Category: Issues

Categories
Athletics Campus Life Issues

Did The Killers Kill the Liquor at Thunderbird Arena?

The new Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre is currently applying for an amendment to their liquor-primary licence. The matter will be coming before Metro Vancouver’s Electoral Area committee for approval this Friday and there seems to be a significant hurdle in the way: as a result of past violations, the RCMP does not support it.

    Thunderbird Arena currently has a liquor-primary licence which covers the seating area in Father Bauer arena as well as the location of the former Thunderbar. When the new facility was erected around Father Bauer arena, the new areas were not covered under the existing liquor licence. As a result, UBC Athletics is applying for an amendment to the existing liquor-primary licence to cover the seating area and floor of the new arena. This application is not only in UBC’s interests, VANOC wants it too. It’s in the venue agreement, and so UBC does as VANOC wants.

    Continue reading “Did The Killers Kill the Liquor at Thunderbird Arena?”
    Categories
    Athletics Campus Life Issues

    More from the CIS AGM

    The Coles notes version of this post was already published: CIS restricts dual membership with NCAA.

    Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the organization that governs high-performance sport at the post-secondary level, held its Annual General Meeting from June 8-12 in Gatineau, Quebec.

    When UBC decided to defer its decision on NCAA membership until at least 2010, one of the reasons cited was unresolved issues reagarding CIS. In the context of potential NCAA membership, the three main issues identified were (1) Dual membership rules, (2) Athletic Financial Aid rules and (3) Quality of competition within Canada West. The CIS AGM is the only time of year where these issues can be dealt with formally by the CIS membership.

    Continue reading “More from the CIS AGM”
    Categories
    Athletics Issues

    CIS restricts dual membership with NCAA

    The Ubyssey-edited version of this can be found at ubyssey.ca.

    Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the organization which governs high-performance athletics at Canadian universities, sent a bold message to schools looking to join the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at their annual general meeting on Thursday. Voting 55-20 in favour, CIS members instituted a policy which places stringent restrictions on schools who pursue membership in both the CIS and the NCAA. Under the new rule, member schools are only allowed to play in the NCAA in sports not offered by the CIS.

    “The NCAA is a gigantic, multi-sport business entity and quite frankly the CIS is not. So we believe that it could be a threat to the existence of CIS and we reacted accordingly,” said Dick White, University of Regina athletic director and outgoing CIS president. “I hope it at least creates some pause for thought, but I also understand that the school and its athletic director and its president will ultimately make a decision which they think is best.”

    The two schools in question are UBC and SFU, the only CIS members who have openly expressed interest in the NCAA. SFU’s senior athletic director Dr. David Murphy spoke passionately against the membership restrictions during the meeting, arguing that it “reeks of insecurity and protectionism,” and that the CIS shouldn’t shy away from competition, but rather use it as an opportunity to better itself and grow stronger. Dr. Murphy expressed his regret that the new rule was adopted, but that SFU’s plans are already in motion:“The [NCAA] application form is in. We wait, and we find out in July whether or not we have been accepted.”

    For UBC, which deferred its decision regarding NCAA application until at least 2010, this provides one more piece of the puzzle. Uncertainty over what action, if any, the CIS would take regarding dual membership has long been one of the sticking points in the university’s consideration of NCAA membership. While the new rule is not an outright ban on dual membership, it essentially makes the pursuit of the NCAA an all-or-nothing proposal since the pool of sports offered by the NCAA but not by the CIS is very narrow.

    “We’re not saying ‘you can’t join’,” explained CIS CEO Marg McGregor. “UBC and SFU and any university that wants to can join. But as a result of that, we will not be the league of convenience. We want to be the league of choice.”

    The issue of personal choice was indeed one of the key reasons UBC opposed the new rule. “I speak in favour of dual membership because I believe it does provide universities choices,” said Theresa Hanson, director of varsity athletics at UBC. “From a dual membership perspective, we could still make a commitment to CIS sport, continue some sports in Canada as well as move a considerable number of sports to the NCAA.”

    UBC and SFU were not the only schools to oppose the new rule, with a handful of other schools also expressing their disapproval. Ivan Joseph of Ryerson opposed the change because he thought allowing dual membership would enable more Canadian athletes to stay at Canadian schools. Jennifer Brenning from Carleton was also opposed, pointing to the fact that the CIS now has three different sets of dual membership rules depending on whether you want to play in the NCAA, the NAIA, or the CCAA. Before this year, the CIS had no policy at all on dual membership.

    While uncertainty surrounding dual membership has finally come to an end, the result doesn’t make UBC’s NCAA decision any easier. One of the biggest issues, academic accreditation, remains unresolved and Theresa Hanson acknowledges that the closer you examine the issue of NCAA membership, the more complex it becomes.“I think it provides more challenges, the outcome, but I really think that [Toope] will make a decision that’s in the best interests of the university and of our student athletes.”

    Categories
    Academic Life Issues

    Sterling example of effective advocacy – Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

    Students spend alot of time agonizing over how to be effective advocates for change. Emma Preston, a founding member of UBC UAEM, and this year’s BC Rhodes Scholar, tells of how this group made the university fall head over heals for them.

    Billions of people, primarily in poor countries, lack access to lifesaving medicines; millions more suffer from diseases for which no adequate treatment exists. Universities can change this. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a hands-on student organization that focuses on changing university policies in order to increase access to essential medicines in developing countries (http://www.essentialmedicine.org/). Our mission is two fold. Firstly, to urge universities to ensure that biomedical end products, such as drugs, developed in campus labs are accessible in developing countries, and secondly, to facilitate and promote research on neglected tropical diseases, or those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to constitute a market attractive to private-sector research and development investment. University scientists are major contributors to the drug development pipeline. At the same time, universities have an avowed commitment to advancing the public good. As members of these universities, our fundamental goal is to hold them to this commitment. With a small but committed group of students, representative of the diverse student body at UBC and with some key supporters in the local and international community, we weren’t afraid to think big.

    The UBC chapter of UAEM has been active for over two years and is part of a growing global movement of students dedicated to making research and science more globally responsible (http://ubcuaem.wordpress.com/). This past November, UBC announced it self as the first university in Canada to commit to providing people in poor countries with easier access to its innovations, stating that “ensuring global access to discoveries and technologies developed at UBC is an important element in achieving the TREK vision. UBC technologies have the potential to generate significant societal impacts, and our technologies relating to the advancement of health, the protection of the environment and the promotion of sustainability have the most obvious benefits for a global society.” The press release noted Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) as “catalysts” for the decision (http://www.uilo.ubc.ca/global.asp).

    The UBC Chapter of UAEM (pronounced “you-aim”) was founded in 2005 by Patricia Kretz, currently a fourth year UBC medical student. Initially, the group consisted of a small number of concerned students meeting at random locations about once a week. A mixed bag of grad students, law students, med students and undergrads, we met everywhere from coffee shops to basements to the west atrium of the Life Sciences Institute. It soon became clear that when it comes to understanding access to essential medicines there are many difficult concepts, jargon and acronyms to familiarize oneself with before anything starts to make sense. There is no doubt that there is a steep learning curve. To address this concern and reach out to the greater student body, UAEM UBC held its first “teach-in” in the fall of 2006 at UBC’s Medical Student Alumni Centre. The aim of this afternoon was to go over the basics of intellectual property, licensing and patent law, the neglected tropical disease research gap, metrics (a.k.a. how a university measures its success), and what university students can do to address these issues.

    Another key element in achieving our goals was communicating with UBC faculty and administration. One aspect of this was collecting signatures for the Philadelphia Consensus Statement (PCS), a document that was drafted at the UAEM international meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2006. In a nutshell, the PCS is a document that outlines UAEM’s main goals and ‘signing on’ acts statement of support for these goals. In addition to a number of caring and dedicated faculty, UAEM was fortunate to gain the support of a number of big name global health/humanitarian ‘celebrities’ such as Paul Farmer, Jeffrey Sachs, James Orbinski and, a proud UAEM UBC signature, Stephen Lewis. In this regard it was very helpful to be a chapter of a larger international group and emphasized the benefits of being a multidisciplinary student group in which everyone could use their unique skills and contacts to their full potential.

    With a member base and support from the local and international community, we received support from the Alma Mater Society (AMS) and eventually became an AMS club. We also established an advisory board consisting of a diverse array of individuals who had acted as mentors along the way including a journalist, physicians, a number of faculty members and representatives from the University Industry Liaison Office (UILO). With their support and the help of one of our more politically involved members, Gina Eom (of UBC Insider fame), we were able to arrange a series of meetings with President Stephen Toope, VP Research John Hepburn, University Industry Liaison Office (UILO) President Angus Livingstone and Technology Transfer Officer Barbara Campbell.

    While we initially met with some valid resistance, the potential of what were proposing and its implications with regards to the Trek 2010 goals of global citizenship were hard to deny. Barbara Campbell emerged as our UILO champion and we were incredibly fortunate to have her dedicated support and commitment. We soon realized that you can’t use a one size fits all global access strategy for all technologies developed at UBC. Developing necessary guidelines and applying global access principles requires a lot of hard work and time on the part of the technology transfer officers at the UILO. As such we were very excited to find that the ideas behind these principles have already influenced the licensing of three new UBC technologies: a peer-to-peer software technology with applications in medical school curriculum delivery, an E. coli vaccine technology, and a new less-toxic formulation of antifungal and anti-Leishmania drug Amphotericin B.

    While are starting to see the fruits of our labour in full ripeness, there is still a lot of work to be done. We are working towards developing undergraduate and medical school curriculum on neglected tropical diseases and starting a fund to finance research on these abandoned ailments. We are also in the process of starting chapters at other Canadian universities. As much as ever, we are welcome new members and support within the UBC community with open arms. If you are interested in attending our next meeting or in just finding out more information please don’t hestitate to contact us at: ubc.uaem@gmail.com

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Development Government Issues

    Issue of the Day: The Musqueam Issue

    Now for something a little more controversial. Somebody who I work fairly close with recently questioned my leftist politics. That’s fair – I feel quite comfortable in the bureaucracy of the AMS, and I feel quite comfortable trying to balance the 42 000 different opinions of AMS members, and I even support many CASA policies. But after reading Jesse Ferrara’s post on the Musqueam issue, I agreed that it was something that should get some more discussion in this year’s election. And frankly, at the most recent BoG debates, there are a few things that should be clarified.

    More behind the jump…

    A History of First Nations Oppression:

    There is a certain camp of people, in which I identify, who might describe the history of First Nations people in BC like this:

    There were no “signed” treaties in BC that handed the land over to the Crown – in fact, the conditions under which these other “treaties” were signed across Canada are sketchy at best. There was also no war that was won that legitimizes the Queen of England‘s right to let the Canadian government oversee this land. The only thing that did happen was that a lot of Europeans came to this land with racist, imperialist assumptions that the people who lived here were “backwards and uncivilized” and that was some sort of justification for why we could take it over.

    Over the years, those racist assumptions permeated into the minds and hearts of almost every Canadian, excusing policies that forced children to leave their homes, renounce their Native identity and stop speaking their Native language. What followed were decades of white people actively destroying Native culture and history, and any of its power and meaning. Families fell apart, survivors of the Residential Schools were taught to hate themselves and histories were not just being lost, but violently rewritten. We built entire institutions that systematically destroyed Native culture and kept the First Nations people down through a reinforcing cycle of economic and social poverty.

    Now, people think that we should just forget all that: “I didn’t take over their land, its not my fault.” Well, that’s nice. But I for one feel perfectly capable of taking responsibility for the incomprehensibly terrible things that my ancestors did, and I feel perfectly comfortable doing whatever it takes to rectify the situation, whatever it will take for First Nations communities to heal and rebuild.
    Systemic oppression is about systems, structures and societies that are built on keeping certain people down, certain perspectives out, and certain power-structures in place. Accepting the First Nations issue as an oppression issue is about acknowledging the decades of violence that has been launched at Aboriginal communities.

    Land Claims issues:

    The basic principles to rectifying the relationship between Canada and the First Nations communities are outlined in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP): recognition, respect, sharing and responsibility. We must recognize that the Aboriginal people are the original inhabitants of this land, and no matter how you want to look at it, that grants them certain rights, and we must recognize them as nations, on par with the nation of Canada. We must respect their tradition, their history, their culture and their wishes, the way they define themselves and the future that they define for themselves. We must share this land. And lastly, we must take responsibility for the years of violent oppression, it is our responsibility for the current relationship and state of affairs.

    Understanding current First Nations issues, like current land claims, requires a deep appreciation for these basic tenants. Land claims in BC are about negotiating use of this land on equal terms, land which has never been negotiated fairly up until this time. It is not necessarily about “living off the land” – although most Indigenous cultures have a strong cultural tradition that is linked to particular land. To assume that all Native people want to return back to some sort of pre-Settler lifestyle is racist. Thus, if the Musqueam nation wants to build condos on the Golf Course – by all means, who are we to say what they should do? Land claims are about reconciliation of past injustices – and we need to respect the terms of reconciliation that they define.

    The Musqueam Nation and UBC:

    We have to recognize the First Nations people as legitimate nations, with legitimate governments. In this sense, why would the Musqueam nation negotiate with UBC? The Musqueam Nation negotiates with the nation of Canada. UBC just happens to be the governmental institution that sits on their land. The notion of putting a Musqueam leader on the Board of Governors is absurd because it is tokenistic. It doesn’t address the heart of the issue at all. It is a false gesture. Until UBC is willing to address Indigenous issues head on, with a serious commitment to change things and rectify things, then a BoG seat is entirely meaningless. A serious approach would question how we perpetuate racist and anti-indigenous assumptions in our institution. It would question how we, as an institution of higher learning that is representative of advances in human society, continue to oppress and colonize First Nations people.

    UBC’s current approach is to increase access of First Nations people to the ‘incredible education of UBC’ – aka bringing more FN students into UBC. Education can be one of the greatest tools for empowerment and freedom. It also can be one of the greatest tools for domination and repression. Unless UBC’s educational experience is willing to take on this question, and change to be anti-oppressive, then again, this solution is tokenistic, and side-steps the real issues, and even perpetuates the colonial relationship. What would an empowering education look like for an Aboriginal student? Well, it would be an Aboriginal education, taught from an Aboriginal perspective by Aboriginal people. It would not be a Western interpretation of Aboriginal history. It would force white students to engage in that Aboriginal history from an Aboriginal perspective. It wouldn’t just be a pathetic attempt at being more “welcoming” and “supportive” of First Nations students. UBC’s approach doesn’t critically ask, how does the white institution of UBC needs to change in order to end the oppression of Aboriginal people within its doors, and in society as a whole.

    The Issue as it relates to the AMS:

    You may have read in a recent issue of the Ubyssey that the AMS failed a motion to support a negotiated settlement for the Musqueam Nation in the recent golf course issue. I think it was a very sad day, and a missed opportunity to publicly support the Musqueam nation. The AMS, like UBC, really has no role in “building relationships” with a nation – would any true representative of the United States come deal with the AMS? But there are things that the AMS can do. Firstly, the AMS can do a better job of publicly supporting the Musqueam nation in their struggle. The other thing the AMS can do is better represent its First Nations students – this would require more Aboriginal representation within the various facets of the AMS, better resources and services for FN students, outreach and relevance. Of course, its a bit of a Catch-22, because there aren’t many reasons currently for First Nations students to get involved in the AMS, which makes it difficult to build in those relevant resources and programs. For example, there should be an Aboriginal Student Centre in the Resource Groups. But again, until the AMS is willing to take a critical look at how we actively perpetuate an oppressive relationship, then we aren’t doing much better than UBC. The AMS will ha
    ve to engage in the issue head-on, work with Aboriginal students to define what their needs are and how the AMS can support that, and then help Aboriginal students to make it happen.

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Issues

    Issue of the Day: Sustainability

    I like to think of myself as an environmentalist, and its definitely how I got my start in student politics – co-chairing the Student Environment Centre for two years. Those two years were spent feeling frustrated and overwhelmed – partly because of the generally poor organizational structure of the SEC (and other Resource Groups), and partly because I was too idealistic and didn’t know a thing about campus politics, the AMS, coalition-building, strategic planning, and well, activism.

    I still feel like I don’t really have a handle on environmental issues at UBC. So, what is it all about? Is it just PR or are we making a difference? Is UBC really leading the way in sustainability? And where does the AMS fit in all of this…

    Some answers to these rhetorical questions… behind the jump…

    A History of Sustainability:

    In 1997, the University passed its Sustainability policy, committing to creating a Sustainability Office and creating a strategy that would guide its sustainability efforts. In 1997, this was huge, and still something to be proud of – a lot of very organized student groups across the country are still fighting with their University’s to develop a recycling program, let alone a sustainability office. Then Director of Sustainability Frida Pagani along with Geoff Atkins (AVP Land & Building Services) and I’m sure others convinced UBC that they could save millions of dollars in energy costs by retrofitting buildings (making buildings on campus more energy-efficient), which could fund the sustainability office’s operations. UBC agreed, and there you have the lasting marriage between UBC and Sustainability.
    But that was really all the sustainability office had to offer save for a few educational and administrative programs which have mostly been, in my opinion, ineffective. UBC also likes taking a lot of credit for the U-Pass, and the associated increase in transit ridership – all too often forgetting the role that the AMS played in securing that program for students.

    Recently, a new Director was appointed to the Sustainability Office, Charlene Easton. She comes from the corporate sustainability sector, and brings a very different flavor, but I think one that is setting the Sustainability office in much bolder new directions. We’ll have to wait and see, she’s only been in the position for less than a year. But, Charlene is very interested in building partnerships with students, particularly the AMS. Some of the new initiatives: creating something comparable to LEED standards for the market housing being built in U-Town; creating a coalition of student groups on campus called the Climate Action Partnership, coming together to create a framework that will get UBC to climate neutrality (also known as carbon neutrality).

    What’s the problem?

    Well, technically you could say there isn’t one. UBC has an incredible compost and recycling program, we boast the amazing educational and food security efforts of the UBC Farm (although it took a lot of lobbying to get UBC to recognize its value, which isn’t quite done), and we get a lot of international recognition for our efforts. The reality is, we could be doing a LOT better, and the push should be coming from students. The problem, in my opinion, is with us, the students.

    We should be producing reports on various environmental issues, we should be writing letters, lobbying and building coalitions. We should be planting gardens in the middle of main mall. We should be demanding that no more trees are cut down for market housing, that more green space is preserved, and that all buildings are LEED platinum.

    It takes all the energy we can muster to put on the Student Environment Centre conference – this year it was great too… but it didn’t create any larger dialogue about what the next big things that should be happening in campus sustainability. When I was co-chair, I was an idealist who didn’t know a thing about the science behind anything I was talking about, and I thought that “awareness campaigns” had meaning. We tried to hold stuff swap events that mostly just highlight the incredible amounts of junk that people collect over the years. I definitely wasn’t knocking on administrator’s doors. I definitely wasn’t mobilizing students to do demonstrations, and I wasn’t putting much effort into finding out what was really going on.

    What should we do?

    If student leaders want to be effective in making a difference in the environment, there are three things we need to do… 1) Get really informed – know everything that the Sustainability Office is working on, know all the new and innovative ideas that are being implemented around the world, etc. 2) Get more organized – let’s not be afraid to have structure if it makes us more effective, pay people for the work they do, have goals and plans, pick one issue and address it from every angle. We’re getting had because we, as environmentalists are too flakey. 3) Get political – lets stop wasting our time on frivolous events where we’re the only ones attending our own events, usually out of pity, and lets start changing the mind’s of the big-wigs at the top.

    And a little plug for the AMS’ Sustainability Strategy:

    Currently I’m working on developing a sustainability strategy for the AMS. I want it to be big. I want it to be bold. There are a lot of focus groups happening over the next two weeks, so make sure you come and participate and get your ideas to us – get more info on the AMS website.

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Issues

    Issue of the Day: Governance, Pt. 2 – Internal Issues

    At the end of the day, UBC is an academic institution. The Board of Governors should be responsive to students’ concerns, needs and priorities. Creating a University Town has changed the campus community (read about the ramifications in Tim’s article about on campus events, alcohol licensing, ACF), and has created many new pressures and responsibilities to balance that are not purely institutional. The question really is, how appropriate is it for the Board of Governors to be playing the role of a municipality? Don’t forget that over half of the BoG reps are appointed by the Province, and are very indirectly accountable to students’ needs or UNA residents’ needs for that matter (though for BoG, there’s a lot more at stake if they don’t get the relationship right with the UNA residents). The reality is, a lot more time, energy, resources and money have gone into the developments of U-Town, and getting this right is a pretty high priority for them. Meanwhile, students are asking a lot of questions…

    The Endowment:

    Let’s NOT underestimate the importance and benefits that we as students receive from the Endowment – to do otherwise would be premature. The University tries to call us on this all the time. And I always have to quietly explain that the issue isn’t that we don’t understand how the Endowment works, and the benefits we receive. I always say that its really about accountability – students should have a say in how the Endowment is spent on our education, and even how it is invested (from an ethical standpoint), the Endowment should be made much more public and transparent, and we should have a say in how much we’re willing to have our campus change for the sake of the Endowment.

    Consultation:

    Well, I wasn’t around back in the early nineties when someone came up with the brilliant idea of developing fancy houses on every inch of unused land. But, if the consultation process that I have seen over the past five years are any indication, one can only imagine what the consultation process was like when UBC was developing the Official Community Plan, and designing all the Neighbourhood Plans (Darren was around for a lot of these, and he has some interesting stories to tell).

    The point is: how much say did students really have when they were making all these decisions about how the University community was going to change. And hey, maybe now that its been a couple years, and we have seen some of the ramifications of these developments, we want to see a few things change from the original agreements.

    Consultation with students has improved over the year, in my opinion. After many years of sustained pressure on the University to conduct meaningful consultations, not just handing a design to students and asking them to approve it, but asking us from the beginning what we want. I also think its important that we as students don’t wear out the meaning of this word consultation. The AMS has a definition of what meaningful consultation is all about, and we need to communicate those expectations clearly and consistently to the University and we need to judge consultations on that criteria. It’s not about always getting what we want, its about the intentions of the consultation from the get-go.

    Meaningful Representation

    Students have seats on a lot of committees and other decision-making bodies at the University. A lot of these committees, however, are advisory in nature. Even at the Board of Governors, the student reps have to work very hard at the beginning to prove themselves, or they will be dismissed and not taken seriously for the rest of the year. A good example of this is the University Town Committee. This was the community advisory committee for all things University Boulevard related before the petition in May. All through last year the committee was giving feedback that the plans were terrible, the designs weren’t working, and the community was not really approving. Of course, the feedback was taken, and the plans went full steam ahead. What more do we need to do? Get 3500 signatures on a petition? Well, I guess so…

    We as students need to be careful about the role committees play – are they taking the place of real community consultation? Are they a decision-making body (meaning, the committee has to come to some sort of consensus), or are they advisory? The worst things we can do as students is assume that a committee is just one part of the consultation process, and then realize that that was it! And the AMS is doing a lot of lobbying to get more representation (a GSS seat on BoG, for example), and more institutionalized processes for consultation and decision-making. We need student reps on all levels (Senate, Executive, BoG, AMS Council) to continue this work, and sending out this message to the University.

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Issues Senate

    Issue of the day: Student Senate Caucus, efficacy of.

    I admit that I cannot comment on the senate proceedings this past year, as I am now living on another continent. However, if history is an indicator of the present and future, I will allow myself to write a short excerpt on student senator’s and their caucus’ effectiveness.

    The Continuity Harp

    The majority of the Senate’s members are faculty members and deans, so by virtue of tenure they can be elected to three year terms successively with no limit (life permitting). This contrasts with student senators rather starkly, whose university career often gallantly flickers away after four or five years, and for this reason serve a term which lasts only one year. By no means is it shocking to see a faculty member serve the senate for over a decade, whereas the rare student will stick around for three terms (three years).

    Continuity in the student caucus of senate is painful at best, due to the sheer nature of the electoral process: you get elected onto the senate based on experience of university/academic matters (in theory at least), which by definition requires you to have completed a minimum of one year of university, often more.

    It has been the case that most student senators happen to be senior students, graduating the next year to go on to other things in other places. Since the Senate meets once a month at best, and its committees meet anywhere between twice a month to not at all, often the most focussed, well prepared items brought forth by student senators require more than one year’s worth of effort. Even with the least amount of cynicism do I dare say that in order to achieve any change, one needs to sit on the senate for more than one term. Often, this does not happen.
    We have been lucky in the past to have incredibly thorough senators, who have created, revised, and passed down a monstrous volume of a senate transition package (now probably exceeding 70 pages). The upside of it is that each student senator for the past four years has left their advice and insight. The downside of it is that the incoming senators have to read it, and very few of them actually do for whatever reason.

    Quite often, the same cycle is repeated: the first few meetings, no matter how integral the timing of them, receive very little student-driven items on their agenda.

    Internal Dynamics

    The efficacy of a caucus is determined by the leadership and drive of the group itself. There may be concrete goals a caucus wishes to achieve, and there may be key developments in which students need to take a solid stance. In both cases it is up to the individual senators, under the guidance of the chair, to put in many hours to be well prepared by digging up institutional memory and history to present a clear argument effectively and eloquently.

    There are thousands of students in some faculties, and only one designated representative to the senate. Not all senators are elected based on key platform points which they want to see through. Some senators are simply elected on a promise to show up to every meeting and contribute to discussion as well as they can. If this senator happens to find a birthday party more appealing than a senate meeting, she or he may have failed to present a valuable, unique perspective (and vote) on behalf of these students. It is a pet peeve of mine to see some student senators lose interest in a seemingly tame agenda, and subsequently fail to attend a valuable discussion where their presence could have turned the outcome of the vote.

    Coherence with the AMS

    The relationship with the AMS is murky at best. Why two senators have voting power at AMS council is mysterious to me, their presence at council less so. According to the AMS, it is recommended that their VP External attend the student senate caucus meetings. However, it would make more sense if the (already overworked) VP Academic and University Affairs took on this role. Unfortunately, AMS Council meeting and caucus meeting often overlap, and Senate meetings are scheduled seven years in advance.

    There is room for greater coherence between the student council and the senators. Oftentimes it simply requires greater communication, as tiny nuances from one body is lost in a quick report to the other, and vice versa. I see this issue to be prescribed for those rare senators and councillors who go above and beyond their duties, but it can be done over a beer or three.

    Overall, I believe a caucus is effective if each member wants to be there, instead of feeling they are obliged to be there. Being a student senator can be intimidating, boring, thankless (no we do not get paid), stressful and exhilarating. If any of those emotions have not been felt, then chances are the individual elected ran for the title and fancy-looking business cards.

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Issues Student Politics

    Buzzwords: "Council Empowerment"

    This post is by Spencer Keys, the AMS President of 05/06. We thank him for his participation. I will be blogging more about the basics of both committee reform and the Strategic Framework later in the week for the new readers out there.

    Maayan has politely asked me on a number of occasions to write a guest post for UBC Insiders and while I have normally been content to make snarky comments or longwinded rants when something interesting pops onto my RSS feed, there are two topics that still interest me a great deal and need to be continually reinforced as important; the first is keeping slates out of the AMS (a topic that others are perfectly well equipped to argue but occasionally needs some context from somebody who worked in a slate system) and the second is what I call the “Modernization Project.” Brendan already spoke about a component of this project to modernize the way the AMS is run (portfolio reform) and I would like to talk a bit about a topic that has popped up in the comments section – council empowerment.
    (More behind the jump)

    The History:
    “Council empowerment” has been an issue for as long as I can remember but the nature
    of the debate has substantially shifted between the slate-period and the independentperiod. In the past advocates of more Council power were largely doing so in reaction to perceived abuses by the Executive; those advocates were almost entirely composed of people that had run in opposing slates in the previous election or were allied with them. As a former loser I was a vocal member of this group.

    Then two things happened. The attempted firing of AMS General Manager Bernie Peets created a consensus that Council should be more active in oversight and the activities of the society, rather than a rubber stamp body. That was followed a month later by the first election without slates, resulting in the first Council in decades without clear party lines dividing the Executive and the Constituency representatives. Council empowerment was no longer something to fear as a witch-hunt in disguise (as it admittedly was when there were slates) but an opportunity to achieve a number of positive organizational goals – Council could now be a training ground for future executives, the forum for long-term goal-setting (preventing lost momentum from executive turnover), and a place of real oversight and review, no longer assumed to be partisan maneuvering.

    The Proposals:
    In our first year we played around with a lot of ideas – some were adopted, some were rejected, and others were integrated into our long-term recommendations for the future. The AMS Lobby Day is one project that went forward because it was felt that giving councillors meaningful insight into what the Executive does when it lobbies would be good for a host of issues. Having a non-Executive councillor sit on the Executive Committee in an oversight capacity was one we rejected, largely because those meetings happen too frequently and at inconvenient times for a councillor that may have a summer job. However, two long-term projects were to form the basis of future devolution of power: the Strategic Framework and Committee Reform.

    The Strategic Framework empowers Council by giving it a standard to measure the activity of the Executive. Specifically it maps four areas – long-term resource planning, creating community at UBC, establishing a transparent and responsive system of governance in the AMS, and engaging constituents (ie. students) in the decisions of the AMS. This means that Council neither has to reinvent the wheel every year and figure out what the AMS should focus on, or have to look to the Executive for leadership on long-term goals.

    The committee system was going to be the way to empower Council to act without needing the Executive to lead it by the nose. Without getting into all of the details the idea is as follows: 1) where a given Executive clearly has responsibility for a subject, disband the committee and create an Executive Working Group that reports to that Executive (Safety Committee, Impacts (Sustainability) Committee, Campus Planning and Development Committee), 2) Council has corporate responsibilities as a board of directors so Committees of Council should focus on those responsibilities as well as the long-term goals outlined in the Strategic Plan, 3) Council members should be committee chairs instead of Executives (who will still be busy with their Working Groups), and 4) the entire system should be coordinated through an Agenda Committee that makes sure the committees are working and advises the President on the Council agenda.

    It’s an ambitious project, to say the least. While it has been in development for over three years, there are still things to show for the effort, such as the new Oversight Committee. The benefits could be substantial when the project is fully realized – work being done on long-term projects, committee chairs that can be leaders in Council and be groomed for future Executive work, an Executive that is not overburdened with committee administrative work, and a committee system that Councillors feel is valuable and worth their effort, which could lead to them speaking positively about the AMS to others.

    Thoughts About the Future:
    When today’s candidates speak of council empowerment, is this what they’re talking about? Not all of them, certainly. Some have told me specifically that they think Executive power should stay centralized. And I’m sure that committee reform is not the only way to continue the implementation of the Modernization Project. However, I think the values that exist within the proposal are vital to the development of an effective, professional Council. Council is not empowered by giving them supreme authority, nor are they empowered by preventing them from guiding the agenda. A balance has to be struck where they are given a clear mandate to work on important issues for the AMS and students, and also the support to bring that work to completion. I fear that in some senses the pendulum has swung too far the other way and Council has moved from a role of knee-jerk opposition to one of no discernable role whatsoever. Are they just there to be a sounding board for the Executive or something more? That’s the question at the heart of a phrase like “council empowerment.” A clear path has been set for how to achieve that balance but the AMS has been moving down it very slowly. The words of my dear dad ring true in my head, “Shit or get off the pot.” While former AMS Frosh President Kim
    Campbell said an election is no time to debate policy, I disagree. Thoughts?

    Categories
    AMS Elections 2008 Issues VP Finance

    Issue of the Day: AMS Businesses

    The AMS businesses are an important way for the AMS to make money so that we can keep student fees lower. And we do have some of the lowest student union fees in the country (when you take out athletics fees, health & dental, U-Pass, etc, and you’re left with the AMS’ actual operating budget). The businesses last year brought in over $800 000, that’s almost one third of our general operating budget! This money helps to subsidize most of the student services (Safewalk, Speakeasy, Tutoring, etc), and many of the other integral aspects of the student government branch of the AMS. And we have an amazing and competent team of senior managers, business managers and support staff who ensure that our businesses will thrive from year to year.

    There are 14 AMS businesses: the Pit, the Pendulum, PieR Squared, Blue Chip, Bernoulli’s Bagels, the Outpost, the Honour Roll, Burger Bar, the Gallery, the Moon, Copyright, Whistler Lodge, AMS Catering and AMS Conferences. There are also spaces throughout the SUB that we lease to other, non-AMS businesses, such as the Deli, the Tea Shop, Travelcuts, the UBC Health and Wellness Centre, and various fairs (like the markets in the concourse, or the Imaginus poster fair). All of these are integral to our business model, and bring in large sources of income and revenue for the AMS.

    These businesses also provide services to students – good, cheap meals at lunch, parties and dancing in the evening, lounge space throughout the day, catering for clubs’ events, etc – they service the needs of students. They also provide jobs – hundreds of part-time employees work in our businesses.

    But not everyone agrees that our businesses are always a positive thing. Think about lunch time when the concourse is flooded with vendors at the AMS Marketplace. We rent out tables and space in the SUB to vendors for profit. But this takes away from clubs’ ability to use the space, not to mention the fact that it makes the concourse very crowded.

    The future of AMS businesses behind the jump

    Throughout the recent consultations on SUB Renew, we have come to realize just how much space in our building has been compromised for our businesses over the years – we’ve lost almost 33% of what was once open space, lounge space, and social space. And many people would criticize the SUB for being a strange food court bizarre, and not really an ideal place to be the social hub of student life.

    And there have been times when we’ve had to make tough decisions about our businesses. For example, just this year, Council made the decision to close Snack Attack – the revenues made it hard to justify keeping it, and to boot, we were having great difficulty finding a competent, experienced business manager to replace Robbie, who was moving up to PieR.

    Throughout the SUB Renew process, the AMS has also been lobbying the University very actively to ensure that the U-Square developments (located over the old bus loop) meet students’ needs, prioritize student social space, and work closely with the SUB Renew process. The resulting conversation has brought forward a strong proposal to bring some of the AMS businesses out into the Square. The benefits are that they free up space in the SUB, and it safeguards from large, unethical corporations being placed on the Square. One of the challenge is that it is risky, we don’t know how well the space will work for our businesses.

    Over the year, our members have told us that they not only want us to be entrepreneurial, but they expect us to be. The question becomes, how do we balance this integral part of our organization with the higher level goals and strategies of the organization, and the needs and wants of students. What kinds of changes to our businesses would be seen as acceptable to our students? At what cost do we make these changes? And ultimately, if we want to see the AMS putting less emphasis and resources into either running our own businesses or renting to vendors, then are we willing to increase our student fees?

    Spam prevention powered by Akismet