The petition, brought to both groups by its author Gene Morrow, contains six points covering issues such as grade changes in the form of bell curving, loss of space on campus and cutting popular courses without consulting students or faculty.

The petition calls for immediate intervention by Brian Lewis, dean of arts and science, and has already been signed by 250 students. Lewis said that he is “talking to a number of people to try to better understand the situation in political science,” and that discussions with faculty and student representatives were continuing.

Schubert Laforest, president of the CSU, said that the issues raised in the petition are ones that have been followed closely by council. Council officially gave their support at the regular council meeting Wednesday with a motion that will promote and distribute the petition to students.

“I think that the petition does bring out a lot of issues not just at the political science department but across the arts and science faculty,” he said. “I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, and we’re going to be sitting down with [Morrow] and ASFA to figure out what we need to do going forward.”

James Tyler Vaccaro, VP communications of the Political Science Student Association said that while the association did not draft the petition, they had “acted as a source of information when called on by both ASFA and CSU councils” and that he hoped the issues raised in the petition would be resolved soon.

He also said that contrary to the sixth point on the petition, which deals with an apparent lack of availability and transparency by department chair Csaba Nikolenyi, the PSSA had not experienced the same problem.

“We have not had any difficulties meeting him to discuss a broad range of topics this year,” said Vaccaro.

Morrow, a student in the political science department, told The Concordian that he suspected he knew why the PSSA’s experiences had been different than those of some students.

“The PSSA, because they are the institutional actor within the department, they are the appropriate contact point between students and faculty,” he said. “I think that they have a much better time getting access to speaking with the chair, but they don’t necessarily have better access to the information than anyone else does a lot of the time.”

“For example a member of Senate tried to get minutes from the departmental council, and was told to file an access to information request,” Morrow said. “They were told point blank you cannot get access to this without filing an ATI request. Why is this necessary? Why does this have to be walled off and blocked?”

Morrow went on to say that students within the department were often starved for information when it came to decisions made by the chair and faculty, including why they were made or who was involved.

“People would be willing to tolerate that, but there’s never any communication from the department to students. There’s never any communication to students about what’s happening in the department. The general feeling is that we’re an afterthought.”

New copies of the petition will be available at the offices of the CSU and the PSSA for students who did not have a chance to sign the first petition.