Category: AMS

Categories
AMS Student Politics

Oversight

So Council has approved the creation of an oversight committee and stacked it with code fiends. Fun fun. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think it’s the best model. Why?

  1. No oversight of Council. We’re all about exec transparency, but Council is just as important in the operations of the AMS as is the executive. There are no real bodies that engage in Council oversight.
  2. Committee composition. As pointed out in an earlier post, these committees tend to attract the same types of people who are rules junkies. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but I don’t see how it can be good.
  3. No way to ensure “mature, constructive” criticism. This committee only functions if the oversight is mature and constructive. Again, there is nothing to guard that.
  4. Conflicting interests. By limiting the pool to elected officials, there are two possible grounds of conflict. The first is personal relationships; the existence of pre-existing relationships necessarily causes problems for oversight. For instance, Lougheed listed Naylor a member of his “campaign team.” There’s clearly a pre-existing relationship. Second, it is open to a member of the committee to use it as a springboard to take down an exec member to further their own ends. There’s nothing in the code to address these issues.

It follows that my ideal oversight is mature and constructive, free of conflicting interests, comes from a varied perspective, and oversees Council as well as the executive.

To that end, I propose a model similar to that used by ESPN. Yes, I’m using them for corporate best practices. But here’s the thing – their model is really good. And I can’t find another one anywhere that comes anywhere close to approximating its awesomeness. (By way of background, click here to see the archives and to get a sense of what the ESPN Ombudsperson does.)

What could a re-vamped AMS Ombuds office do? They could fulfill the same function as the existing committee, except in a far more non-political manner. They could identify what the AMS (both Council and the exec) are doing to fulfill the student mission, and assess compliance (or lack thereof) with the stragetic plan. Most importantly, the role of the Ombuds could be to identify both the good things that have been done, as well as the areas for improvement. A nice, fair, balanced report (like the ESPN ones) to Council once a month? I’d like to see that.

Seriously, take a look at the ESPN ones. Can you really, honestly imagine an oversight committee coming up with something that useful and productive? The reason you can’t is because the oversight is being done by student politicians, for whom “mature” and “constructive” behavior are not exactly priorities. They also have conflicting interests (see the most recent article for a good discussion of conflicting versus vested interests), and because they’ll only be exacerbating the Council-Exec tension.

A position modeled on the ESPN one would be easy to fill. And pay big dividends.

Categories
AMS Government

AMS meeting skinny

disclaimer: No, AMS is not the earth and sky. I’m just writing about it this week because I have stuff to write about. More general-interest stories to come.

For those of you that wonder what-all goes on during AMS meetings, but have never bothered to show up and eat the free food every other Wednesday night, here’s a little primer on the goings-on at the highest decision making body of your student union. For currency and convenience, I’ll use yesterday’s meeting as an example, with the added bonus that you won’t have to wait god knows how long till the minutes are posted to find out what went down (note: the most recent minutes on the AMS website are from January 24th 2007 – five meetings ago). As detailed in the previous post, much of this meeting was taken up by committee appointments, which only take place once a year. Still though, the format was typical (as it always is).

Meetings start in a friendly manner. People mill about gathering sandwiches, fruit and cups of coffee. When the meeting is called to order, everyone introduces themselves.

The first things on the agenda are usually presentations to council: from the university, external advisers, AMS services, etc. The last few weeks’ meeting have been taken up by presentations from all the AMS services, who need to report to council on a yearly basis about their doings, their finances, and their user statistics. Yesterday there were presentations from Safewalk and the Sexual Assault Support Centre.

Next is Exec reports. Each of the execs (President, VP external, VP academic, VP finance, and VP admin) get a few minutes to talk about what they are up to, give council a heads up about motions they put together, and address any specific business in their portfolio. For example, last week VP admin Sarah Naiman did a show-and-tell for the new fabulous events calendar that is now situated in the SUB nook (large, yellow, between blue chip and PiR, check it out). I’m not gonna lie, I can’t remember anything the exec said in their reports yesterday. It probably wasn’t too exciting. Oh, actually president Jeff Friedrich welcomed the new Communications Manager. She’s got a cool job.

Allison, the new Communications Manager (by Gina)

Next is constituency reports. This is when the representatives from the various faculties and schools around campus say things like “Arts county fair in 8 days!” and “Awesome big-screen TVs are being installed in Ladha!” and “nothing to report!” and “We’re having another beer garden!”. Updates are usually brief and always cheery.

Now we come to the meat and potatoes of the meeting: executive motions. This is when the execs present motions to council about a wide range of topics. Individual council members, constituencies, and committees can also put motions on the agenda, but most of the important motions go through the exec first and are presented at this time. Yesterday, there were two interesting executive motions: one to approve spending up to $8000 on a “student-wide poll,” that’s going to gather information about student’s views and awareness of AMS-related issues, as well as some university-related issues. Look out for the broadcast email asking for your participation. The other one was a motion brought forward by VP academic Brendon Goodmurphy to create the ad-hoc academic quality committee tasked with basically taking NSSE, compiling it with more student complaints and recommendations about academics, and shoving the whole package down the administration’s throats. This is a current “hot topic,” due to Stephen Toope’s alleged enthusiasm for all things teaching and students. These motions raised some good questions and healthy debate. Both were carried.

Look for the rest behind the jump.

Next were committee motions. Though normally, these would be policy motions brought forward by a committee, yesterday they were mostly motions to appoint members to all the committees for this year. To find out about these in detail, read a few posts down.

An entirely different motion having nothing to do with appointments also appeared in this section, though I’m not sure why it did, as opposed to ‘executive motions’. In any event, VP external Matthew Naylor presented a motion that the AMS should join as a petitioner in a lawsuit that is constitutionally challenging Bill-C31, which is currently going through the Canadian Senate. The Bill requires that in order to vote in federal elections in a given riding, voters must have current government-issued photo ID with their current address in that specific riding. Since so many students come from elsewhere, live in residence, and are renters, this requirement would effectively disenfranchise a large chunk of UBC students, unless they went through the flaw-ridden process of asking for an away ballot from their home riding. This lawsuit is being headed by the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre. There was alot of debate on this motion. It centred on the possible financial liability the AMS would incur if the case was lost and legal fees were assigned by the judge. Debate also focused on the fact that legal advice had not been sought. Some councilors felt that they did not have enough information to enter into a court challenge. Others felt that the spirit of the motion justified it, particularly due to the time-sensitive nature of the bill passing through Senate and a possible spring election. In the end, the policy was amended to include a requirement that the executive seek legal council, and power was given to the executive committee to decide whether or not to join as a petitioner or support the lawsuit in some other way. This one motion took about an hour and 15 minutes to amend and pass. This is because certain council members saw fit to repeat the same sentiments over and over, without suggesting any amendments. Others made lengthy, non-specific, and generally vacuous comments. But mostly, Matthew and the other executives should have anticipated the uneasiness of council over the lack of information, and brought in one of the other petitioning groups to supply more detailed monetary and technical information ahead of time. A strange gaffe, and one that let alone wasting alot of council time, nearly cost the failure of this important initiative.

Some more appointments took place after that, with a few non-pressing ones delayed till the next meeting due to the lateness of the hour. Normally, there would be discussion topics, and notice of future motions after that, but there weren’t any this time. Also, normally meetings are supposed to last till 10, so this one was extended twice: first to 11, and then indefinitely. sigh.

A few observations:

Generally, the level of discussion and debate is good: understandable and reasonably lively. I do lament the lack of eloquence. Not many people seem inclined to really ham it up these days (though Craig from Education gave a pretty sonorous motivation, I admit), and are satisfied with disjointed, un-prefaced remarks. This is fair enough, but when combined with the sometimes-repetitiveness and unselfconscious rambling that sometimes surfaces, it can make for uninspiring debate. Another thing to note is that there are relatively few people who speak often, and almost dominate the discourse. This is probably just a fact of life, but worth noting.

The tone of council is not formal, but Robert’s Rules are rigorously implemented by the incomparable chairperson Dave so things run quickly. Looking around the room, there are often side-conversations and peanut galleries along the sides where quiet (but no doubt slanderous and radical) discussio
ns also take place. Not intimidating at all.

So, for everyone that’s never thought about where and how exactly your student government actually functions, I hope that gave you a taste of what the AMS meeting is like. Come out every other Wednesday (but less in the summer) at 6:00 PM in the council chambers, SUB room 206, to see the democracy at work!!

Categories
AMS Government

AMS committee appointment results (the interesting ones)

Well, I’m back from the 6-hour 9-minute AMS meeting of tonight*. In this post I’ll just list some of the more interesting committee appointment results and relevant comments. A more complete summary of the meeting, and further ruminations about AMS meetings generally will follow in a few hours once I’m fully conscious.

Member-at-large committee seats were filled early in the evening and council-member appointments were later. The same basic procedure was followed: the committees were listed, councilors nominated others or themselves (and members at large could nominate themselves), and if the nominees exceeded the open spots, council voted by ballot. For details about each committee’s duties and seats in the AMS code of procedure click here. I’ve consciously left out a whole slew of the appointments committees.

Alors:

campus planning & development:
Darren Peets (BoG)
Scott Bernstein (law)
Tristan Markle (science)
Margaret Orlowski (at large)
Peter Rizov (at large)
Matt Filipiak (at large)

This looks like a robust crew. Darren, the walking capus-development ecyclopedia, with Matt, Peter and Tristan should have a diversity of strong voices. I’m particularly excited about Margaret Orlowsky, who made her AMS debut tonight, having never attended a meeting before. She’s a keen graduate student that’s been involved in the anti U-boulevard petition and not much else, but got interested in the last few months. She showed up, spoke her piece, and will be doing some work in a big way. So kudos.

Budget
Stephanie Ryan (arts)
Rob Taddei (education)
Jia Lei (commerce)
Lois Chan (at large)
Justin Stevens (at large)

ad hoc Academic Quality Committee
Jessica (arts)
Lindsay (engineering)
Neal Marks (L & FS)
me! [Maayan Kreitzman] (at large)
Natalie Hillary (at large)

This is a brand-new committee that was just created By VP Academic Brendon Goodmurphy for the general purpose of addressing issues of the quality of the academic experience of students. As GSS president Matt Filipiak (I think it was him) mentioned, it is surprising that no standing committee exists in the AMS to address academic issues. For now, the committee will focus on communicating with the University to leverage the data from the NSSE (in which UBC ranked rock-bottom, plus or minus some dark benthic water layers) to forward the huge concerns regarding quality of learning here at UBC. The president of UBC, Stephen Toope has expressed interest and concern over this, and the issue of student engagement and satisfaction seems to be current and hot at the university levels right now. Not to toot my own horn too hard, but I’m quite optimistic about this committee: we can seize this opportunity to communicate to the university exactly what we students are on about, from class sizes, to enrichment of teaching skills, to course evaluations, and so on.

One more note: Natalie Hilary also popped her AMS cherry tonight. She seems super keen, and I look forward to working with her.

ad hoc Lobbying Review
Tahara Bhate (science), chair
Sam Heppell (arts)
Darren Peets (BoG)

This appointment race yielded perhaps the most dramatic moment of the evening. The Lobbying Review committee was an initiative of 04/05 president Amina Rai to create a guiding policy group to for determining lobbying policy; originally they were evaluating the pros and cons of being in CASA. Now it’s a general lobbying policy committee. According to some people, it now functions as a counterweight to the External Commission, which is appointed by the VP-external. It is not chaired by the VP External. Clearly, political types go for this position. Notably, both Tristan Markle and Nathan Crompton, (both perceivedly “radical” left-wing activists and Knoll-contributors) threw their hats in, and failed to win. Crompton, in his motivation, made a particularly unsavory sling at VP external Matthew Naylor, saying that it would be particularly important to elect him, as a representative of an alternative viewpoint since the current VP External was ineffective due to his involvement in party politics. (Matthew has campaigned for the federal Liberals). Though the evaluation of councilors in regard to their personal politics is valid, and should have a venue on council, this was not an appropriate time to air it. Alienating the executive whose portfolio the committee you are proposing to join concerns is impractical, not to mention divisive. It is certainly possible to express diverse opinions about lobbying issues (which is what this is all supposed to come down to) directly without irrelevant personal targeting. Crompton’s further comment that it was “not personal” I found disingenuos and strange. Anyhow, the tactic didn’t pay off. Interesting to note in this context is Sam Heppell’s rigorous involvement as the president of the the UBC NDP club. I have not heard any complaints about this. Basically, this, or any, committee is not free of partisanship, nor should it be. Lets recognize that and not privilege some ideological affiliations (be they political parties or otherwise) over others.

Communication Planning Group
Jeff Friedrich, (AMS president), chair
Ryan Corbett (invited at the discretion of the chair)
Andrew Forshner (arts)
Conor Topley (commerce)
Alex Lougheed (science)

This should be interesting. This is the only committee chaired by the president. It is dealing with large issues of the AMS’s visibility and communication with students, an issue whose shortcomings have been much lamented on this blog and elsewhere. The committee is going to think about possibly re-branding the AMS, as well as using available venues and technology to better reach John Q. They’ll be working with Allison, the newly-hired Communications Manager. Corbett, though he will no longer be a member of council after the arts representatives turn over (between now and next meeting) was invited at the discretion of the chair to continue in the Group due to his “valuable insights” this year. There are no member-at-large seats in the Group. Lets hope for some strong results!

Code & Policy
Scott Bernstein (law), chair
Sam Heppell (arts)
Alex Lougheed (science)
Jason (GSS)
……. (at large)
……. (at large)

Oversight
Sam Heppel (arts), chair
Jason (GSS)
Alex Lougheed (science)
Scott Bernstein (law)
Conor Topley (commerce)

Notice that the Code & Policies committee, and Oversight committee members are one and the same (except for Conor). It has been highlighted to me that modes (or maybe molds?) exist within the council, that members fall comfortably into, because they fit. Not a bad thing, just an observation.

Buisness Operations Committee
Tahara Bhate (science)
Connor Topley (commerce)
Aidha Sheikh (GSS)
Colin Simkus (at large)

Impacts
Neal Marks (L & FS)
Joel Koczwarski (arts)
Omid Javadi (engineering)

A few more orphan comments:

  • There has be consternation and discussion about the lack of advertisement for at-large committee seats. There were a significant number of at-large candidates, and only one (if recall) committee was filled with no vote, and that was the budget committee. Right now, the message goes out through the constituencies to presumably moderately involved members within them. The executive has never made efforts to publicize these positions and makes no bones about saying so. But, as Jeff detailed in a comment on the below post, this has been recognized as a flaw. The reorganization of AMS volunteer connections and AMS job link (which was carried at today’s meeting), to be
    combined and renamed AMS Connect, is supposed to have more detailed online postings for internal volunteer positions henceforth. This is to more widely publicize AMS positions on committees, commissions, working groups and so forth, as well as build a greater sense of community and relevance among students-at-large. Too bad the regular half-assed effort at publicizing the positions was still in effect for this round.
  • Students-at-large may only sit on one (1) appointed position within the AMS, according to the interpretation of the following passage of code (section I, article 1, paragraph 4) :

    “Student At Large” shall mean an Active Member who is eligible to serve in an
    appointed position by virtue of not being a member of Council and not currently holding any other position to which he or she has been appointed by Council, a Council Committee, a Commission, a Planning Group, the Ombudsperson, the Executive Committee, an individual member of the Executive, or the Executive Coordinator of Student Services. (emphasis added)

    During the course of the evening, there were many council-designated seats on committees that were not eagerly filled, or not filled at all. So much so that Brendon Goodmurphy put forward a motion to suspend Code and allow more than one person from each constituency to be appointed to one committee just to be able to fill them (normally, for example, only one Arts representative is permitted on a given committee as per section V, article 2, paragraph 3). Opening up multiple committee appointments to members at large is practical. There is no explicit statement to the contrary in code – only the above cited definition.

  • This council is certainly not disinclined to choose members at large that are unfamiliar to it if they show up and give a half-decent spiel. Margaret and Natalie showed that. Here’s hoping more will follow their example.
  • PiR^2 does not serve matza pizza on Passover during 6-hour long AMS meetings. This is a violation of human rights, and should be treated as such for speedy mitigation ASAP.
  • If I’m missing information, or erring, please post updates/corrections. It’s been a long night.

*I totally did write this up last night at 1 am when I got home. Due to a silly internet connection, I don’t seem like as huge a keener as I am.


Categories
AMS Campus Life

AMS Committee Appointments


Important Notice
Sorry Timbits, gonna hog the spotlight for 20 hours or so

The AMS is appointing students to their many committees. This is where some of the major gruntwork is done at the AMS level.

Once again the AMS hasn’t advertised the at large committee spots at all nor was there a preliminary description on how often they meet, how much time commitment it is. IE. This is NOT accessible to “at large” students.

I don’t care what the execs have to say to defend themselves but it’s a pet peeve of mine and Peter Rizov will agree with me. What’s the new PR manager doing? The Webmaster? Hello AMS we are yet again failing at Student engagement.

See the list of open committee spots behind the jump.

Open to all UBC Students are the following seats:

2 seats – the Budget Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – the Compensation Review Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Code and Policies Committee for a term commencing immediately
and ending March 31, 2008

3 seats – to the Primary Appointments Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Coordinators Appointments Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Commissioners Appointments Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Assistant Appointments Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

1 seat – to the Business Operations Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Fundraising and Sponsorship Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats – to the Campus Planning & Development Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008 (HI MAAYAN)

2 seats – to the UPass Subsidy Review Committee for a term commencing immediately and ending March 31, 2008

2 seats to the ad-hoc Academic Quality Committee for a term commencing
immediately and ending March 31, 2008

To get appointed, show up to AMS Council Wednesday April 4 (tomorrow) at 6pm at SUB 206 council chambers.

UGH.

Categories
AMS

Hmmm….

The Ubyssey covers it well. My short version: non-campus students want U-Pass, AMS asked Student Court if they were members under the bylaws, Student Court said yes, AMS sent question back for clarification, Student Court says they are entitled to be AMS members.

The AMS Student Court says that co-op students should be members.
AMS Exec and Council disagree.

So what to do? They decide to “ignore” the whole question, rather than “reject” it. Apparently they will negotiate individually with those students.

I’m not gonna lie – I don’t understand how they can do that. What’s the point of a student court, exactly, if we can just ignore its ruling by putting our hands over our ears and pretending not to hear? What’s now to stop a co-op or commerce diploma student from going to student court on their own initiative to force the AMS to make them part of their membership? More troublingly, what’s stopping a co-op student from going to real court to seek a similar interpretation?

It was said at Council by the execs that “we couldn’t get a result we wanted.” That seems kinda wrong, no?

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