I had an interesting bus ride the other day. I had just sat down and was looking forward to getting home after a long day, when I overheard the two girls sitting next to me talking about a Gazette article on the University Students’ Council.
“Incredible,” I thought. “Normal students talking about the USC? Am I hallucinating?” As it happens, I was only half right—one of them was saying how she wanted to get more involved, and asked her friend about her experience with the USC.
“Is it hard?”
“No,” her friend replied, “You do nothing.”
Now, I’m not sure what this girl’s involvement is, and she may well have been exaggerating. But nevertheless, this attitude is indicative of a serious problem that has been facing the USC for years—apathy. And to make matters worse, it’s not just average students who are apathetic—in some cases it’s councillors themselves.
I’ve worked at the Gazette for about a year now, and in all that time I’ve rarely seen the USC debate anything with any amount of passion—the longest debate I’ve ever seen take place in council chambers was over whether a separate debate was a taking too much time. When motions aren’t passed unanimously there are only ever a handful of dissenting votes, and I’ve rarely seen a motion defeated on the council floor.
In a healthy democracy, there are long debates about important topics, and motions are often passed or defeated with a visible divide among members. This is rarely an accurate description of the USC.
Some will explain this by saying the real debate takes place in standing committees, where a smaller number of councillors with alleged expertise in a certain area prepare motions to bring to council. To a certain extent, this is true, but when council with only a token debate consistently approves the will of a standing committee—which usually is synonymous with the will of the vice-president overseeing that committee—it’s indicative of a bigger problem.
Our student government has an attitude problem. I’m not talking about Adam Fearnall or any of the vice-presidents—clearly, they care enough about the USC to devote a full year of their lives to the organization. I’m talking about the councillors. These are the people with the real power in the USC—the executive council may have their agenda, but without council’s cooperation they’re powerless to do anything. So either we have the most cooperative and efficient government in history, or most councillors can’t be bothered to debate most motions that come to council, let alone vote against them. I think it’s the latter.
Councillors are supposed to represent the will of students. But let’s be honest—when was the last time you received an email from your councillor asking your opinion on how they should vote on an issue? Can you even name your faculty council president? I’m sure there are a few exceptions, but there seems to be a massive lack of communication in the USC—both on the council floor, and between councillors and the constituents they claim to represent. Despite the fact that 10,000 students voted in the last election, when I talk to my peers many of them seem to have no idea what the USC does—nor do they care.
If the conversation I overheard on the bus is any indication—and I believe it is—most councillors are putting their resumés before their constituents. Fearnall addressed this issue in his Western Untold speech, and I truly hope he can do something to fix it.
USC members often wonder why the average student doesn’t know or care about what they do—but maybe they should focus on getting their own councillors interested first.
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As an ex-social science councillor I agree with both the article and the comment by Stephen.
A lot of Councillors don’t really seem to care. They probably do to an extent… but it really does become difficult to care when you have no idea what is going on. Two years ago on council I was confused at my first meeting and I had no idea what anything was about. When you have a difficult time understanding what everybody is talking about you grow disinterested.
That is sort of what happened to me. I cared a lot when I ran. Otherwise I wouldn’t have. I didn’t care as much during my first two meetings BUT then I realized that more than 500 people voted for ME. I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. So I started asking upper year councillors to teach me things and about their opinions of certain things going on in the USC. I gained a better understanding of things and grew a lot more interested and active.
Then I started talking to students in my classes and asking their opinions so I could vote in their name, not in my own. When I started doing this I realized that a lot of students really don’t care…. you know why? They know nothing about council. A lot of times when I would ask someone new about council they would say “Oh the USC? The organization that takes our money and does nothing?” It was really surprising. I didn’t realize so many people didn’t know what the USC actually does… and I think that definitely attributes to the student apathy.
How are they supposed to care about the USC and what goes on when they don’t know that our student experience would be crap without the USC?
I think one of the bigger issues, as you mentioned, is that there are so many students who want to get involved with the USC, run for a councillor position, and once they are in the role, realize it isn’t what they expected. They run without ever attending a USC meeting, constituency/faculty meeting, or without doing any research, and realize they made a huge mistake. But they might as well finish the term so they can put this “experience” onto their resume. What doesn’t help is also the lack of knowledge given to incoming councillors prior to the first few meetings of new council. This past year, the Governance Officer introduced a series of amendments to By-Law #2, which all passed unanimously with no debate. What didn’t help was that many of the new councillors probably didn’t even know what the Governance Officer was even talking about nor how to even voice any opinions about it using Robert’s Rules. Why would changes to such an important document be amended at the VERY FIRST MEETING of new council? Well other than the obvious reason, because they knew it would pass with flying colours with so many inexperienced councillors. Luckily though, every year there are a few stand out councillors and senators who are in these positions for the good of the students and do question the executives and motions being presented to them. But the few motivated councillors do not make up for the rest of the councillors who are on their laptops on Facebook or doing homework during a USC meeting.