IRO position vacant
By David Dyck
Board does not appoint Pavelich to board, citing conflict of interest
Last week the Simon Fraser Student Society board of directors ratified the general election results. All positions were ratified with the exception of the internal relations officer. While there’s no policy in place that prevents a former staff member from running in an election, policy does prevent a candidate from holding office if they’ve held a staff position within four months of the beginning of their term.
The only candidate who ran for IRO this year, Craig Pavelich, was the web and email assistant and office and volunteer coordinator (replacement) for Out on Campus. He won the election with 1,002 ‘yes’ votes to 310 ‘no’ votes. However, he narrowly missed the four-month buffer period by three days. Pavelich attended the board meeting last Wednesday to appeal to the board to suspend policy.
“I can see the argument for it,” said Pavelich at the board meeting. “I was staff, I’m not going to deny that . . . arguably if I had met the deadline on December 31, that conflict of interest that existed then would still be around on January 3. That two or three day discrepancy is not a huge difference.”
“Policy is there for a reason,” responded SFSS president Jeff McCann at the board meeting. “It deals with conflict of interest between being staff and board management, or vice versa . . . whether the policy is missed by two days or two years.”
Pavelich cited another instance where board had suspended policy earlier this year during the lockout when board members extended their hours in order to continue services in the absence of staff.
The current IRO, Jordan Kohn, voiced concerns that suspending policy in this case could lead to legal problems. If a policy exists, said Kohn, it must be upheld or done away with. He cited the 2010 election when the independent electoral commission disqualified two candidates, both of whom appealed to board. The society was advised by legal council to uphold the IEC’s ruling “otherwise we’re interfering with an independent body,” Kohn remarked.
In the end, the board voted to take the IEC’s recommendation to not appoint Pavelich to the board.
“I’m disappointed with their decision, considering the hypocrisy of the precedence they’ve set already. If the policy is in place to prevent conflict of interest, they’ve already showed disregard for that,” Pavelich told The Peak.
“This is a very strict policy that refers to a very crucial issue in the IRO position especially because of staff relations with that position,” said McCann. The IRO acts as a sort of human resources manager for the society.
There are two things that could happen now that the IRO position is officially vacant. The first option is for a board member to be appointed to the staff liaison position. In this case, “We won’t have an official IRO, but we’ll have an acting one,” said member services officer and president-elect Lorenz Yeung.
The second option is to have an elected forum representative take the position. “Lisa Bouche is the only duly elected forum rep, and only elected forum reps can be appointed through forum to an empty board position . . . If Lisa wants to put her name forward she can, but it requires a two-thirds majority vote on forum to appoint her to that position,” Yeung told The Peak. Bouche would have to abdicate her position on forum in order to take the IRO position.
Driver hosts consultations
By Graham Cook
Kyle Acierno also proposes to the VP his plan for a student affairs officer
Last week SFU VP-Academic Jon Driver presented his draft for the next academic plan, titled “Engaging Students, Research, and Community 2013—2016” at a consultation specifically for students. Approximately 20 students were in attendance, which took place on the Burnaby campus last week. Driver had been consulting with faculty and staff in previous weeks.
Driver included in the talks an acceptance that SFU was not in a period of growth and that he expected the situation to continue for a few years. His view is that the causes of this include slow economic growth, lack of government funding, low population growth for 18-to-24-year-olds, and a score of other issues. Following this, the VP addressed the challenges that the university will face in the near future including demonstrating the value of universities, adapting to the changing demographics within the student body, and preparing students for the post-graduation world.
The overall goal of this academic plan, according to Driver, is to contribute to each of the three ‘core themes’ of the university and encourage links between them. These themes are described in the SFU mission as engaging students, engaging research, and engaging community.
The drafted plan also included three over-arching goals under the section titled ‘academic priorities.’ These were described as, “To equip students with the knowledge, skills, and experiences that prepare them for life in an ever-changing and challenging world, to be a world leader in knowledge mobilization, building on a strong foundation of fundamental research, and to be Canada’s most community-engaged research university.”
At the meeting, Kyle Acierno, arts and social sciences representative on the SFSS board, shared with Driver his proposal to create a student affairs officer, similar to positions that exist within the Beedie School of Business and multiple faculties at UBC. This SAO would help students become active within their faculty, and, according to Acierno, become better citizens.
Driver agreed with Acierno’s assertions that more effort needs to be made within the academic units in order to encourage engagement. However, he added that this should not be seen as a position that is held by a single person as their only job, but that “there has to be engagement particularly by the faculty members . . . we would like to see administrative staff also being involved.”
Kyle Acierno spoke with The Peak after the consultation. He said that he felt that “Jon Driver echoed students concerns about the lack of institutionalized communication between faculties and students . . . [He] was receptive to the proposal for the creation of a student affairs officer. The SFU administration is at a point where they are well aware about the problems with student engagement. Now it’s just a matter of watching if the university will actually be willing to invest the proper funds to do something about the problem.”
The final consultation will be held on Wednesday, April 4, for faculty, staff, and students.
Supply-side war on drugs was and is a failure
By Shaun Fitl (CUP)
When the war on drugs is doling out more death than the drugs themselves, is it time to re-evalute decriminalization?
WATERLOO (CUP) — At a regional summit of Latin American leaders on March 25, Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina announced his desire to end the taboo surrounding drug decriminalization and legalization. He said the past 40 years of war against drugs in his country has been a failure. Guatemala’s domestic drug production and consumption is relatively low, but it is a checkpoint for cocaine and other narcotics being smuggled northwards from producers like Columbia and Peru.
Although Molina, a former army general, came into power last November advocating an “iron fist” against criminal enterprise, he has since moderated his position because of the high price of human life that the war on drugs has imposed on Central America. Rather than focus on supply reduction, which often entails direct military involvement against rebel groups and peasant coca farmers in South American countries, he’s asking policymakers to consider more demand-reduction plans such as regulation, education, or rehabilitation.
The shortcomings of prohibition, and other aggressive means of assaulting drug production, have been known since the 1920s and ‘30s during the alcohol prohibition era. Many believe that if the legislation had not been reversed, alcohol consumption would have risen above the levels recorded before prohibition because of the extensive marketing networks of criminal enterprise. Without a legal, regulated market for narcotics, the business becomes lucrative as demand skyrockets and supply dwindles.
Regardless of law enforcement efforts, nearly one-third of Canadians reported having consumed illicit drugs in 1994, with that proportion increasing to nearly half by 2004. Similarly, since 1975, at least 80 per cent of U.S. secondary school seniors have consistently said marijuana is “easy to obtain”. When polled about the war on drugs in 2008, about 75 per cent of Americans had the impression that it was failing.
This disparity has been officially recognized but barely discussed.
During the Clinton administration, a study called the RAND Drug Policy Research Center concluded that a demand-side “war on drugs” would be more successful (23 times more) than the past legacy of supply-side warfare, and that $3 billion ought to be shifted from law enforcement to treatment. A similar study done by RAND in 1986 evaluated the effects of using armed forces to intercept smuggling runs and found that there is little to no influence on overall traffic.
In The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Drugs, author Richard Davenport-Hines notes that “at least” 75 per cent of illegal shipments would have to be sabotaged to damage the traffickers’ profits at all, because most of them have profit margins reaching up to 300 per cent. So far, the U.S. has never been able to damage more than 15 per cent of the heroin trade, or 30 per cent of the cocaine trade. This is not even close to enough and, rather than having a real, long-term effect on drug trafficking, the U.S. role in eradicating the South American coca leaf has only exacerbated radical inequalities between indigenous farming communities, left-wing rebel groups, and U.S.-aided paramilitaries and police forces.
For example, the $4.7 billion invested in Plan Colombia from 2000 to 2006 only shifted cocaine production further and further away from urban zones and more into remote communities that are increasingly hard to police, as government infrastructure lags behind in the Andes. There was no overall change in the number of acres used to cultivate the drug, and some of the production actually moved to neighbouring Peru and Bolivia.
With the vast majority of its drug-fighting budget being allocated primarily to law enforcement and military supply-side strategies, the U.S. has only exacerbated the profitability of drug trafficking and the intensity of rebel fury. The battle plan for the war on drugs must be subject to more criticism.
University Briefs
Instructor strike at Brock causes problems
Thirty-eight English as a Second Language instructors at Brock University went on strike last week, causing transit back-ups as they blocked the entrance to campus. Negotiations from a previously-closed labour contract dispute broke down after an error in the contract text was unable to be resolved.
Memorial aboriginal seats protected
A provincial program which reserves seats for aboriginal students in classes shall remain protected by Memorial University administration. The protection will ensure that the seats cannot be challenged by external students because the saved seats still require the aboriginal students to meet entrance requirements and are not an admission guarantee.
U of C to boost aboriginal enrolment
The University of Calgary has announced a new strategy to recruit and enrol aboriginal students to the university. The new vice president, academic stated that the school has low aboriginal enrolments given the three nearby aboriginal bands.
UBC enrolment targets international students
The University of British Columbia has revealed its enrolment strategy for the coming academic year, streamlining admission requirements to attract more international students. The administration outlined that the strategy may also increase domestic enrolments, but that the streamlining should help alleviate underrepresentation of international students in the sciences.
Qatar donates $1.25 million to McGill
Qatar recently donated $1.25 million to the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. The donation is intended to assist the planning of a series of conferences over the next year as the university celebrates its 60th birthday.
— Ariane Madden
The dysfunction of the Maple Leafs
For some time now, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been little more than the punch line to countless jokes from hockey fans around the league. Just last week, when the inevitable came and the Leafs were mathematically removed from the playoff picture, a “Happy Leafs Elimination Day” picture made the rounds on the internet. The last time the Leafs made the playoffs, Apple was $13.07 a share; today it’s at $609.86. There have been some hard times in Leafland of late, but there’s no joke here. The Leafs are in trouble.
On February 6, the Leafs won a game against the Edmonton Oilers at home that moved them into sixth in the Eastern conference. Since then, they’ve spiraled into chaos, losing 11 straight at the Air Canada Centre. They’ve won only five of their 25 games since that point, losing games by scores of 8–0 and 7–1 to Boston and Philadelphia, respectively. They have moved from being in the thick of playoff contention to having a shot at the first overall draft pick. They may have been officially eliminated from the playoff picture just last week, but their season was over long ago. It’s a familiar story for Leafs fans, this missing the playoffs thing, but this year it has a decidedly different script.
For the past three or four years, the Leafs have started abysmally but made late season pushes to make the playoffs, only to fall just short. This year, the Leafs started well, and maintained it until early February. Then something changed, and everything fell apart. The biggest difference between this year and years past, however, is simple. For the first time in a long time, no one seems to care.
The players certainly don’t — that’s been clear for a while now. They were shutout four times in March, and scored more than two goals just three times in that same span. They’re listless on and off the ice, — just watch one of their post-game interviews. Not what you want to see from players in the world’s biggest hockey market, but you can see where the lack of passion stems from, especially when they have their home fans on their case every game at the ACC.
Then again, can you blame the fans for being angry with the multi-millionaires for dragging their knuckles along the ice? For seemingly ever, the Leafs have been buoyed by a loud, raucous fan base, a la Montreal, but that too is changing. The ACC has been strikingly (although, after 11 straight home losses, unsurprisingly) empty — and not just in those gold seats where the suits are always inexplicably five minutes late to the start of every period. Actual fans, who pay good money to purchase tickets, are staying home. The ones who show up are quiet and bored. They rouse themselves late to boo the team off the ice or get a faint “Fire Burke” chant going, but that’s about it; they have little reason to cheer.
It’s all a vicious cycle, whereby uninspired play leaves uninspired fans who fail to provide anything for their home team. Compare this to Montreal, another major hockey market whose team is struggling. Habs fans seem to be doing their best to inspire their team with the passion we’re accustomed to seeing in Montreal, but the difference is that the Canadiens are just a season removed from the playoffs — it’s been eight years since The Leafs played in the postseason.
Of course, now that fans have finally stopped putting up with mediocrity or worse, the common thought is that Leafs ownership will actually do something. That, of course, raises the question of what exactly they can do. They’ve fired their coach, they spend to the cap, and ownership has stopped interfering with hockey decisions, leaving them up to GM Brian Burke. So, again, what can they do? They can fire Burke, but that’s about it. Right now, there’s nothing left in Toronto, except for a hollow team and fans bored half to death. There’s little to look forward to, save for maybe the end of another disappointing season.
Clan golfer earns GNAC honours
It’s been an up-and-down golf season for the Clan, but for Michael Belle, there have definitely been more of the former. For the second time this season, Belle was named the GNAC golfer of the week.
The honours come after he finished seventh in the Concordia Classic in Washington last week; his three-round score of 224 was just eight over par. It wasn’t an easy task, however, as mother nature did her best to slow the golfer down.
“The course was in pretty rough shape, thanks to a lot of rain and snow,” said Belle after the tournament. “Luckily, they did a good job to keep the greens in great shape. It was important to be patient and stay dry. Luckily, [head coach John Buchanan] prepared us for the conditions the previous week in practice, and worked on specifics to be ready to compete.”
The second-year Burnaby native is currently ranked eighth in the GNAC with a 74.5 stroke average, but is well within reach of the conference leaders. Three Western Washington golfers top the charts, with Nick Varelia leading the trio with a 73.2 average. Whatever intangibles they have to get themselves to the top, Belle is working his way there.
“I’ve been working harder on the mental aspect of the game this year, as opposed to just developing my physical abilities,” said Belle. “I’m not necessarily hitting better, but I’m preparing better.”
And whatever he’s doing, it’s working. He’s planted himself firmly at the top of the Clan’s roster, but he’ll need to keep improving with the GNAC championships looming.
“I’m looking forward to [the GNAC championships],” he said. “The goal is obviously to try and win the tournament, but I’d also like to compete for the conference scoring lead since I’m just one stroke behind the leader now.”
It’s a necessary confidence coming from Belle, but he also knows what he needs to work on in order to improve and reach his goal at the top. And, with his second GNAC honour of the season, he’s well on his way there.
