A motion presented to create a new tuition and ancillary fees ad-hoc committee was met with positive feedback, after the proposal passed unanimously at the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) meeting on June 16.
The committee is expected to focus its research on the rising costs of tuition fees and produce a report at the end of the year addressing how CUSA as a union should effectively combat the tuition increase issue, according to humanities councillor Sean Illman-White.
Illman-White put forth the motion, and said his goal is to make the school administration more mindful of students’ tuition woes.
“I want them to know the effect they’re having on students, as well as the concerns that we have around whether or not they’re really, truly looking for solutions to the tuition problem,” he said.
Illman-White added he was unsure why annual tuition fee hikes continue if there is so much money left over from the fiscal calendar.
“If you’re administration, people like the president are making $400,000 a year,” he said. “The concern there is obviously if you’ve got a president earning $400,000, while there are students under her care that are finishing their degrees with $40,000 worth of debt, that to me is a problem. Hopefully we can make them aware of that, and that students won’t be complacent.”
He said this now-approved committee will serve a role akin to the Board of Governors one that put out a similar report this past year.
Council grew by one member during the meeting, as Erika Naperstkow was elected to fill the vacant Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences seat.
There was also a motion put forward to remove CUSA Live from CUSA policies, but to continue the live streaming of meetings. The motion proceeded to pass unanimously, with the Rideau River Residence Association representatives abstaining from the vote.
Another motion presented and passed at the gathering saw the conference and discretionary fund name changed and its role tweaked.
The fund was renamed the student initiative fund, and the proposal urged for it to become more easily accessible and to broaden the list of things students can apply for to receive money for their projects and initiatives.
There will be a public list available outlining both the amount of money spent and how many students the money was spent on from the fund, according to vice-president (internal) Sofia Dala.
While the other motions discussed at the meeting all passed, some other motions were postponed to later dates.
One was regarding a possible change to CUSA’s mission statement, but a vote was delayed until a future meeting after Illman-White told council he thought they were not given enough notice.
According to CUSA bylaws, at least 10 days of notice must be given before making any significant changes to the constitution, so the proposal was pushed back to a later date.
Dala said the idea to change some elements of the constitution was first discussed by council members when reading it over in May.
“If you look at [the constitution] currently, it’s super long—a student won’t be interested,” she said. “So we wanted to make it a little more sexy, a little more attractive to students.”
Another motion was about land acknowledgement of Algonquin territory, where CUSA council would say a few sentences to acknowledge the indigenous land before meetings.
But since the student who moved the motion, Ash Courchene, was not present at the meeting, the idea was postponed until the upcoming July meeting.
