By: Donna Nadeem, Anastasia Gaykalova and Matthew Jones
At the McMaster Students’ Union Student Representative Assembly on Nov. 25, the SRA passed a number of policy papers, including “Tuition & Student Financing in Post-Secondary Education,” “On-Campus Infrastructure” and “Student Engagement & Retention.”
Rising tuition is one of the most pressing issues affecting post-secondary students in Canada.
Once enrolled, OSAP provides a number of grants and loans to students with financial need to lessen the costs of tuition.
While not mentioned in the policy paper, it should be noted that Ontario government’s recently announced changes are expected to reduce tuition by 10 per cent but also scrap OSAP grants for low-income students and remove the six month grace period that students were previously given to pay off their loans following graduation.
The policy paper argues that restrictions to the current OSAP deny many individuals access to its services, pushing back these students’ entry into post-secondary education.
It also notes that tuition increases by a substantial rate each year, continually surpassing the rate of inflation.
According to the paper, currently, 53 to 70 per cent of student financial aid through OSAP includes loans.
Although offering loans to pay back tuition later may appear to help with accessibility and enrollment, the more tuition rates increase, the greater the amount students will have to pay back.
During student interviews included in the policy paper, students said that they have noticed tuition rising, but not at a specific rate, and acknowledged that they were unsure of the details surrounding tuition rate.
However, students also said they felt strained financially and found it harder to pay off their debt each year.
The policy paper also points out that McMaster has one of the lowest budgets for entrance scholarships in Ontario.
McMaster’s automatic entrance awards are lower than those offered at Queen’s University, University of Western Ontario, University of Toronto and the University of Guelph, for instance.
The MSU recommends that McMaster consider a monthly tuition payment plan.
Recommendations for the government include re-evaluating interest rates on student loans and making OSAP cover a larger percentage of tuition for low-income students in some programs.
Major themes in the Infrastructure policy paper include campus accessibility, transparency, deferred maintenance and student study spaces.
The SRA’s first recommendation is for facility services to oversee a new campus accessibility review with a new action plan, examining infrastructure concerns in more detail.
Regarding accessibility, the SRA believes elevator issues and the installment and repair of automated doors should be seen as priority areas for maintenance.
The policy paper also affirms that “bad weather should not be a deterrent for students to access their education.”
Another concern addressed is the lack of air-conditioning in some residences. Currently, only five out of twelve residences have AC.
During warm weather, the heat poses a risk for students’ health, as many reported experiencing heat stroke symptoms during Welcome Week this past year.
The paper recommends that all residences have AC and that Residence Life provide more fan rentals.
Another infrastructural problem is that buildings at McMaster are not as well maintained as they should be, creating a non-ideal learning environment for students.
For instance, many older buildings have broken seats and tables.
The policy paper also touches on insufficient and inefficient on-campus workspaces.
For instance, the university does not have enough group study facilities for its growing student population. Many such places are often full or completely booked.
These issues are planned to be resolved by introducing more compact book stacks to free up space.
Some on-campus spaces also lack reliable wifi.
The policy paper explains that the university is planning to create a self-reporting network tool for students to report “dead zones,” which can be fixed.
To ensure future buildings consider the needs of students, the SRA suggests that some MSU members sit on a design committee for the coming Peter George Centre residence.
This policy paper highlights key issues regarding student engagement and retention, including student dropout rates and off-campus students’ engagement within individual faculties and services.
At McMaster, 10 per cent of first-year students do not continue onto pursue their degree. The policy paper notes that marginalized students are more likely to experience barriers to completing post-secondary education.
“[The] policy aims to utilize evidence-based research to identify gaps and targeted opportunities for particular focus groups of students, including first-year students, first-generation students, racialized and marginalized students and student groups, and commuter students,” reads part of the paper.
The MSU paper emphasizes that marginalized students should have “equitable access student success and satisfaction on campus” in response to structural barriers.
The policy paper makes several recommendations, such as the incorporation of prior-learning assessments for students who want them.
The paper also raises concerns regarding off-campus students’ engagement with respect to public transit, volunteering and community engagement.
“The MSU advocates for greater transparency and efforts by the university towards student engagement on campus and within the broader Hamilton community,” reads part of the paper.
According to the paper, commuter students face a higher risk of dropping out when they feel disengaged and disconnected from campus.
Commuter students may be restricted from developing social connections or a sense of belonging on campus.
The paper recommends creating a “centralized social hub” to address the disconnects faced by commuter students and the campus.
Additionally, the document advises the off-campus resource centre to work more to encourage campus opportunities to bolster social events while also increasing the number of resources for students who commute.
All of the policy papers be found in the “SRA documents” section of the MSU website.
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Last week, the Silhouette News team wrote up platform critiques for each of this year’s McMaster Students Union presidential election candidates. The critiques collectively point out that while the candidates are trotting out some interesting ideas, many are patently unfeasible.
Madison Wesley advocates for a McMaster campus store textbook rental program, but the director of retail services at McMaster told our News contributor that the program would be impossible to implement.
Justin Lee hopes to unveil “Uber for Busses,” but does not establish how he will work with app developers, the Hamilton Street Railway, McMaster and Hamilton city council to bring this to fruition.
Jeffry Campana aspires to build a McMaster ice rink by 2020, but as our News Reporter highlighted, plans to do the same in previous years collapsed in the face of insurance and accessibility obstacles.
Josh Marando wants to increase the deferred maintenance budget by $12,000,000 a year. Nevertheless, as our Features Reporter articulates, Marando’s plan hinges on acquiring Ontario government grants. Under the Ford government and recent budget cuts, this plan is just not feasible.
This is not to say that this year’s candidates have a limited knowledge of the MSU and what students care about. With a renewed focus on issues like accessibility and food security, the candidates seem to be cognizant of at least some pervasive student concerns.
They just also failed to do their MSU due diligence and consultation homework.
Whoever wins tonight should keep in mind that the MSU president does not have jurisdiction beyond the maroon-coloured walls of the union’s office.
Our next MSU president should fight to uphold their promises, but also shrink their imagination down to what is possible during their term.
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By: Elliot Fung
If you are a full-time undergraduate student enrolled in at least 18 units, you are eligible to vote in this year’s McMaster Students Union presidential election. Here is some more information about the election and how you can successfully cast your ballot.
The president is the primary spokesperson for the MSU and serves as the representative for McMaster students to the university, Hamilton and the provincial and federal government.
The next MSU president will hold the position for a one-year term beginning on May 1, 2019 and ending on April 30, 2020.
The MSU president is also the chair of the board of directors of the Student Representative Assembly, which is comprised of the vice president (Finance), vice president (Administration) and vice president (Education).
This year’s election has four candidates: Madison Wesley, Jeffrey Campana, Josh Marando and Justin Lee. More information about their platforms can be found here.
The voting system will be “single transferable vote.” What this means is that, on your ballot, you will get to rank candidates in order of preference.
In particular, you will have the opportunity to rank your preference of candidate from one to four. However, you do not have to rank all candidates.
Your vote will count towards the candidate you rank first.
The candidate with a majority of total first choice votes will be the president-elect. If a majority is not achieved through the initial counting, the candidate with the least number of first-choice votes is eliminated.
However, if you voted for the eliminated candidate, your ballot still counts. Your vote will be transferred to your second-choice candidate. Votes are then recounted.
If a majority is still not achieved, the process of vote transfer is repeated until a candidate has a majority of first choice votes.
Should a candidate be disqualified or withdraw from the election after polling takes place, your vote will still count too as long as you indicated a second-choice candidate.
In this case, your vote would be transferred to your second-choice candidate.
Voting opens on Jan. 22 and closes on Jan. 24 at 5 p.m. Ballots are being sent out via email, so check your McMaster email as soon as you get the chance!
You can also vote at www.msumcmaster.ca/vote. Log in using your Mac ID and an election link will appear if you are eligible to vote.
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It’s that time of the year where a large majority of students are strategically avoiding the atrium of the McMaster University Student Centre. The campaigning period for the next McMaster Students Union president is currently underway and will continue until the end of polling on Jan. 24.
Elections for MSU president are held annually, and are voted on by the MSU membership. While this sounds fair on paper, this translates into the consistent underrepresentation of co-op and internship students during elections. These students, who are not technically MSU members, are not allowed to support presidential candidates which includes voting or being a member of a presidential campaign team.
This is especially concerning considering co-op and internship students make up a large per cent of McMaster’s undergraduate population, with some programs like the bachelor of technology mandating co-op. If graduating students are afforded the right to vote and influence the MSU, despite not being present to actually experience the changes themselves, it makes little sense to deny returning students the same rights.
The argument in defense of excluding these students is that they do not pay the MSU fee. For the 2018-2019 academic year, this fee was $573.07, paid by each full-time undergraduate student at McMaster University in addition to their tuition and other fees. Note that $230 goes towards the MSU Health and Dental plan where students have the option to opt-out.
While it is true that co-op and internship students do not pay MSU fees or tuition, they still are required to pay co-op fees. For example, students in the faculty of science are required to pay a $3050 co-op fee over three years, which includes a yearly $150 administration fee. Similarly, students from the DeGroote School of Business must pay around $900 to participate in the commerce internship program.
A solution could be to allow these students the option to opt-in to the MSU fee and thus become MSU members with all the rights and privileges afforded with MSU membership, including the right to participate in MSU elections. But should students be forced to pay the full MSU fee in order to be represented?
Other student unions like University of Victoria’s Students’ Society collect partial fees from co-op students. Payment of this partial fee allows these students to only access services that are relevant towards them. This includes access to the health and dental plan, ombudsperson, university bursaries and democratic participation in students’ society elections.
If a system like this was introduced to the MSU, it would allow co-op and internship students the ability to benefit solely from services and activities that pertain to them, while not unnecessarily paying for services which are less relevant to students away on placements like participating in MSU clubs. This could then essentially be a reduced version of the $130.26 MSU operating fee that full-time undergraduate students pay as part of their MSU fee.
Alternatively, the MSU can make it so that returning MSU members are afforded electoral rights without having to pay an additional fee. Co-op and internship students spend the majority of their degree at the university. They have most definitely paid MSU fees in the years preceding their placements and will continue to pay fees upon their return. Why should they be charged additional monies during their short term away just to be represented?
Students on co-op or internships are still returning students that deserve to have an input on their union’s representation. Whatever change is made for future elections, it stands that the current unfair treatment of co-op and internship students by the MSU is a disservice to us all.
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By Lilian Obeng
On Oct. 1, 2018 the McMaster Students Union released its annual University Budget Submission. The point of the document is to demonstrate that students pay attention to the university’s spending, and by extension, priorities. As per the university’s budget for the 2018-2019 academic year, our student contributions via our tuition fees account for approximately 47 per cent of the McMaster University’s available funds.
The stated purpose of the submission document is to provide university administration an outline on how to reallocate existing funds to support student interests.
Highlighted in the document are recommendations to increase funding for the MSU Emergency First Response Team and the Equity and Inclusion Office, hire an additional counsellor, release exam schedules earlier, provide more open educational resources, discontinue the outdated Pebblepad feature and request more environmentally sustainable practices at the university level. Also guiding the direction of the document were the budgets and purported spending of similar institutions across Ontario.
The spirit and purpose of the submission is sound, but what is frustrating is the lack of teeth contained within the document. It fails to address how the university actively spends money to the detriment of student life both on and off campus.
The best and most visible example of this is the exclusion of Security Services’ hiring of Hamilton’s ACTION squad to patrol student areas. McMaster spends student-provided funds to increase the policing of students. This not only presents a threat to marginalized students given the ACTION squad’s history of racial profiling, it means that students are being used as a quick cash grab by the city for minor, undisruptive bylaw offences.
Combined with the massive, ineffective and at times violent enforcement projects that take place during special occasions like Homecoming and St. Patrick’s Day, a considerable amount of money is not being disclosed to students by the university, and thus is excluded from the MSU’s advocacy efforts.
The submission is also decidedly limited in its recommendations to the university regarding financial accessibility. As with the MSU’s educational campaign, financial accessibility is only addressed through OERs and lowered textbook costs.
By all means, learning materials are increasingly expensive and certainly a place to look when attempting to reduce costs, but efforts should not stop there. To exclude topics such as tuition, and more concretely, scholarships and bursaries, is to fail to meaningfully address the sources of the financial burden placed on students.
Another area of concern are the institutions the submission document cites as inspiration like the University of Toronto. It must be stated that the university is a business, and some universities take that identity to the extreme detriment of students. Schools like University of Toronto are intent on privatization and intend to make that happen soon.
McMaster is a publicly funded school and will be for the foreseeable future; we as students should be wary of the unintended outcomes of ignoring the broader political context we inhabit, and inadvertently advocating for changes that harm future students.
The practice of developing documentation such as the university budget submission should continue. It provides professional development opportunities to students working within the MSU, allows students to participate in the creation of policy and demonstrates our organizing capacity and legitimacy to university stakeholders. We should take special care, however, to ensure that students are being properly communicated with, and that our advocacy is meaningful and concrete.
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[spacer height="20px"]A few weeks ago, the provincial government froze the minimum wage at $14 per hour and cut the planned increase to $15 per hour that was planned for January 2019. With this cut, many businesses, but not all, have decided to forgo the planned increase they had set up for employees. The McMaster Students Union should not be one of them.
Studies have shown that the actual living wage in Hamilton is $15.85. The cost of tuition ranges, but the majority of programs at McMaster are roughly $7000, with some programs slightly below that figure, and many significantly above, going as high as $13,829. There’s no collected data on the average rent McMaster students pay, but anecdotal evidence points to most students living in off-campus housing paying somewhere around $500 per month, not including utilities. Some students pay less and others pay more.
With this in mind, working during your undergraduate degree is inevitable for a lot of people. Whether it’s a retail job or a paid internship, many students find themselves working two to three jobs at a time just to pay all of their fees. I can personally think of a handful of friends and acquaintances who juggled three jobs just to pay for rent and school.
The MSU employs 300 students, and the jobs they offer are unique to the university bubble. They offer the kind of experience many people would not receive otherwise and are often set up with the student schedule in mind, making them ideal for anyone who wants to work on campus. The MSU’s minimum wage for these jobs is currently $14.15.
It’s no secret that students are struggling to pay tuition and the rising costs of rent. One of the easiest ways to support these students is to go ahead with the wage increase, something that had already been worked into the 2018-2019 budget.
The MSU has a lot of initiatives that support low-in- come students such as the Food Collective Centre, but one of the easiest ways they could vastly improve the livelihood of hundreds of McMaster students is by raising the wages for their workers. The MSU is run almost entirely off of student labour, so it would only make sense that these students are compensated appropriately.
If the MSU really wants to support low-income students, they could easily do so by making sure that their workers are compensated appropriately. In doing so, they set a standard not only for other student unions but for any future employers students may have.
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In Preethi Anbalagan’s year plan, she listed seven objectives she wished to achieve during her term as vice president (Administration). The majority of her year plan focused on supporting her staff, whether that be part-time managers, associate vice presidents or Student Representative Assembly members.
Anbalagan achieved the majority of the points within her first objective to strengthen training delivery. Anbalagan was not able to develop a formalized Safe(r) Training model with campus models due to the number of external organizations involved with this process.
To support the SRA, Anbalagan utilized the associate vice president (Internal Governance) to facilitate caucus leader meetings. Although she was able to cluster platform points and other aspects of her SRA support objectives, Anbalagan did not create a resource library for the SRA or offer skill-building workshops.
Anbalagan was able to hold one-on-one meetings with her part-time managers and create feedback mechanisms, among other achievements, but did not create a collaborative space for part-time managers, which would mainly entail renovating the current space in the MSU office for part-time managers. According to Anbalagan, this was simply due to the timeline for renovations.
Anbalagan also worked with associate vice presidents to settle them into their roles, as this was the first year their positions existed.
Anbalagan also completed the majority of hiring for the next term, with only three positions remaining open. She recommends that the incoming vice president (Administration) prepare for hiring in September.
Anbalagan also attempted to improve the human resources aspects of the MSU. She has worked with the operations coordinator to create a equity statement and an workplace accommodations policy, which is still being researched.
The last major aspect of Anbalagan’s year plan involved her role in planning Welcome Week. Anbalagan was able to highlight governance and services during Welcome Week, introduce new programming and bystander training. She was not able to successfully coordinate with the Society of Off-Campus Students, however, and instead added Community Engagement to Welcome Week’s strategic themes to ensure students interact with the city of Hamilton and better connect off-campus students to the university.
Deshpande had a particularly ambitious year plan, with 29 objectives. These objectives range from improving marketing to implementing policies in the MSU to advocating on the federal level.
Deshpande’s first four objectives involved maintaining the quality and outreach of MSU policymaking. To improve their outreach, he and his education team created a separate “MSU Advocacy” Facebook page, which they updated throughout the year. Deshpande also formally trained his education team this year, in addition offering a short training during the part-time manager and SRA member training.
Deshpande ran two policy conferences this year, which produced six different policy papers. He also worked with the new education committees to make sure they functioned effectively this year and reintroduced the sustainability committee, who have made strides to add compost bins around campus. Deshpande also conducted a review of McMaster’s health services.
Deshpande attempted to improve the efficacy of the Academic Affairs Council, which is comprised of members from every faculty society to discuss their needs, but due to low turnout, this did not go as he planned.
Although food security was a big point on his year plan, Deshpande did not pursue it as strongly due to McMaster Hospitality Services working with other student groups to make campus food more accessible.
Deshpande did make strides with respect to supporting Indigenous students on campus, by actively working with Indigenous groups such as the Cooperative of Indigenous Students and Alumni.
Deshpande also made sure to submit budget recommendations to both the university and the municipal government, thus ensuring students’ needs may be reflected in their budget discussions.
Deshpande worked with Chukky Ibe, MSU (president) and the Student Community Support Network coordinator to create neighbourhood assistance programs and make students more aware of bylaws. Deshpande did not complete the landlord wiki project this year, but states that the incoming vice president (Education) simply has to create the website.
Deshpande also regularly advocated on the municipal level and fulfilled nearly all aspects of his year plan regarding municipal affairs. He has worked with the Ontario University Student Alliance to ensure students vote in upcoming elections and has created a plan for his successor.
When it comes to federal and provincial advocacy, Deshpande took an active role, whether that be by advocating with OUSA to create policy papers, pushing a mental health strategy, attending the Canadian Alliance of Students conference or lobbying with Adovcan.
D’Souza’s year plan largely focused on creating new forms forms of revenue for the student union and re-evaluating aspects of its business units.
D’Souza successfully added a cafe to the TwelvEighty space, although this project was pushed back from its initial open date multiple times. With that said, the Grind, the café he opened, has consistently turned a profit since its opening. D’Souza also wanted to add online ordering to TwelvEighty, but had to halt this project as it proved to be too expensive.
D’Souza also reassessed TwelvEighty club nights, which were plagued with low attendance in years past. D’Souza cancelled poorly-attended club nights to free up the space for other rentals. His efforts yielded a 40 per cent decrease in overall costs and 10 per cent increase in attendance per club night. D’Souza has also begun expanding the number of premium events offered to students.
In addition, D’Souza focused on creating more experiential opportunities for McMaster students. The MSU now has a seat on the Hire@McMaster campaign, a campaign set to launch at the end of April to encourage the hiring of McMaster graduates. The MSU will ensure that this campaign is connected to MSU clubs to broadcast employment opportunities to as many students as possible.
D’Souza also planned on creating a sponsorship and fundraising package to be given out to any MSU service undertaking fundraisers to support plans. This was delegated to the associate vice president (Finance) and was set to begin in the first semester, but is still being completed.
D’Souza also held workshops for club leaders to teach student leaders how to effectively budget and estimate costs associated with events, and these will continue in the coming years.
D’Souza expanded the MSU budget fair to have multiple locations on campus in order to increase transparency concerning the MSU’s budget spending.
D’Souza stopped his plans on creating a discount card for MSU members after having discussions with the advertising wing of the MSU and decided there would be a better way of offering students discounts and deals not already offered in the MSU Almanac or MSU Student Survival Guide.
D’Souza is also having ongoing conversations with the Graduate Student Association as he evaluates the MSU Child Care Center. He is currently exploring the possibility of creating a child care bursary with the GSA.
D’Souza also helped implement the Presto U-Pass, converted Frost Week to Life After Mac and completed a wage review for all part-time employees.
Ibe had 12 objectives in his year plan, each of which had its own set of projects, many of which he achieved during his term.
Of the projects under his first objective to “Open Up the MSU”, Ibe was only able to expand the Student Life Enhancement Fund to include the ideas of previous MSU presidential candidates and host MSU open houses. The majority of the projects stalled because they were not a priority or they lacked the correct infrastructure to complete.
With respect to accessibility, Ibe has worked with the MacPherson Institute as they research best practices for professors and has had meetings with the President’s Advisory Committee to Building an Inclusive Community to discuss the creation of an accessibility policy.
In order to reduce campus waste, Ibe worked with campus partners to run electronic waste drives. He was not, however, able to expand the green container program, due to a miscommunication with McMaster Hospitality Services.
Ibe has also worked with the MSU general manager to optimize student technology by having conversations with University Technology Services. He also helped launch TechLit Week, an awareness campaign meant to teach students how to effectively use and dispose of technology.
To improve the off-campus experience, Ibe helped create a off-campus community advisor program and restructured SCSN to improve its outreach. It should be noted that this program was not popular this year, but McMaster Residence Life plans to rectify this by reducing the fee associated with it.
To promote better governance, Ibe launched the McMaster People Project, a project aimed at promoting students to run for an SRA position.
To continue to support student communities, Ibe also introduced an MSU clubs loan portal to decrease the financial burden of clubs executives. He also worked with the clubs administrator to hold a recognition night for MSU clubs.
Ibe also launched his Caring Communities Network project this year and hopes to see it continued under new leadership in the coming weeks.
He has also worked with campus partners and OUSA to lower the cost of textbooks and increase the number of open education resources available to students.
Ibe has also made strides to address food security by working with the Mac Bread Bin director to create a grocery delivery system, which he hopes will be operational in the coming months.
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On March 20, 47 students filed into Burridge Gym for the 2018 McMaster Students Union General Assembly. After a lengthy discussion, the assembly voted in support of a motion aimed at condemning the freedom of expression guidelines released by the university earlier in February 2018.
The GA is an MSU constitutionally-mandated meeting that provides full-time undergrad students with a platform to submit, discuss and vote on motions. Nevertheless, over the last few years, the GA has been poorly attended, with the 2017 and 2016 meetings seeing respective turnouts of only 16 and 27 voters.
The last time the GA saw a relatively high turnout was in 2015, when 727 students voted in a contentious boycott, divestment and sanctions motion.
This year’s improvement from last year’s turnout is likely a byproduct of increased MSU social media promotion and the submission of the “anti-disruption” motion.
The motion was put forward by Michelle Xu and called for the MSU to advocate for the abandonment of the implementation of the guidelines and acknowledge that the guidelines limit dissent and activism, creating a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forms of protest and disproportionately affecting marginalized students at the university.
The GA is an MSU constitutionally-mandated meeting that provides full-time undergrad students with a platform to submit, discuss and vote on motions.
The motion generated debate and scrutiny, garnering support from the majority of student speakers but drawing criticism from a few who sought to amend or reject it.
“Protest is not meant to be acceptable to institutions on the receiving end.… Marginalized students have expressed concerns over tangible threats to their safety,” said Xu, who explained that organizations such as Canadian Union of Public Employees 3906, the McMaster Womanists and the Revolutionary Student Movement are in favour of the motion.
A student speaker voiced the complaint the ad hoc committee on protest and freedom of expression was overwhelmingly white and male, being unreflective of the campus community. As such, the motion was amended to include calls for increased transparency, representation and consultation with students.
Students on the other side argued that the freedom of expression guidelines improve free speech, invoking McMaster’s low score on the Campus Freedom Index as evidence for the need for the guidelines.
Nevertheless, the motion passed by 85 per cent.
Nevertheless, over the last few years, the GA has been poorly attended, with the 2017 and 2016 meetings seeing respective turnouts of only 16 and 27 voters.
In addition, the assembly voted in favour of a motion aimed at advocating for improved access to mental health care for students and asked that sexual assault response training be extended to special constables and security.
“My motion stems from not only my own experience but that of many others I’ve spoken to from different years and from different faculties who all expressed frustration and hopelessness in trying to seek help for their mental health issues,” said Marley Beach, the student who submitted the motion.
The assembly also passed a motion pushing the MSU to work with the Graduate Student Association and McMaster association of part-time studies to create a club system that is not constrained by membership rules.
“I’ve been starting a club called the McMaster Mars Rover Team, and we decided to be a part of the McMaster Engineering Society and not the MSU so that grad students and high school students can participate,” said Max Lightstone, the student who put forward the motion. “But the MES has its own issues, namely that 75 per cent of members need to be MES members, which prevents students from other faculties from participating fully.”
It should be noted that, although the GA passed a few motions, all were non-binding as they didn’t reach the 683 votes needed to meet quorum. The motions will be discussed and voted on by the Student Representative Assembly.
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While I have written about how we should be expecting campaigns on campus to follow the rules, a larger problem exists. What if the rules need reform?
Having odd rules does not excuse a candidate from not reading the rules, intentionally breaking them or their inability to run a disciplined campaign team. But regardless of how all of these recent appeals for the McMaster Students Union president-elect turn out, there should be a re-evaluation of what is necessary to keep in the rules and a consistent system that serves to better represent the severity of each violation.
There are a few different approaches to how violations have been approached over the years.
One example of this is rule 5.1., which reads, “Materials may not possess any logo(s) of the MSU, McMaster University, or McMaster University recognized groups”. This is a standard violation.
In 2016, a cooperative approach was used when Mike Gill was tagged in a photo of someone wearing an MSU Spark shirt. This was deemed to be in violation of the rules for the usage of an MSU logo. The Chief Returning Officer warned Gill about the situation, Gill replied that the person was not on their campaign team and the CRO added that it was still their responsibility to ask the individual to take the photo down, which it was. The motion to fine Gill failed.
In that same year, Justin Monaco-Barnes uploaded a campaign video filmed in the Underground that had the MSU and Child Care logos visible. The CRO notified Monaco-Barnes, and the team put a “censored patch” over it. Two motions passed: the first was related to 5.1., and the second was for inappropriate use of MSU resources.
It is also worth noting that Gill’s violation had to do with a non-participating member posting an MSU logo and Monaco-Barnes’ violation came from his campaign team. This election also featured a ruling that dismissed a complaint against Jonathon Tonietto as they could not verify if someone using Snapchat was on his campaign team.
2018 featured a different approach according to the Jan. 25 minutes. The CRO emailed all candidates stating that all logos needed to be blurred. This came up in Rabeena Obaidullah’s violations when a campaign team member wore a McMaster sweater in their photo on the campaign website and in the team photo. This resulted in a 5.1. ruling, and a severe violation for deliberately breaking a rule.
The 2018 election also featured multiple rulings that added non-participating members to campaign teams, then passing violations on those teams.
The actions of members added to Aydin’s team resulted in one standard violation. Multiple standard violations and one severe violation were added for Farah because of members added to the team by the committee and multiple standard violations were added for external endorsements. One additional standard violation was added for retweeting a non-MSU member’s endorsement, which is fair. Multiple standard violations and one severe violation were added to Odaidullah because of members added to the team or friends of the candidate.
Inconsistencies when it comes to the communication of violations with the candidates and the rulings on those violations and on non-campaigning members have led to this year being strange when it comes to rulings.
In 2016, you could be relatively sure that all of the violations against Sarah Jama, who was disqualified and later reinstated after appeals, were from her or her campaign team. Her disqualification and reinstatement went through a process that evaluated her designated team’s ability to follow the rules, and uphold the integrity of the campaigning period. This year has been questionable whether Farah and Obaidullah deserve to be disqualified on their own merits or if they were disqualified thanks to things that were out of their control.
These different approaches to interpreting the rules should be clarified and overhauled to allow for each year to be judged similarly. There should be no questions about whether the subjective interpretations by the elections committee in a particular year have significantly influenced the election results or fines levied.
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On Feb. 4, the McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly gathered in room 111 of Gilmour Hall for the first SRA meeting of the month. Meeting highlights included a delegation by MSU President Chukky Ibe, a report period and a few administrative motions.
In a referendum last March, 59 per cent of McMaster students voted in favour of the expansion of Pulse and the creation of a new Student Activity Building. Ibe’s presentation concerned the tentative details of project, which is slated to be completed by 2020.
In order to collect recommendations for the SAB, the MSU created an online survey and made it available to students from July to Oct. 2017. Some suggestions for the SAB included study spaces, lounge spaces, nap rooms, a cafe and food court, a multifaith prayer space and a grocery store.
According to Ibe, most of the recommendations put forward will likely be implemented.
“The building is more so done, the parameters are set, and the program is designed,” said Ibe.
Nevertheless, Ibe noted that there will still be discrepancies between what students were promised and what they will receive. In particular, although students were promised a new gym, the promise did not include the fact that the new gym would have turf flooring.
Moreover, students will be receiving peer-to-peer consultation-style rooms instead of a peer support centre. In addition, in the SAB, students will have access to nap-friendly furniture as opposed to a napping room.
In spite of these discrepancies, the SAB is expected to fulfill most of its promises, featuring key developments such as a grocery store-style student market, lounge and study areas and two prayer spaces.
After Ibe’s delegation, the SRA transitioned into a report period. Some topics included the creation of a nursing career panel in CIBC hall, increased collaboration between the social science caucus and Maccess and the completion of the municipal pre-budget submission, which discusses how Hamilton City Council should allocate tax dollars this year.
Following the report period, the SRA voted on a number of administrative motions, including the opening and closing of seats on the municipal affairs, services and executive board committees. For a spot on the executive board committee, Kristin Webb, social sciences (member), ran against Shemar Hackett, social sciences (member).
Webb was voted in.
The next SRA meeting will be held on Feb. 25 in Gilmour Hall.
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