townhall meeting – The Concordian

Concordia students plan the future of new student building

The CSU held a town hall to discuss what to do with the new building they bought

Community fridge, meeting rooms and open spaces: those were some of the many ideas the Concordia Student Union (CSU) and other student groups discussed at the town hall Tuesday, Feb. 21.

Unlike many other universities in North America, Concordia did not have its own official student building — until now. Bought in Winter 2022, the new student building will see its renovations start in Jan. 2024 after students agree on how they envision it being constructed.

This town hall invited students and community members to take part in a small group discussion around a table filled with possible sketches of the new building. After this consultation process, the CSU will share a report on the different possibilities the building could offer students.

Located just across the Hall Building on Bishop Street, the new student building will help foster an even stronger student community, according to CSU sustainability coordinator Sean Levis. “It’s important for us that students are consulted in the planning process for what is going to be a part of the building.”

After more than 20 years of raising funds, the CSU is now in a consultation process to find out how to make this new building an active and collaborative space. The student groups discussed the possibility of open spaces, a greenhouse, kitchen, and even showers for the brave souls biking to school.

Student groups attended the town hall to take part in the discussion. “This is a real important building. It is going to be a focal point on campus for years and years, centuries actually,” said Donald Armstrong, one of the collective members of Le Frigo Vert.

Student groups asked students to have their voices heard and express their needs to make this future building their own. “You come to university to get a degree, but also to meet people, develop as a person and find what you are passionate about, and I think a lot of the groups sitting here today really represent that,” said Angelica Calcagnile, the president of the Concordia Student Broadcast Corporation.

The CSU invites students to take part in the next annual general meeting in April to vote on the report gathered by the CSU and the student groups.

Councillors meet to discuss the international student hike campaign and look back on Orientation

During the Concordia Student Union (CSU) meeting on Wednesday, it was announced a town hall meeting will be taking place on Nov. 16 from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Mezzanine of the Hall building, where students can learn about their new International Tuition Hike campaign.

The newly-created campaign was announced when the CSU posted an open letter on their website, saying that the university was planning a tuition hike affecting students in deregulated programs.

“We want to reach out to everyone—this is a reason why the CSU exists,” said CSU vice president of external affairs and mobilization coordinator, Aloyse Muller. He said he was surprised with the Commerce and Administration Students Association (CASA), as they have not shown any interest in the campaign yet. “CASA has the biggest number of international students in the university,” he said.

Muller said the CSU has hired two international students, Ali Sherra from the faculty of Arts and Science and Aida Sidibé, who studies at JMSB, to help with the campaign. Muller said they will help inform and mobilize students, through general outreach towards student groups, flyering, postering, developing materials and event organizing, to name a few.

“The CSU is and will be campaigning against this hike—it’s our mission,” said Muller. “But the opposition needs to come and be led by the students themselves.” He strongly suggested students follow the example of Samuel Miriello and Sepideh Zangeneh, two students who helped organize the campaign independently a few weeks ago, through creating a Facebook group called “Concordia University Against international Tuition Hike.”

Following the tuition hikes discussion, student life coordinator Rachel Gauthier presented a document which detailed how the orientation events at the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester went. Gauthier said she is grateful for the hard work the CSU coordinators contributed to Orientation.

According to the Orientation budget Gauthier presented, the CSU only spent $117,388.45 of the original $160,000 budget, leaving them with a surplus of $42,611.55.

Gauthier said, overall, most of the Orientation events were a success. The one exception was the OUMF comedy show, which didn’t have a lot of attendees. She said she believes the event was not well advertised, and the fact that the show was on the second day of school didn’t leave the CSU enough time to promote the event. She ended her speech by saying she recommends the next team to take on orientation week only schedule a week of events, as the second week saw a dip in event attendance, since students began to focus on school more during the second week.