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hire an additional counsellor, release exam schedules earlier, provide more open educational resources, discontinue the outdated Pebblepad feature and request more environmentally sustainable practices at the university level.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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By Areej Ali
Following a two year hiatus, the McMaster Students Union brought back the university budget submission, a document submitted to the university that outlines a number of recommendations put forward by the MSU.
Tasneem Warwani, associate vice president (University Affairs), sought to re-introduce the MSU McMaster budget submission given the power and usefulness of the advocacy tool.
“We believe that it’s important for the university to incorporate student perspectives into all aspects of governance,” said Warwani. “Budgets and financing greatly affect student lives because the budget committees fund or defund initiatives that can both directly and indirectly affect student experiences.”
[spacer height="20px"]Warwani wants to ensure that McMaster student voices are heard in university processes.
“It also helps make our advocacy much stronger when we have formalized documents that we can present. The budget submission is a first step, and our advocacy for our initiatives outlined won’t stop there, but it has proven to be a successful first step for other universities so it will be interesting to see how effective it is for the MSU,” said Warwani.
One notable recommendation in the document calls for the university to fund 50 per cent of the MSU Emergency First Response Team’s costs and expenses, which would equate to an annual cost of $11,922.
The motivation behind this recommendation largely lies in the fact that as a result of equipment purchases and staffing expenses, EFRT is running a net loss of $59,845, which is significantly more than first responder teams at universities such as the University of Waterloo and University of Ottawa have incurred.
The MSU also recommends that the university designate $50,000 to support professors in developing and refining open educational resources, which include openly licensed online textbooks. This recommendation comes on the tail of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and the MSU’s #TextbookBroke campaign, which pushed for increased textbook affordability via the adoption of OERs.
According to the MSU budget submission, universities such as the University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University and the University of Calgary have already invested thousands in OERs on their campuses.
Another recommendation outlined in the document calls for the Student Wellness Centre to receive funding to support the hiring of an additional trauma counsellor and the Equity and Inclusion Office to receive additional funding to support increased sexual violence response efforts.
The MSU McMaster budget submissions also asks the university to implement initiatives that reduce overall energy consumption by one per cent. This proposed allocation would save the university $400,000 according to the MSU.
In September, Stephanie Bertolo, MSU vice president (Education) and Warwani presented the document to the university budget subcommittee.
“They were all fairly impressed and receptive to our asks. We’re now scheduling follow up meetings with key stakeholders to follow up on our asks,” reads part of the Oct. 9 associate vice president (University Affairs) report.
While the document merits optimism, it should be noted that some significant past recommendations have not been implemented by the university.
For instance, during the 2016-2017 year, the MSU pushed for the university to cease to operate the Learning Portfolio, a portfolio platform now hosted by PebblePad that the MSU argues is not worth the over $700,000 that the university has spent on it. However, the MSU’s demands have still yet to be met, with the MSU persisting to include the recommendation that the LP be axed in its 2018-2019 submission.
This year’s MSU university budget submission includes a number of recommendations that align neatly with MSU policies and priorities. However, it remains uncertain whether or not the university will listen to the union’s voice this time around.
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