The Insiders
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Sep
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GSS Handbook Upheld
Posted by: Neal Yonson | September 3, 2008 | 9 Comments
Nothing like a little controversy to start the fresh school year off! The Graduate Student Society (GSS), like the AMS, releases an agenda and handbook that’s distributed to students for free every year. This year they asked a well-known campus activist, Nathan Crompton, to put it together. Supervising it was the GSS Handbook Committee chaired by GSS VP Student Services, Rodrigo Ferrari-Nunes.
The Handbook has been printed at a cost of at least $20,000. In addition to normal stuff like an intro to student services and an agenda, the handbook features a critical, cynical and satirical history of UBC and numerous assertions about the university’s profit-mongering raison d’etre. The content proved to be too “inappropriate” for GSS President Mona Maghsoodi though. In response, three members of the Executive decided to suspend distribution of the Handbooks and lock them in an unknown location. Although Mona would not return my calls and it has been noted in other publications that she declined to say which elements of the handbook are contentious, but said it’s not necessarily the “activist stuff.”
In response to the nature of the content, Nathan Crompton said that “there’s a certain level of satire. I don’t think it’s over the top.” He also expressed his views on the purpose of the handbook. “A lot of people see the handbook as a way to impress the president. We didn’t make that kind of handbook.”
Some people think the radical political content of the handbook is fine, and withholding it is “censorship”. Others find the content inappropriate for the handbook and objectionable in general. For me, the more interesting question is: How was this thing massively produced before being checked over? Presumably the president of a student society would weigh in on such a massively important publication before sending it to the printers. According to Nate, the editors did their work in the plain view of the GSS Executive. Editors held ‘Open House’ meetings, where executives were invited to review Handbook material, in addition to several Handbook presentations to the GSS Executive in which Executive members were informed that the Handbook would feature the activist history of UBC.
Since the the Handbook is the responsibility of the Handbook Committee and GSS Council, not the Executive, the final decision on whether or not to distribute the handbook lies with GSS Council. See the debate play out at tomorrow’s GSS Council meeting! Free beer!
Happily, we’ve got an electronic copy. You can download and take a look a the contraband handbook itself HERE .
What do you think? Good political critique of the university’s past and present, or overly negative and editorialized introduction for new grad students? What reflection does this fiasco have on the GSS as a whole?
Comments
9 Comments so far
I make no judgments on the content of the handbook, because I haven’t read it.
That being said, from what I’ve read about the issue, the contents of the handbook tended towards one end of the political spectrum. Now, I’m not on the GSS, but one would think that a student handbook would be as apolitical as possible.
Without seeing the terms of the contract or the job description given to Mr. Crompton, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that ‘use the handbook as your personal political soapbox’ was not in either document.
I think that the content itself is fine inasmuch as any political speech is fine, but I think that a handbook is the wrong place for it.
Nathan Crompton is a hypocrite. He is always talking about the abuse of power, and the second he is given any he uses his position for shameless self-promotion of HIS magazine and ideology.
Regardless, of the value of the content being out there for students to read it is a misuse of his position for him to favour his point of view in a guidebook for a society that represents many different opinions and perspectives.
Having just looked through the handbook, I can’t believe it actually got printed.
Nathan should definitely not be paid.
-and –
Rodigo should be sacked by GSS Council for allowing it to be published.
This is the disgraceful behavior students get when people elect SDS members to political office.
Just looked through the handbook and can’t believe this drivel was allowed to be printed.
How this did not get held up BEFORE going to print is unbelievable. A handbook a source of information not a place to push personal politics.
In response to some of what I’ve read:
The concept that something like the Insider or the GSS Handbook should or can be apolitical is inane. When something appears apolitical, it invariably serves to reinforce the status quo. The unquestioning promulgation of UBC’s ‘centennial’, for example, may seem apolitical because it is accepted and propagated by bodies in power- but it is not. The status quo, the so-called moderate, is not outside of political ideology. Crompton didn’t use the handbook as his “soapbox” anymore than the editors of the Insider used their work as such. Nor did he “abuse his power”- he included an explicit disclaimer in the beginning of the handbook. No, he doesn’t speak for you; he doesn’t try to. He’s speaking to you.
Any GSSers who thought throwing a twenty-thousand-dollar, highly public project to that muckracking sideshow and Captain Incoherency wound up with exactly what they deserved.
It’s possible – and usually more effective – to question the status quo without completely humiliating yourself, but nobody in the SDS/Knoll camp has any idea how to do that.
I 100% agree with anonymous when they say that the GSS got what they deserved.
Crompton and Rodrigo are blind ideologues. They routinely dont allow ‘facts’ or ‘reality’ to hinder their opinions, and they have very set, very wacko (in my opinion) views.
The GSS, if they had any brains would have instituted oversight on the project, they didnt, and now they can take the consequences.
Thats what you get when you pay radical blind ideologues to write your agenda, anyone on campus could have told them that.
Okay, I’m going to say this here because there have been a few problems with comments.
This blog is a discussion forum for ideas. It will be a place where people can feel safe expressing their opinions. Dissent and disagreement is encouraged, but outright personal attacks and disrespectful comments are not welcome and will be deleted. This standard applies to everyone.
the second he is given any he uses his position for shameless self-promotion of HIS magazine and ideology.
oh, come on. as if anything out there is value-neutral.
if the GSS handbook sounded half as stupid as the ridiculous ad hominem attacks on this thread, i could see hiding it in a warehouse.
OH NOES THERES A POLITICS IN MY HANDBOOK SOMEBODY KILL IT!!!!!1