With the current Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) executives having completed their term, the Charlatan spoke to former CUSA president Zameer Masjedee to see which campaign promises were kept, and which fell through.
Promise: defederate from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).
In Progress: Masjedee said CUSA’s initial promise to fully defederate from the CFS in the campaign period was “too ambitious.” He said they now hope to spread the process over two years by collecting the required student signatures this year and holding the official referendum next year.
He also said that the current executives had a contingency plan in case the 2018-19 executives were not on board.
“[Defederation] doesn’t have to be an initiative that’s put forward by the student union association, and so once the signatures are submitted, the referendum is going to happen,” he said. “As long as a group of students want to have the ‘yes’ committee of that vote or want to be on the decertification side of that vote, then that vote’s going to happen.”
Promise: nap pods in MacOdrum Library.
No: The original campaign promise was to install at least two nap pods in the MacOdrum Library, but Masjedee said the pods were very expensive, and CUSA determined that it wasn’t the best use of students’ money.
“We had a decision to make internally, like do we want to get one nap pod for $15,000 USD, or do we want to instead get multiple variations of a nap pod that would benefit more students?” Masjedee said.
Instead, Masjedee explained that CUSA installed “about 20 Gumby chairs,” which are currently accessible on the fifth floor of the library.
Promise: create more student jobs.
Yes: This year, CUSA introduced several new student jobs on campus, such as a videographer and a front-desk receptionist. Masjedee said many of the positions are funded through government grants.
CUSA has also applied for new grants including the Career Focus Grant, which Masjedee said was the largest grant he has seen CUSA apply for.
Promise: week-long festivities leading up to the Panda Game.
No: According to Masjedee, CUSA did hold events on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before the Panda Game, but it was not a week-long event as promised.
He said that before this, however, “the only event that we did for Panda was sort of a one-day pre-event at Oliver’s.”
Promise: free printing.
Yes: This year’s executives promised free printing as part of their campaign goals. Students are now able to print 100 free black-and-white pages so long as they send their files to CUSA 24 hours in advance.
Masjedee said this project was difficult because they weren’t able to the use the same software that the ‘CU On the Go’ printers use.
“Using the university’s software provided a lot of challenges from a security perspective that we weren’t expecting, and so we had to find work-arounds,” Masjedee said.
Promise: CUSA mentorship program.
Yes: Students are now able to access mentorship services with upper-year students that are free of charge. CUSA partnered with the Student Experience Office to implement 50 new positions.
“[A] total of 250 new students were able to access these services,” Masjedee said.
Promise: making Haven Books digital.
Yes: CUSA was able to make Haven Books digital, by creating an “online ordering system for students” that would allow their books to be delivered to them or be picked up on campus, Masjedee explained.
“People have turned to e-commerce for a lot of their overall shopping experience, so we innovated Haven to make it up to date with the times,” Masjedee said.
Photo by Meagan Casalino
