A UN challenge to make tuition costs lower? Personally I would prefer if the AMS didn’t waste money like it’s going out of business. A major chunk of our tuition fees don’t go to university credits but to Recreation and Athletic fees (while providing a tiny free gym on campus), three separate AMS funds (SUB renewal, the AMS fee, and the AMS Student Services fee), and the list goes on. The AMS is only slightly less guilty of nickel and diming the students as the university is but at least the University is giving us a degree at the end.

But otherwise, I would just like to mention a major flaw in the proposed impeachment mentioned by Frederick and Chu in their open letter to council:

We also find it curious that we have been targeted exclusively on this issue by some Council members. It is important to note that we raised the topic of the UN complaint several times at our Executive Committee meetings and that VP Finance, Tom Dvorak and VP Academic and University Affairs, Johannes Rebane signed the contract with Pivot Legal Society to go forward with the complaint. We believe that if any call is made for our resignations, they must be coupled with a call for the resignations of Tom Dvorak and Johannes Rebane.

Call me naive, but I do not see any malice or power grabbing here. I see a simple case of the inexperienced jumping the gun and over-reacting, rather than disrespecting the AMS as a body and its procedures. Fredrick and Chu made a stupid mistake by going straight to the UN, as there must have been less drastic routes, yes. That said, it may have ultimately been what the AMS as a body was forced to do, after exhausting all other avenues, but we’ll never know. I fear that the real issue of unfair tuition and funding allocation will be lost in this rather soap-operatic controversy; something has to be done, and if that means going to the UN eventually, collectively, unbelievably, then so be it.

Impeachment, whether it is actual or symbolic depending on what the Societies Act allows, for sheer stupidity is certainly not unprecedented. Some may even call it common. However, I for one would much more trust existing administration who are appropriately contrite and chastised in the court of public opinion, and therefore more likely to make wiser decisions in the future, to an unknown quantity that may well develop a bit of a saviour complex after such a debacle. Still, I admit that it remains to be seen if Fredrick and Chu made an honest mistake or a dishonest one. Call me a bleeding heart, but I believe in being given the opportunity to demonstrate learning from one’s honest mistakes, the more colossal the better.

Seems pretty straightforward to me…

In the end, we decided saying no (against my desire, actually), but being outweighed by larger consensus is kind of a principle of democracy, isn’t it?

For reference, this was whether or not to intervene in the Student Evaluations of Teaching case between the UBC Faculty Association and UBC proper.

This situation is completely ridiculous… and thank you for SOMEONE finally pointing out the $20 000 or so that Tristan made as an AMS exec. It does mention in the affidavit that his work was “mostly unpaid” though… i guess it’s a very loose translation of “mostly.”