Tuesday’s Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) meeting showed a shift in focus away from merchandising and toward grading reform amid criticism over the association’s Capital Collective clothing line.
In her report to the CUSA council, CUSA president Kathleen Weary said that the association is allocating $40,000 towards a new emergency hardship fund and that the profits from Capital Collective will replenish it. The fund will support students who are facing financial difficulties amidst the pandemic.
The clothing line received criticism for using the same name as a long-running CKCU radio show.
According to vice president (community engagement) Morgan McKeen, the primary goal of Capital Collective is to create a sense of community by introducing something designed by and for Carleton students. She also said CUSA introduced the line to supplement financial losses over the summer.
“At the time, not all of our businesses were open to full capacity,” McKeen said. “We still had bills to pay and when we literally cannot open some of our businesses … we had to supplement some of that income.”
Councillor Pierce Burch asked why CUSA had not publicized the reasoning. He said that publicizing it could help with the momentum of Capital Collective and would keep it from looking “kind of scummy.”
In response, Weary said that the association was waiting until they unveiled the plans for the emergency fund.
“CUSA is a non-profit, so it’s not like we can make money off a clothing line,” Weary said. “All the money that we collect through our initiative obviously goes straight back to students.”
CUSA is also working with the Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG) and the university senate towards a compassionate COVID-19 grading policy. The policy would automatically acknowledge failed grades as unsatisfactory and allow students to select 0.5 passing credits each semester as satisfactory.
The policy’s goal, said CASG president Matt Gagné in his report to council, is to protect students’ GPAs as they deal with circumstances affecting their academics.
Gagné explained that he was originally hoping for a grading structure similar to what the university put in place in the winter 2020 semester. The university allowed students to choose either their letter grade or a satisfactory-unsatisfactory designation that would not impact their CGPA.
The current proposal is a compromise between the university and CASG, Gagné said.
“[The university] brings some valid points—that we could be in this situation … for multiple years,” Gagné said. “We don’t want to do a blanket [satisfactory-unsatisfactory] for the next two years, because that’s going to impact the value of a Carleton degree and that’s not the mission of CASG.”
“This is the best way to meet in the middle,” Gagné said.
CASG is also pushing for permanent reform to modernize Carleton’s grading system. Possible reforms include introducing a pass-fail option for first-year courses and exploratory courses, which would allow students to take courses outside of their program without impacting their CGPA.
