The Carleton University’s Students’ Association (CUSA) executive made a number of promises to the student body before getting elected into their respective positions. With half the year completed, here’s an update on how they’re doing.
PROMISE: CUSA president Obed Okyere said his goal would be focused on “making education more affordable.” Okyere planned on increasing bursaries, which he hoped would help lead to a deduction in tuition.
NO: Increasing bursaries became difficult during the first semester as CUSA was facing a freeze in their budget, therefore they “couldn’t do anything outside their status quo,” Okyere said.
CUSA is hoping that the Ontario Liberal Party’s 30 per cent tuition rebate will be beneficial as they wait to make more plans on bursaries.
Vice-president (finance) Karim Khamisa said that at this point, CUSA will continue to approach the government and MPPs to try and get more bursaries and financial aid for students.
PROMISE: Okyere said if elected, funding for service centres would be a “high priority.”
YES: Funding for service centres has increased from an estimated $4,000 per semester in the 2010-11 school year to $6,000 in fall 2011, according to Okyere. He said the winter semester funding will be equal or greater than $6,000. The overall budget for clubs was also increased last semester to $54,000.
“Our renovations in service centres must be focused on keeping up services to our members and doing everything we can to make the service centres more appealing and welcome . . . to make them give the best they can,” Okyere said.
PROMISE: Part of Okyere’s campaign platform involved improving CUSA’s reputation.
NO: Okyere attributes the lack of success in improving CUSA’s reputation to the court case that lasted almost half the year.
“[The court case] killed our reputation as a student organization,” he said. “But I did work on making sure that CUSA was able to continue providing students with services without [students] refusing to come get the services.” Khamisa said to improve the organization’s reputation they just need to “continue doing what we’re doing and we need to focus on building our services and increasing them.”
PROMISE: Part of Khamisa’s platform included increasing the discount people received from Rooster’s if they brought their own mug for their beverage.
YES: Earlier this year, the discount was increased from five cents to 25 cents.
PROMISE: Okyere also told students he would work towards making more textbooks available online to help decrease the amount students spend each semester on textbooks.
NO: Most online textbooks are not used by Carleton’s professors; however, Okyere said he has plans to meet with staff at Haven Books to discuss the possibility. He said he hopes some e-textbooks will be available for use in fall 2012.
“Before my term is over, I’ll make it clear whether we can do this for next semester,” he said.
