Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG) convened on Thursday for its monthly council meeting where council elected two new councillors, discussed future plans for standing committees and gave an update on grading reform.
CASG president Jennifer Ramnarine told council she is still working towards a proposal on grading reform to present to the Senate and will share it with council when it is finalized.
“We are prioritizing other things in the Senate, so the grading reform is kind of a slow, long process,” Ramnarine said. “When we pass it, we want to do it right.”
Council voted in two new councillors, both of whom were not in attendance. Zaynne Khamissa will represent the environmental studies program and Daniel Meecham will represent the film studies, music and art history programs. Council voted majority in favour for both new councillors with only a few abstentions and no oppositions.
During the October meeting, council struck their six standing committees which address different aspects of CASG’s responsibilities, including a range of financial, internal and academic concerns.
According to the bylaws, committees are chaired by the executives and filled by six councillors who are self-nominated. If there are more than six volunteers, membership is determined through an in-council election.
Vice-president (internal) Dakota Livingston told council there are vacancies in the finance, appeals, Academic Initiative Fund (AIF), and the promotions and campaigns committees. The governance review committee is the only one with no vacancies.
Ramnarine addressed the purpose of the governance review committee after bachelor of global and international studies (BGINS) departmental representative Anthony Valenti proposed a question to council about the possibility of electoral reform.
“Following the [last] CUSA election, I received many messages from different members in my faculty and not in my faculty that were asking whether or not CASG would undertake electoral reform,” Valenti said. “I would love to hear if I could get some people some answers.”
Ramnarine said there was a consensus last year between the executive and returning councillors who said the system should be reviewed. She said they noticed there were flaws in the electoral system during the last CASG election.
The governance review committee will be responsible for conducting research into the policies and electoral code that is currently in place and how it can be improved.
Livingston, who is chair of the governance review committee, said members would address reform as a committee before bringing their suggestions to council.
Vice-president (academic) Pierce Burch encouraged councillors to spread the word about the AIF which provides funding for academic-based events. AIF can cover a maximum of 50 per cent of the event’s costs and the AIF committee is responsible for reviewing applications and helping the student groups through the submission process.
He said they only received one application before the time of the meeting.
Burch also said he is preparing his own review of the CASG scholarships before scheduling a meeting with the finance committee in January.
“I’m trying to revamp [the scholarships] to make them more equitable,” Burch said, “not just based off of academia but also based off of how you’re helping the community.”
The next CASG council meeting is scheduled for Dec. 9.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article named Anthony Valenti as a student-at-large. In fact, Valenti is a BGINS departmental representative. A previous version of the article also previously stated council struck standing committees during a September meeting. In fact, the committees were struck in October. The article was last updated on Nov. 15.
Featured image from Screengrab.
