All Posts Tagged With: "kwantlen"
New sustainable farming degree in B.C.
Kwantlen University to capitalize on trend
Kwantlen Polytechnic University is looking for a couple dozen recruits for its new four-year Bachelor of Applied Science in sustainable small-scale agriculture, reports the Vancouver Sun.
The degree will focus on agriculture that saves energy. Students will take business, biology, soil management and complete a hands-on practicum in year three. It will be taught mainly in Langley.
There’s growing interested in sustainable agriculture on Canadian campuses. To learn more, read The dirt on Farming by Jason McBride from the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings.
Simon Fraser, Victoria and Cape Breton vote to leave CFS
Canada’s largest national student group loses referendum votes, but signals that it may not recognize some results
Students at Simon Fraser University and Cape Breton University, and graduate students at the University of Victoria, last week voted resoundingly to cease membership in the Canadian Federation of Students.
The electoral committee at SFU announced Friday that students voted 66 per cent in favour of cutting ties with Canada’s largest student lobby organization. At Cape Breton, 92 per cent of student voters were reported to have cast their ballots against the CFS. And at the University of Victoria, 58 per cent of graduate students voted against the CFS. Undergrads at Victoria did not take part in the referendum and remain within the CFS.
“This is a clear democratic mandate. There is no way to read these results as anything but a clear indication that SFU wants to leave the Federation,” Simon Fraser Student Society President Derrick Harder told the campus newspaper, the Peak. “Students have excellent bullshit detectors and those were going off like crazy over the past two weeks.”
The votes, however, may not spell the end of the matter. CFS national chairperson Amanda Aziz hinted to the Peak that her organization had concerns about the accuracy and fairness of the process. “Some of the things that I saw were ballots being found outside of the polling locations, people from the no campaign campaigning right beside the polling station[s], in fact, directing people in terms on how they should be voting on each of the questions, polls running out of ballots, [and] ballots being found outside of polling locations,” Aziz said.
Last week, before the results were announced, Aziz told Maclean’s that “the campaign at SFU has been quite positive,” though she did say that she believed that “there is a lot of misinformation being spread by the SFSS (Simon Fraser Students Society) executive that we are unfortunately spending a lot of time having to correct.”
As for the referendum at Cape Breton, Aziz said that the CFS would not recognize its result. “Whatever vote that may have taken place at Cape Breton University would not relieve Cape Breton University Students’ Union of its contractual obligations to the other student unions which comprise the Federation,” Aziz wrote to Maclean’s.
The CFS is not expected to recognize the referendum because it says proper procedures were not followed. The CFS says that it never received notification of CBU’s intention to hold a referendum. CBU claims that notice was served—along with a petition signed by 500 students—six months in advance of the vote as required by CFS bylaws.
CBU’s student government also says that the vote was representative of student sentiment. “We made our quorum and when you look at it there were about 200 more people who voted this election then voted when we joined CFS,” Ian Lindsay, CBU students’ union president, told the Cape Breton Times and Transcript. “Obviously we would have liked more students to vote, but we are happy we had this turnout.”
The Martlet, the student newspaper at UVic, reported that the referendum campaign there was dominated by those supporting the CFS. The CFS side held a barbecue for graduate students and had a visible presence on campus with colourful pamphlets and numerous supporters. The “No” campaign claims it barely had a campaign at all. “We only had one banner, [a website], and one set of buttons. That’s our entire campaign,” said Tayfun Ince, a member of the No campaign and former chair of the Graduate Students’ Society. “We had nothing for material. We didn’t use a single sheet of paper.”
At SFU, both campaigns were highly visible, although the pro-CFS side initially appeared to be stronger. As the vote neared, students seemed to be growing tired of the constant solicitation from both sides. In a letter to the Peak, one student complained about “thousands of imposing posters on every wall and [... people] trying to intercept your every move.”
Meanwhile, the Kwantlen Students Association (KSA), of BC’s Kwantlen University College, claimed victory last week after a BC Supreme Court hearing regarding their upcoming referendum. The CFS sought to delay the vote until the fall. However, the court ordered that the vote, that was originally scheduled at the same time as the SFU and UVic referendums, be delayed until April 8. “In regards to Kwantlen,” Aziz said, “we are satisfied with the outcome of the injunction, and that the judge recognized that the KSA executive had broken the rules.”
The CFS is Canada’s largest student lobby organization. Half a million students at more than 80 universities and colleges are members of the organization. Each student organization that is a member of the CFS pays dues to the national and provincial arms of the organization. According to the most recent available numbers, SFU students paid $400,000 in 2005 to the CFS.
CFS goes to Supreme Court to postpone membership referendum
Students at Kwantlen, SFU, and UVic are scheduled to vote this month on membership in the national student lobby group
The Canadian Federation of Students filed a petition in the BC Supreme Court last week for an injunction that would postpone a membership referendum at Kwantlen University College.
The vote on whether to remain a member of Canada’s largest student lobby group is currently scheduled to begin March 18. But if the CFS’ petition is successful, the vote will be rescheduled until the fall.
The CFS is dealing with simultaneous membership referendums at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria (graduate students). Cape Breton University’s students’ union has also posted notice of referendum but it is unclear whether that vote will follow the CFS’ bylaws.
The CFS court petition claims that the Kwantlen Students’ Association, which is opposed to maintaining membership in the CFS, has broken a number of CFS referendum bylaws. It argues that the committee in charge of overseeing the referendum (that includes reps from both the KSA and CFS) has made little progress on key issues, including the referendum question, voting procedures, and alleged violations of bylaws. It also claims that the KSA has been campaigning since September, long before the scheduled campaign period.
Titus Gregory, a policy analyst at the KSA, said that part of the disagreement comes down to what is considered campaign material. All materials are supposed to be approved by the committee. According to Gregory, the CFS representatives don’t consider CFS general materials to count—such as posters or handouts for their “I Am CFS” campaign. But he says they do consider the KSA newsletter to be a campaign material.
The CFS petition also protests how poll clerks have been hired and the KSA appointment of an independent chief returning officer.
Gregory says he expects that students will vote to terminate membership with the CFS. “The campaign is going quite well. There are few students who support membership in the CFS,” he said.
Calls to CFS-BC, national chairperson Amanda Aziz, and CSF-BC chairperson Seamus Reid were not returned.
Meanwhile, Aziz was on campus Tuesday at Simon Fraser University, campaigning in favour of continued CFS membership there, along with a sizable group of students, including students from other universities including Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. The campaign opposed to CFS membership had a much smaller presence on campus.
SFU had a non-binding referendum on CFS membership last year, in which 70 per cent of 1,300 students voted to leave the CFS.
The loss of the SFSS’s membership would be a significant blow to the CFS, which received over $400,000 in membership fees in 2005 from Simon Fraser University students. This funding is divided between the national and provincial organizations.
A SFU students’ union working group struck last year to assess their relationship with the CFS reported a number of issues that led to the referendum. These include allegations that the CFS interferes or is “over-involved” in student union elections.
CFS-BC responded to the submission with its own. It details the organization’s services and lobbying track record. The document states, “No campus, no matter how big or active, has the resources or the political clout to effectively influence the post-secondary education policies of the federal government.” The document does not address the problems alleged in the working group’s submission.
In support of its decision to leave the CFS, the submission by the SFSS working group also cites allegations of financial mismanagement in relation to a loan given to the Douglas Student’s Union (DSU) at a time when serious questions were being raised about that union’s financial controls. A forensic audit of the DSU — ordered to look into “significant deficiencies in internal controls” — reported that the CFS-Services and CFS-BC made three loans, for $100,000 in October 2005, $50,000 in December, and $50,000 in January 2006. The alleged advances took place while Douglas College refused to remit payment of student fees to the students’ union because of concerns about the union’s financial management. The audit also stated that none of the loans were approved by the union and were entered into without proper authorization.
