Carleton’s senior administration is withholding the University Centre fee from the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) according to a statement released Oct. 14 by vice-president (finance and administration) Duncan Watt.
Carleton is freezing the transfer of the fees due to the ongoing legal dispute between the GSA and the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) regarding the fee, the statement said.
The university transfers fees collected from graduate students to the GSA in mid-October every year, Watt said, but Carleton’s senior administration chose to withhold the University Centre fee this year.
Watt said if CUSA and the GSA could not decide on the appropriate distribution of the University Centre fee by the end of October, the university would recommend it be refunded to students.
“We stepped away from it and said CUSA and GSA need to sort it out,” he said in an interview. “We’ve been trying to mediate a resolution for the problem between the student associations since [2011].”
CUSA filed a lawsuit against the GSA over the unpaid University Centre levies in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years. The GSA refused to pay the fees and said graduate students were discriminated against when using CUSA student services supported by their levy.
CUSA president Folarin Odunayo said there have been meetings with all three parties regarding the issue of the University Centre fee, adding that CUSA hopes to resolve its disputes with the GSA.
“We sent out an offer of arbitration to the GSA about a month ago now and we still haven’t heard anything back,” Odunayo said. “I think what’s important right now is the two student associations can figure out how to move forward.”
Odunayo said there is no substantial evidence that CUSA service centres discriminated against graduate students.
“We’re going to keep providing services to students, we’re going to keep working hard and hopefully we can come to an agreement with the GSA,” he said.
The fee withholding follows the GSA’s referendum held Sept. 23-24, where about 95 per cent of graduate student voters agreed to cancel the $25 University Centre fee per term and transfer the money to the GSA’s operating levy instead.
GSA president Christina Muehlberger said Carleton’s senior administration is justifying the withholding of the funds on the basis that the GSA must enter into binding arbitration with CUSA for both previous years, as well as future years.
“We are willing to enter binding arbitration for previous years,” Muehlberger said. “However, as our membership voted overwhelmingly in favour of cancelling the UC fee, we will not enter into an agreement for the administration of a fee that no longer exists for graduate students.”
Muehlberger said the GSA made it very clear they need assurances from Carleton that the two referenda will be respected before the GSA addresses prior year’s fees.
“Hopefully, the senior administration will provide these assurances and prior year fees can be dealt with quickly through arbitration,” she said.
Carleton’s administration previously withheld fees from the two student associations in 2010. After rising tensions, the two parties entered into an agreement with Carleton, but Watt said holding the University Centre levy from the GSA does not violate this agreement.
“The fact that the GSA is not spending the [previous University Centre fees] and just putting [them] in a bank account means we have to step in,” Watt said. “There’s nothing in the 2010 agreement that would contradict this action.”
Odunayo said CUSA has been focusing on cost savings in this year’s budget with the money from the University Centre fee missing.
“If something is too expensive we don’t do it,” he said. “We’re operating as if this money never existed because that’s the most financially responsible thing to do.”
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