Student Representation at Board of Governors Diminished

The Concordia University Board of Governors voted in favour of the By-Law changes proposed by the Ad Hoc Governance Review Committee and the amendments made by the joint Board/Senate committee during a meeting this morning. The final vote count was 27 in favour and seven opposed.  

The most disputed and alarming amendment was the reduction of the Board from 40 to 25 members. In the reduced board, students will have their seat total reduced from five to three with only two voting members as well as one alternate non-voting member.

The representatives voiced their concern that the 42 523 Concordia students won’t be properly represented by so few seats on the Board.  The Board is “trying to solve the problem of bad governance with more bad governance,” said Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill.

Also in the new By-Laws, the Faculty of Arts and Science will lose a member, while the pensioners will lose their only seat on the Board. In the end, Board members agreed to bite the bullet for the sake of compromise. As one member said, everybody loses, “but the winner is Concordia.”

When it came to the vote, Chairman of the Board Peter Kruyt motioned for a secret ballot despite the Governance Review Committee’s recommendation of transparent voting. When the student representatives voiced their objection, instead of a discussion on the matter, Kruyt motioned immediately for a vote. As soon as this happened, the student representatives left the meeting in protest.

“This was a foregone conclusion,” said Gill following the meeting. She continued to say that the student representatives were “bullied,” by Kruyt.

Undergraduate co-representative Cameron Monagle agrees. “We saw what happens when your proportion of votes is already as low as it is. And the answer is: you lose, representation goes down, and students lose ultimately.”