Engage this
Dear editor,
I am writing to you because I feel that the majority of undergraduate students are not aware of the ramifications of Build SFU and its affiliated projects. Earlier this year, the SFSS called a referendum, and 1,193 students voted in favour of (and 1,003 against) a proposal to build a $65 million addition to Simon Fraser’s main campus. The winning margin was slim, and the question was confusing. It included the approval of an additional student fee that would go towards building new student space on campus, including a Student Union Building and a new football stadium.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, ideally, SFU would be responsible for the construction of new sports facilities, not students. Let’s consider funding models of other Canadian stadiums.
The Investors Group Field in Winnipeg, Manitoba is currently under construction thanks to a combination of private funds and $40 million dollar contributions from both provincial and federal governments. To be fair, this field is scheduled to be a venue during 2015 women’s FIFA world cup. Ottawa University’s athletics department is covering the estimated $8 million necessary to construct a modest new football field for their team, the Ottawa Gee-Gees.
Individual students already give Simon Fraser University several thousand dollars worth of tuition and ancillary fees per year — it should not be our responsibility to pay for additional facilities. Furthermore, students who voted in favour of supporting a new stadium will likely be long gone by the time the facility is built. Considering this, it is only fair that future generations of students will have the option to opt out of any recently implemented funds related to the project — an option that exists for other SFSS related clubs and services. Not only is the existence of this fee highly ethically questionable, but its continued existence should be optional for current and future students.
On another note, Jeff McCann’s SFSS was the same SFSS that approved the construction of a men’s centre at SFU. Without taking a position for or against this men’s centre, I will point out that there was a widespread concern over the lack of apparent consultation with students or existing groups in regards to the centre. This sentiment was felt around campus this spring and expressed in a story that Macleans.ca ran on May 1st. I am also curious to know the extent to which the SFSS has consulted with the university’s gender and women’s studies department, as well as existing social justice groups on campus.
I am not ideologically opposed to a new field, a men’s centre, or other projects proposed since I transferred to SFU last year. What I am ideologically opposed to is a lack of transparency and an apparent fast-tracking of community-oriented agendas with community input as an apparent afterthought. I once worked with someone whose motto was “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” For me, the level to which the SFSS is adopting this attitude is disturbing and frustrating.
These are my qualms with the current SFSS as well as the Rebuild SFU project. As a communications major and an editor for an online publication, I am appalled by the decision to include Jeff McCann’s letter to the editor in last week’s edition of The Peak. This media space is supposed to be an area for “complaints, compliments, or comments” or “less formal opinions pieces, particularly geared towards responses to content in The Peak.” Nowhere else in this particular issue is student space or the Rebuild SFU represented, and Jeff McCann’s article reads like what it effectively is — an SFSS sponsored ad.
Students, I urge you to look further into the decisions made by the current SFSS while demanding clarity from an organization that is supposed to represent you. By allocating funds and approving projects first, and then begging for student input later, the SFSS are essentially operated contrary to their mandate of “meaningful undergraduate student participation in all aspects of University Government.”
The SFU community does need to engage, we do need to be involved, but let’s remind ourselves, the current SFSS, as well as SFU’s administration that we are students, not oblivious investors.
As a letter to the editor, the opinions expressed in this letter my own, and do not represent the views of an organization.
Sincerely,
Amanda McCulley
SFU Student
First world problems
Dear editor,
Regarding Lana Friesen’s article about feminism in the last issue of The Peak, I have to say it caused me to raise enough of an eyebrow to warrant a rebuttal of sorts.
Aside from the girl who has confused the movie Carrie for a documentary and the other lady who has taken “fetishize” to mean “ignore completely,” for an article that intends to inform I find it disappointing that it has chosen to enumerate a convoluted list of first world problems instead of directing readers to the fact that while in the west women deal with sexism and other forms of nuisance, elsewhere in the world they are being subject to a laundry list of very real atrocities — honor killings, mutilation, slavery, etc.
While bigger issues do not automatically negate smaller ones, given the tone of Lana’s article I feel compelled to point out that these are the people who truly need our awareness and rescue.
As a letter to the editor, the opinions expressed in this letter my own, and do not represent the views of an organization.
Sincerely,
Mike Tyson
SFU Student
