The last week has been a bit of a blur for me. Last Tuesday, at the meeting of the Board of Governors of the University, I set aside my role as a student representative. As is the duty of every governor, I made my decision on each matter before the Board in what I believed to be the best interests of the University. Accordingly, I voted in favour of the tuition increase effective this term.
In making that vote, I did not put any consideration into the measures that the administration had taken and would take to ensure that students were properly informed about the increase. I wish I had, because although I think that my final vote would not have been changed, I could have asked the administration more about their implementation plans and maybe have changed the way they did things. As it was, the fact that the increase was happening in the middle of the term went mostly unremarked.
Since then, there’s been a flurry of activity as students noticed the new fees, got upset, and started talking about it. In a hurry, I decided to do an AMA (for Ask Me Anything, a form of open Q&A period) on Reddit on Thursday evening. I spent most of Thursday morning running around the University to get more information so that I could be sure I was giving accurate answers rather than just speculation, and then I spent several hours Thursday evening doing the AMA itself.
Being a student representative, even when you’re not actually representing students directly such as at the Governor’s meeting, is hard work. It takes a lot of energy to do a good job, and with a few exceptions—I’m not one of them—is entirely unpaid. I still have much to do: there are some follow-ups I need to make with students from the AMA and I, along with others, need to talk to the administration about the plans going forward to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
As a student body, it is very important that we have representatives willing to stand up and take this time to work on behalf of their fellows. But somehow, this does not often materialize. Elections for senators and for Students’ Council are often not elections but acclamations, because only one candidate wanted the job. At MathSoc Council this week, Council decided to affirm the statement made by the Federation’s Students’ Council on tuition increases without so much as a question asked. We owe it to ourselves to stand up and have real elections, real discourse, real debate, because if we do, then what will we say to the University will carry that much more weight and that much more force.
What do you do for your fellow students?
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