More students reached, more problems solved
By Kyle Acierno
I was on the board for two years and would like to add my two cents about what Moe needs to know. But before starting, I will give some background on the SFSS. The board is composed of the president and five executives, eight faculty representatives, and two at-large representatives (at-large means they can do anything or nothing).
The structure and working hours allotted to the board means the president and the executives spend a lot of time together. Either they love each other and are able to conspire and carry out plans behind closed doors (like the past couple years) or they do not get along and do nothing but spend their days bickering and backstabbing.
Faculty representatives work half the time and are generally half as informed. They each get one vote even though the Arts rep has 10,000 students in his or her faculty and the Health Sciences rep has less than 700. Until recently, there were no faculty student unions and the only methods to represent faculty constituents were to attend a plethora of department student union meetings all over the university, send out mass emails that are usually deleted with a passion, or go to the pub every night and exchange words with other patrons. With all this running around, faculty reps get left out of the everyday politics of the SFSS, meaning the president and executives wield an extreme amount of power.
The fact is that the board answers to no one. Although students, members of Forum, the rotunda groups, and even staff are welcomed to participate in the SFSS committees, it is very easy for students’ wishes to fall on deaf ears.
This is not just due to poor postings of meeting times and places, but also because whether a recommendation comes from Forum (which is composed of all department student unions and constituency groups) or from one of the many SFSS committees, it is just a recommendation. There are absolutely no checks and balances. This explains why the board could lock out the union, construct a student union building levy, and place a former board member and founder of Build SFU in a $60,000/year position with little to no student input.
So the problem is obvious — the board is accountable to no one except themselves. I have a simple solution that will involve more students, institute a more democratic system, and help solve many of the problems plaguing student politics at SFU.
Give the power back to the students by empowering Forum! Forum is the only truly representative student body at our university, and the board should be accountable to the students elected to serve its chambers. This would involve a three-step process: first, establish Forum as the ultimate decision making body. Second, ensure every member of Forum is involved in at least one committee. Third, eliminate faculty representatives and redistribute their earnings to the members of Forum or remove the stipends all together.
This form of student government is not just employed at more mature universities like UBC, McGill, and Queens University, but used to be the way the SFSS was governed. So Moe, if you are looking for more ways to get students involved and improve the student experience at SFU, here is your answer.
