The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council meeting held Sept. 30 talked about big bylaw changes, including potentially cutting a CUSA executive position.
The review of the organization’s executive structure comes in light of the Student Choice Initiative (SCI), which allowed students to opt out of paying ancillary tuition fees previously deemed mandatory, including CUSA fees, for the first time.
Reviewing the executive structure of CUSA
CUSA is considering cutting an executive position in light of the SCI, CUSA president Lily Akagbosu said at the meeting.
“The executives and I have reflected on ways that we can sort of adapt to the changes that have come about as a result of the Student Choice Initiative,” Akagbosu said. “So one of those issues is to critically examine the net amount of funds that goes towards executive salaries.”
“We’re considering the prospect of actually reducing from an executive team from six to five,” she added.
In a later meeting with the Charlatan, Akagbosu said the executive position under review is the vice-president (student services) position which is in charge of managing all nine of CUSA’s service centres, currently held by George Owusu-Mensah, who was not present at the meeting.
The reasoning behind reviewing this position is because there is overlap between the vice-president (student services) executive and the CUSA services manager who oversees the service centres, said Akagbosu.
“The reason it’s a little bit easier for us to critically examine that position is because we have staff that are responsible for that portfolio, so it’s a shared responsibility,” Akagbosu said. “More and more often the weight of that position is on that full time staff.”
CUSA is seeking feedback from councillors and hopes to present a motion on this issue at next month’s council meeting, she added.
“We will know what our next call of action should be by next council,” she said.
“At the end of the day, we just want to make sure things are more efficient and we’re making optimum use of the money we’re collecting from students.”
Filled the Indigenization Committee
Council members voted to fill the seats of CUSA’s Indigenization committee for the 2019-20 academic year, which advocates on behalf of Indigenous students at the university level.
The committee was filled by two CUSA councillors and three students at large, which leaves one student at large seat of the four unfilled.
All three students unanimously elected to the committee—Wolfgang Wuttke-Stanton, Aliqa Illauq, and Aurora Ominika-Enosse—are Indigenous and are involved with Carleton’s Ojigkwanong centre.
“We try to implement calls to action from the TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada] to try to make the university actually implement their calls to action which they’re not—there’s no action, no changes,” said Wuttke-Stanton, who is also co-chair of the First People’s council and co-chair of ReconciliAction at Carleton.
“So I think this might be a good start, but we’ll see.”
Ryan Evans and Hailey Graham will serve as the CUSA councillors on the committee. While neither student is Indigenous, they said they look forward to advocating for Indigenous issues and hearing Indigenous students’ ideas.
Changed CUSA budget presentation date
Council unanimously passed a motion to change the presentation date of CUSA’s operating budget for future years from Aug. 1 to Sept. 1 in wake of the SCI.
As previously reported by the Charlatan, CUSA presented their 2019-20 operating budget this year almost a month later than the Aug. 1 deadline outlined in their bylaws.
“Typically in the last few years, I believe, the budget also hasn’t been presented before August first, which is obviously no excuse,” vice-president (finance) Jacob Howell said. “But it just goes to show that let alone putting those financials together for the upcoming year is obviously a very difficult task with various different departments.”
Howell said the bylaw violation was caused by the SCI.
“In light of the Student Choice Initiative as well, not having numbers confirmed with students being able to opt out throughout the school year, I’m just putting in this motion so that the next VP finance will have a bit more time,” he added.
“We’ll still have a proper budget presentation, just one that can be more accurate.”
Amended CUSA bylaws to be more inclusive
Council also unanimously passed a motion to change the pronouns used in CUSA bylaws to be more gender-inclusive.
The motion amended the bylaws to use “they/their” instead of “his/her.”
In a later meeting with the Charlatan, Akagbosu said some bylaw documents “have been a little bit dated in the past,” but adding gender-neutral pronouns is a step in the right direction.
“It’s about time that we introduced gender-neutral pronouns in all of our documentation, so that was a starting point,” Akagbosu said. “It’s just us being a progressive organization and truly representing our values to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Feature image by Spencer Colby.
