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GSS Council Meeting Agenda April 18, 2019 | Michael Kingsmill Forum, The Nest (4 floor) | 5:30pm

A. Attendance1. Present: Andraw Szeitz, Arash Shadkam, Arezoo Alemzadeh Mehrizi, Claire Preston,

Cristina Rubino, Erik Frieling, Fapu Duan, Farah Deeba, Gurjot Singh (Sara Husseinirad as proxy), Hilal Kina, John Ede, Joyce Lam, Jun Sian Lee, Karanpreet Matharu, Karen Thulasi Devendrakuman, Kate Sedivy-Haley, Kamaldeep Gill, Larissa Peck, Lily Takeuchi, Logan Lorenz, Lois Evans, Maria Jose Athie Martinez (Nicolas Romualdi as proxy), Negar Ghahramani, Nevena Rebic, Omri Wallach (Hina Imam as proxy), Philip K. Karangu, Phil Angel, Pouya Rezaeinia, Rahaf Al Assil, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Sebastien Rettie, Temitayo Olarewaju, Temitope Onifade, Theresa Pauly, Victoria Gomez (Alvionne Gardner-Harrison as proxy), Yee Fay Lim

2. Regrets: Amber Shilling, Jun Sian Lee, Sebastien Rettie, Zoe Lam, Emily Leischner3. Absent: Alexa Tanner, Anjali Gupta, Anna-Catharina Wilhelm, Darren Touch, Gloria

Mellesmoen, Hamed Pouriayevali, Jakob Gattinger, Jasleen Grewal, Jeanie Malone, Joseph Ogbede, Kiana Yau, Megan Holec, Solomon Atta, Teesha Luehr, Timothy Luk, Uyen Nguyen, Xana Mendez Prendes, Yangfan Zhang

4. Quorum: 22 Councillors

B. Call to Order & Adoption of the Agenda1. The meeting will be called to order at 5:30 pm. 2. BIRT the agenda be adopted as presented.

MOVER: Arash Shadkam SECONDER: Sarah Izadi-Najafabadi

Nicolas: The agenda has additional presentations: one on the conference on humanities, one for councillor awards, and there’s an update from VP External. There are no matters for decision, but just to let you know that what you’re approving is not what you saw exactly in your email.Speaker: After we approve the agenda, we will do the land acknowledgement.

RESULT: For (27): Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Eric Frieling , Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily Takeuchi

C. Introductions

Land acknowledgement was done by Ty P. Introductions were made.

D. Approval of Minutes1. GSS Council minutes for approval:

a. Council Minutes - March 21, 2019

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2. Committee minutes for approval: a. Services Committee Minutes from March 5th, 2019 and March 28th, 2019b. Elections Committee Minutes from March 7th, 2019 and March 28th, 2019c. House Finance Minutes from January 1st, 2019, January 9th, 2019, November 28th,

2018, November 14th, 2018, October 31st, 2018 and September 5th, 2018.d. Code and Policy Committee Minutes March 28th, 2019 and April 9th, 2019.e. Governance & Accountability Committee Minutes March 7th, 2019 and March 20th,

2019.

MOVER: Arash Shadkam SECONDER: Maria Martinez

Arash: Move to amend March 21 GSS Council Minutes: Arash Shadkam was not present. Also, move to remove Services Committee minutes out of this agenda item to be discussed separately.

MOVER: Arash Shadkam. SECONDER: Eric Frieling

Arash: The Services Committee has a bit of issues on how they’re taking minutes, which I would like to bring to Council’s attention. And just wanted to make a note that as we move forward, perhaps we wouldn’t see these issues. Speaker: Any further discussion before we vote on this? If you vote yes, then we will not approve the Services Committee minutes as a part of this set, but we will discuss further as a separate motion following this. Nicolas: I think this is something that should be discussed and brought to the committee meeting and not Council.Speaker: So you’re speaking against this motion.Nicolas: Yes

RESULT: For (15): Rahaf al Assil, Fapu Duan, Lois Evans, Victoria Gomez, Jun Sian Lee, Areezo M., Maria Martinez, Tayo Olarewaju, Claire Preston, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Arash Shadkam, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAgainst (5): Farah Deeba, Negar Ghahramani, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Joyce Lam, Larissa PeckAbstained: Kamaldeep Gill

RESULT: For (24): Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Eric Frieling , Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Anoras Szeitz, Lily Takeuchi

3. Services committee minutes for approval

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MOVER: Arash Shadkam SECONDER: Sebastien Rettie

Arash: The issue with the services committee meeting is that in their minutes, they do say who voted for and who voted against, but they do not explicitly acknowledge whether the motion was passed or not. This puts the onus on the person to do the mental math to determine whether the motion was passed or not. Good examples of taking minutes would be the G and A and House Finance minutes. So I encourage all minute takers to take a look at them. Most importantly, when there’s a motion, it needs to explicitly say whether it passed or failed, and the numbers. That was the reason for why I was hoping to discuss this as a separate motion, and basically, to bring into the view of councillors to review the minutes before approving them. These are important, public documents, and when you vote for or against, it suggests you’ve read them.Nicolas: I move to approve the minutes as presented with the condition that the minutes be amended to include information on whether the motion has passed or failed.

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Philip Karangu

RESULT: For (27): Farah Deeba, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAgainst (1): Eric Frieling

Jun: I want to speak about the fact that Arash mentioned that the minutes are not well taken, but I believe the main reason that the minutes are not well taken is because a lot of the chairs do not have adequate training to take minutes.Speaker: Anything else? We’ll now vote on the main motion.

RESULT: For (23): Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, Lois Evans, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Christina Rubino

… Next page: Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society

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E. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society: Presentations & Motions

Vision: The GSS continually strives to improve its efficiency, transparency, accountability, and communication in order to better fulfill its Mission.

1. Matters to Note a. See final section for written updates from:

i. Presidentii. Financial & Executive Oversight

Officeriii. Executive Oversight Committeeiv. Governance & Accountability

Committee

v. House Finance Committeevi. Code & Policy Committeevii. Human Resources Committeeviii. AMS Councilix. Elections Committee

b. Questions?

No questions were asked.

c. Presentations

Presentation #1Presentation Title: Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences 2019 Volunteer OpportunitiesGroup Responsible: Communications Manager (Cobie)Presentation Time: 5 minutes

Karanpreet: I already saw this post on Facebook and other websites. I applied for volunteering, but I have not heard anything.Cobie: You should have received several emails so far. Please send an email to me.Arezoo: I have a suggestion. Have you ever tried to send the emails to department secretaries or administration?Cobie: We sent out an email to the departments, and the departments said that the professors have sent it out to people.Lois: I did get the invite through my department. I also signed up, but I did not hear back. I will now email you. I was wondering if there’s a virtual component to the conference – for example, streamed live. I saw on the site that the Environmental Associations is considering; just wondered if you have the information.Sarah: I’m working on programming. Depending on the association you might be interested in going, you’ll have to do the registration and check because association

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programming is for attendees only, unless they have elected to have an open event. I know there are many – there’s one on climate change – and they’re offering the opportunity where people are allowed to live stream. It really depends on associations’ programming and what needs they have identified for their membership.

Presentation #2Presentation Title 1: GSS BrandingPresentation description: An overview of the GSS Branding based on the newly adopted Logo design and colors.Group Responsible: Communications ManagerPresentation Time: 5 minutes

Kate: I know in our original discussion about this that there were concerns raised that Susan may not feel that she’s comfortable or is happy raising issues even if she feels there are concerns that she has about the logo. Can you speak to that or any way that you may be able to elicit her actual concerns, if there are any?Ben: I would hope that she would feel comfortable raising any concerns for this. We’ve tried to act very consensual in the way we approach things. We’ve given her the opportunity to lead the process; it’s very different from a traditional design relationship – we’ve allowed her to inform and lead us to the design, whether than the other way around. And I would hope that she would be comfortable in raising those issues. She has come in to meet on a couple of occasions and generally has been delightful throughout the process. Obviously, I cannot speak for her, but I would very disappointed if she felt that there were any issues that she couldn’t raise with us. And certainly, when I go back to her with designs, I’ll make it really clear that she has that opportunity and I expect her to do that if there’s anything that she’s uncomfortable with.Nicolas: I want to further address what Kate has asked. We had Amber – who is a member of First Nations and who is very vocal and feels very comfortable arguing about this issue – look at this. She strongly believes that we have not done anything that could possibly raise an issue before we presented it to Susan Susan.Ben: Let me be very clear about this - I personally have worked extremely hard to get us to this point. It has not been a simple process identifying somebody to do this work for us. I was incredibly excited when Susan agreed to do this for us. So the last thing I would want to do is to sour that relationship in any way. It would defeat a long period of work. As I said, I can’t speak for Susan personally. My intention has always been to make sure that this is done appropriately and consensually.Lois: I would like to acknowledge the really great work. Personally, I really love the logo and I think it looks great in the branding. I am a former print buyer. I was wondering about that art is very much art, and when we shrink something with so much detail, we start to see a few little issues at the smaller size. So just a question

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around the smaller size. My second question: I was wondering the usage of “GSS” vs the full extended version of the font. My question is whether that has been the way that GSS has done things in terms of using the abbreviation instead of the extended, because the extended looks great too.Ben: I can speak to both of those. The point that you raised about size was something that both and Mariia, who has done a lot of this work, has identified as a possible issue. One of the reasons that we chose to create monocolor versions of the design is because they shrink down better. The three-color version – Susan’s original, which we hope to use a lot – when you shrink it down to small sizes for print, because you have three colors and a lot of details, it does become rather difficult. We think that the colors we’ve chosen, by going for a number of one-color designs that actually work ok, and we’ve tried it in a few formats. Obviously, we’ll monitor that, and if it’s really not working, there isn’t any reason why we can’t revisit it. We’re confident that we’ve done enough work on it that it should be fine. To speak to the second point, I can’t actually say because I have not been involved with GSS for as long as some people in this room; whether we have incorporated it in our brand before. The reasons we did it were two fold: 1) everybody refer to us as the GSS, and most people use that short hand. So we felt comfortable to incorporate that in our brand; 2) we also wanted to have different formats: something that is a little more formal and something that is a little lighter, because we do do different types of work. Next week, we have a social, but I’m also editing reports that we’ll be sending to parliament. We wanted something that can be a little varied and a little bit more flexible, and that’s why we chose to create it. But I don’t know whether in the past we’ve used GSS as a three-letter acronym in branding.Negar: I wasn’t in the previous meeting, but what’s the meaning behind the logo?Ben: It’s in the supporting document; I’ll just read this:

“As I contemplated a new design to embody the spirit of the UBC Graduate Student Society, I felt that it is not only important to represent Musqueam traditional territory, but as well as the diversity of all the students who come to UBC past, present and future from all corners of the world.

I’ve created a design with no end and no beginning, this spindle whorl design illustrates the unwavering passing of time and successive generations. Each geometric moment on the whorl is identical to the one before it and the one that follows. Whether the marks indicate seconds, days, years or millennia the pace never changes.

It also is a symbol for the people, we are all the children of Mother Earth, no matter our homeland. The people’s faces are embraced in a geometric flower motif to represent the beauty and fragility of Mother Earth, a reminder that everything we work hard towards, must include a respect and duty to our beautiful planet. The faces are in a circle, a metaphor for a strong community and friendships.”

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Kate: Quickly with respect to my earlier comment. I want to say that I really appreciate the effort you’ve gone to build this relationship to show respect to the artist and also the move in consulting Amber, because as Nicolas has mentioned, because she’s definitely capable of standing up for these issues that she thinks may be relevant. So I’m feeling very confident in that angle that you’ve taken.

Presentation #3Presentation Title: Councillor AwardsGroup Responsible: GSS PresidentPresentation Time: 5 minutes

Speaker: I would like to congratulate all the award members.

2. Matters for Decision a. Seatings

i. New CouncillorsBIRT the following Seatings of new Councillors be approved:

Victoria Gomez to be seated as departmental representative for the School of Library, Archives and Information Studies

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Maria Martinez

RESULT: For (27): Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Lily Takeuchi

ii. Committee SeatingsAll GSS Councillors are expected to sit on at least one committee. Committee descriptions and meeting times here.

BIRT the following Seatings be approved:

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Lois Evans to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Academic and External Affairs Committee when she is unseated as a councillor (1 needed.) ____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Academic and External Affairs Committee (1 needed.)

____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Code and Policy Committee (1 needed.)____________to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Code and Policy Committee (3 needed.)

____________to be seated as an Ordinary member to the Elections Committee (4 needed.)____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Elections Committee (2 needed.)

Sara Izadi-Najafabadi to be seated as an Ordinary member to the Executive Oversight Committee (4 needed.) when she is at the end of her term as an executive.Temitayo Olarewaju, Karanpreet Matharu to be seated as a Councillor to the Executive Oversight Committee (2 needed.)

__________ to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Governance and Accountability Committee (1 needed.)__________ to be seated as a Councillor to the Governance and Accountability Committee (1 needed.)

____________to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the House Finance Committee (2 needed.)

____________ to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Human Resource Committee (1 needed.)____________ to be seated as a Councillor to the Human Resource Committee (2 needed.)

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____________to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Services Committee (1 needed.)

Karanpreet Matharu to be seated as GSS Representative to the AMS/GSS Health and Dental Plan Committee (1 needed.)

Alvionne Gardner-Harrison to be seated as GSS Representative to the Faculty of Arts Council (2 needed.)

MOVER: Karen Devendrakumar SECONDER: Philip Karangu

Nicolas: Move to amend: Lois Evans be seated when she is unseated as a councillor.


Speaker: Any opposed? Seeing none, this motion is amended.

RESULT: Carried.

Philip Karangu: There are two open seats for the Executive Oversight Committee because one councillor will be unseated today. There are two councillors that I would like to nominate as councillors.

Sara Izadi-Najafabadi: I would like to nominate myself for EOC, with amendment: when she is unseated as an executive.

MOVER: Sara Izadi-Najafabadi SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi

Kate: Point of information: is it correct to say “unseated as an executive” as opposed to “end of term”?

Speaker: How would you like to draft this?Kate: Amendment: “when she is at the end of her term as an executive.”Speaker: Let’s vote. Any opposed? Seeing none.

RESULT: Carried.

Speaker: Let’s move onto other committees.Ty: I want to motivate for the Faculty of Arts Council. This is a special invitation

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for members of the Faculty of Arts. Please consider being in the Faculty of Arts Council. This is the first time that Faculty of Arts is inviting graduate students to be part of the Faculty of Arts. This is a great thing – we’ll be able to influence policies and regulations in the Faculty of Arts. If you’re interested, please nominate yourself either today or at the next meeting, because they’ll reconvene, I believe, in September.Speaker: Anybody else for any of the above committees or positions? Seeing none. Let’s go for a vote.

RESULT: For (32): Rahaf al Assil, Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Lois Evans

b. CPIF Disbursement

WHEREAS the Events Manager is currently unable to work and needs to move to a private office, and

WHEREAS the office in front of the door, the current president’s office, is the most a suitable location for the Events Manager, and

WHEREAS moving the president’s office to the current GSS boardroom and moving the boardroom to the Foundation Room fits the needs of the president, and the needs of committees who often don’t have access to the current boardroom after 5pm, and BIRT the GSS UBC Vancouver approve the spending of up to $2 500 from CPIF for the purchase of a desk, cabinet, small table, and sofa to turn the current GSS boardroom into the president’s office

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Arash Shadkam

Nicolas: After discussion with outgoing executives, incoming executives and staff members, we’ve decided to rearrange the office because we currently have two very under-used rooms in the penthouse level: those being the study room and the foundation room. We have a problem with the Events Manager and the Advocate. We have more part-time staff than we’ve ever had. So, we’re lumping all the staff in the office to the very back where the Communications Manager and Events Manager are,

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and that got over-crowded. Further, most of the people that come to the GSS come to see either the Advocate or the Events Manager. So the plan is the put the Events Manager where the current President’s office is. This also helps when we don’t have an AA, and the person covering for the AA is right in front of the door, as opposed to having to stand up and walk to the door every time from another building. Further, we give a private office to the Advocate, where the current FEOO is. This means that when we have a meeting between the Advocate and a student, they have a private room to discuss the sensitive issues. The FEOO goes to where the VP External is, the VP External shares an office with the VP Student, where the VP Academic is. The VP Academic gets the other private office. The President doesn’t have an office, so the President goes where the Boardroom is. The Boardroom goes where the Foundation room is. With the longer term plan to also turn that room into a teleconference room so that I can fulfill my campaign promise to off-campus students that they can attend committee meetings remotely if they so wish. That room, which is bigger, can also host bigger committees that do not fit in the Boardroom, so can have better meetings and join in a proper manner from far away, so we don’t have problems with communications during meetings. That about sums it up. If you have any questions, just ask me.Arezoo: I didn’t get where the advocate will work after the rearrangement.Nicolas: In where is currently the FEOO’s office.Arezoo: Where will the FEOO go again?Nicolas: To the current VP External’s office.Arezoo: I think I have comments on the wording of the whereas clauses that states that the Events Manager currently unable to work, and she has been working there for two years. So she’s able to work, but it’s not the best situation perhaps. Another concern that may arise: that elevator that goes up is not suitable for students or other people with a disability. If we ever have someone who wants to join a meeting, and needs the elevator, that elevator is not the best place to take them up. Speaker: May I suggest to amend the whereas clause as follows: remove “unable to

work and”.Nicolas: I did not officially move the motion. Speaker: Who drafted the motion?John: HF committee drafted the motion.Nicolas: As a member of the HF committee, I accept the amendment as friendly.Kate: “Is” needs to be removed from “currently”.Nicolas: HF accepts this as friendly as well. I believe there is a pending question from

Arezoo.Theresa: It’s a question about the budget of $2500: did you look at different prices and how did you come up with the number? I also want to advertise in terms of financial responsibility and the environment that there’s a website called “reuse UBC” where you may find a lot of free office stuff – anything that people are upgrading their lab and are giving away for free. I just want to put this on the table as a suggestion.Arash: Has the accessibility raised earlier ever been talked about for this motion?

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Nicolas: It’s not addressed currently even with the building as is. The problem that we currently have is that the elevator is not fit to fit a person in a wheelchair and one more person, which is required. There’s a medium-term plan to address this. This is a good opportunity to pitch in case you have not read the consultation process on the renovation process on Thea Koerner House happening on April 30. This longer-term plan which includes UBC giving money to renovate the building includes making the elevator accessible. Currently, the building is not accessible in many ways. Should the need arise to accommodate a person that has a disability, the solution is to use the President’s office. The President’s office will be set up in a way that can be used as a meeting room, and I would be more than happy to step out of the room for the meeting to take place there.Tayo: You say the current President’s office is the most suitable location. I move to amend the second whereas clause: remove “the most” and add “a” so we won’t get into the argument of how you determined that as the most suitable location.Nicolas: I would like to add something that I forgot to say when I originally motivated. This is especially for committee chairs. The current issue with how we’re using the boardroom is that the building gets locked and alarmed by staff when the last staff member leaves. Unless there’s a member of the committee that has a key and alarm code, we cannot use the boardroom after 5 pm on most days. Most of us have committee meetings after 5 pm because we work on our graduate studies during the day. Moving the boardroom upstairs eliminate this problem because that area can be left open, and it’s as simple as locking on your way out. You’re no longer restricted to using the boardroom after a time. So after we do this, I encourage you to strike meetings at the Koerner House because that also simplifies ordering food for you. It is our building.Arezoo: I was wondering that after 5 pm, it’s also where the whole entrance is locked – there’s no way to enter if there are no GSS executives in the building after 5 pm.Nicolas: As long as there is a person still in the building, because it can be opened from the inside – they’re fire doors. The doors will lock automatically. What you cannot do is access the building once the last person is out.Arezoo: The thing is after 5 pm, you cannot even enter the building if nobody is inside the building. Is that clear?Speaker: That is clear. What Nicolas is saying is that when there’s nobody inside the building, nobody can enter. The simple solution is to have someone wait inside to open the door. Instead of absolutely not being able to get in, because we need somebody to have the security code, which can only be limited to a number of people.Tayo: Theresa had asked about how the number was arrived at and I don’t think that has been addressed.Nicolas: So the General Manager had done the price comparisons, and presented the options to the HF committee. The HF committee approved the budget. The reason it’s worded the way it is is to include a leeway for delivery costs and taxes.

RESULT: For (22): Rahaf al Assil, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, John Ede, Lois

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Evans, Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot SinghAbstained: Maria Martinez, Theresa Pauly

c. Clarification of Chair election (and unseating) procedures

WHEREAS the procedure for electing a committee chair does not specify parameters from which Council can elect a chair, nor specify a time limit before a Committee may bypass Council and elect its own chair, and

WHEREAS CPC has performed consultation to determine the appropriate parameters to be specified for this election

WHEREAS the ability of Council to remove a chair should also be clarified,

BIRT Policy 7.7.1, 7.7.2, and 7.9.2 be repealed and replaced with the following:

7.7.1 Council may elect a Committee Chair by ordinary resolution from among the members of the committee who are either Councillors or Ordinary Members.

7.7.2 If Council does not elect a chair within 60 days of the position becoming vacant, then a Committee shall elect a Chair from among its members who are also members of Council, unless a different procedure has been included in the Committee’s Terms of Reference.

7.9.2 Council may by special resolution remove a member of a Committee, including the chair, if the member to be removed has been given written notice of the motion ten days before the Council meeting, including reasons for which their removal is being considered.

MOVER: Maria Martinez SECONDER: Tayo Olarewaju

Kate: Motivate: These clarifications were circulated earlier. We’re doing three things: 1) we’re making it clear that it can be either ordinary or councillors that can be chair, because we assessed and found that ordinary members are doing good work as chair, and we don’t want anyone to ask whether we should be restricting this to councillors; 2) There is no time limits to when a committee could be electing a chair, if Council doesn’t, so theoretically, if a Chair wants to seat themselves the day after a Council meeting, the committee could get together and elect a new chair before Council has even met and has an opportunity to elect a chair, so we’re making sure that there is a

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good 60-day window for Council to elect that chair before a committee is allowed to step in and elect their own chair; 3) We’re making it clear that Council can unseat a chair, not just a member but the chair itself, if there’s a reason to do so.

RESULT: For (26): Rahaf al Assil, Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, Lois Evans, Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Maria Martinez, Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Christina Rubino

d. Housekeeping Motion

WHEREAS the Policy Revision Form includes out of date contact information,

BIRT in the Policy Manual Appendix XIII, Policy Revision Form, the text “The Committee can be emailed at [email protected]” be replaced with “The Committee can be emailed at [email protected]” and the text “For assistance with this, please contact the Executive Assistant at [email protected].” be replaced with “For assistance with putting forms on the website, you may contact Communications and Marketing Director at [email protected].”

MOVER: Maria Martinez SECONDER: Tayo Olarewaju

Kate: The wrong email addresses were in the revision form. So the correct email addresses are now included. Housekeeping.

RESULT: For (27): Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, Lois Evans, Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Christina Rubino, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAgainst (1): Rahaf al Assil

e. Endorsement of Internal Governance Review Report

WHEREAS the Governance and Accountability Committee has performed a governance structure review of the Graduate Student Society, and

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WHEREAS the findings of the governance review have been consolidated in the report “GSS Internal Governance Review”, which has been circulated to Councillors.

BIRT the GSS Council endorses the content of the Internal Governance Review report issued by the Governance and Accountability Committee.

BIFRT the GSS Council directs the GSS President to ensure that the report is preserved in the institutional memory of the GSS.

MOVER: Larissa Peck SECONDER: Maria Martinez

Nicolas: I’m sure you’ve received an email from the President in the past few weeks, attached to it is a report, which originated from the work of the Governance and Accountability ad hoc Committee that existed before us, which was led by Natalie Marshal at the time. There was a lot a work that she has put into that, and there was also a lot of contribution from Peter Musser who was very recently unseated as a councillor, and Madison Bolger-Munro. That consolidates the results of the MKK report; that was a consulting company that did a governance review of the GSS in 2010. All that review was re-reviewed. There was an analysis done on which of the suggestions have been implemented; which ones weren’t; which ones of the ones that weren’t that we were going to move forward with; the results of the implementation of the ones that we had. After that, during last year, there was a round of consultation to council asking out of all the governance gaps that were identified, where is the priority for you. After Council voted on that, the committee came back with possible ways to address these gaps. Council voted again and those were named the top gaps. So basically, what the report does is consolidate all the information. All the gaps that are currently identified, some of them have been addressed from the time the report was drafted, but they were left there for institutional memory. Basically, it’s a roadmap for how we move forward in addressing governance gaps in this institution. This should be very good to inform the work of the potential Strategic Planning ad hoc committee that should be struck very soon. I know the current G and A committee is working on.Speaker: This is not endorsing a position, so it’s a standard vote.Kate: I notice that there appears to be an error in the table of contents – an error with the bookmark, not result. Does endorsing the report now mean that error will be preserved, or will there be an opportunity to fix that?Nicolas: Now that we’ve just approved the GSS branding, we can transform the GSS branding. Motion to amend: we can approve the content, but not the editorial.


Speaker: Any opposed? Seeing none. We endorse the content of the report instead of the exact report.

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RESULT: Carried.

Speaker: Any comments? Last call. Let’s go for a vote on the main motion.

RESULT: For (31): Rahaf al Assil, Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Eric Frieling , Negar Ghahramani, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Jun Sian Lee, Yee Fay Lim, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaenia, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Lily Takeuchi

… Next page: Strategic Theme 2: Graduate Student Community

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F. Strategic Theme 2: Community: Presentations & Motions

Vision: The GSS supports UBC graduate students by fostering a positive, inclusive, and connected community on and off-campus, and by actively supporting initiatives to improve health and well-being.


i. VP Studentsii. Services Committee

b. Questions

Arezoo: Can I say that this is a follow-up of a conversation in the AGM. Speaker: The agenda item says see final section for written updates from VP Students. I don’t see a lot of restrictions. I encourage you to focus on the matters at hand.Arezoo: I had raised the questions why there were not any events for the AO. The VP Students wasn’t sure of the budget, and then at the previous meeting, I saw a note that was saying that the Services Committee didn’t see it was reasonable to spend too much money, that it was expensive last year. I agree that we had money, and I think we chose the expensive venue with the vote of the Services committee. That was because we had extra revenue so we had freedom to use a fancy venue. So that was a reason, but that could be help at a much less expensive venue. Especially since we have a sponsor. We did a lot of work to have our sponsor, and if we don’t continue on that, we’re going to lose our stakeholders here. And, I checked with the FEOO, and VP Students had $2000 on the line of 14845. Which makes it feasible to hold at least one event for AOs. That line is basically for holding meetings for AOs. That was the note that I wanted to make about AOs events. And I think that part of the duty of VP Students is to lay out. I also noticed at the AGM that there was a huge reduction in attendance, and I believe that that’s an important matter. VP Students gave some explanation with regards to not having enough budget compared to previous years. Actually he had the same budget, except the reduction for events fund, which doesn’t influence the budget for events and programs. He also gave the explanation that there were other unsatisfaction with previous terms…Speaker: What is your question?Arezoo: My question is why the VP Student gives misleading information? When I asked the question, I received an answer that when I personally went to figure it out, I realized that it was misleading. As a Councilor, we deserve a true answer. If he

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wants me to explain why it’s misleading, I can continue. If not, I can stop.Speaker: This is not the forum for this discussion. This is an issue for the EOC. This case is not a simple question. It is going to involve a lot of fact digging, and that is what Executive Oversight does. If you agree, then maybe we can move this case to committee, or whichever way that you would like to proceed.Arezoo: I’ve already talked with one of the members of EOC. As a Councilor, I want to raise this with Council, that we deserve a true, responsible, accountable answer.Speaker: I will ask Pouya to respond to this, but I don’t want this to be a 1-hr conversation.Pouya: I want to thank you for raising the questions about different responsibilities that we have. It was great that you have the information because you were the VP Students before me. About the information, I always try to confirm that with the people in charge. For example, if I give numbers, I confirm that with the Event Manager. I never intended to give wrong information about anything. About the AO dinner, as you can see, not many AOs applied for event fund this year. They haven’t been involved with the GSS that much, so we thought of improving our relationship with the AOs through other ways. For example, now we have designed an orientation for the AOs and we tried it for the first, and we think that it was successful. We told the AO about the GSS and told them that they can reach out to us if they have any questions or need any help. I think there are other ways to make this relationship better rather than having an event, which we are not sure if it was successful or not. The survey, at that time, was sent to the attendees of the events, and it was a different type of survey from the other surveys that we send out. We could not compile that survey, so we don’t know if it was successful or not. In your opinion, you might say it was successful; but with other people I’ve talked to, they said maybe it wasn’t – I’m not sure. I made the decision based on what I heard. It wasn’t clear to me whether we should have that event again or not. Maybe we should have it later maybe in this coming year, but it wasn’t clear to us whether it is better to have it this year or not. About the VP Students Office, I agree that we should get help and get support from the VP Students Office. That’s what I’m going to do and what I’ve been trying to do. During this past year, I’ve been trying to show how important and how serious GSS is by being present in a lot of meetings with the current VP Students. I think now we’re in the position where he respects us and takes us seriously. From now, if we need any support, we can go to VP Students. During the past year, it was a little bit hard, because we had the interim VP Students.Nicolas: Point of order. This question was referred to the Services Committee two months ago, and the Services Committee has voted on it on March 5 and endorsed the position of not holding the AO dinner. The question about whether Pouya can be raised to the EOC, I don’t see any point in continuing this conversation. I’m calling this conversation out of order: Council voted to move this matter to committee.Arezoo: It’s just one comment that the VP Student said he wasn’t sure whether the event was successful or not. I want to let him know that we have the survey, and

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the Events Manager has this survey as well, and the survey is always sent to the VP Students’ Office, and that’s why they support us for that event because it’s satisfactory. I agree they don’t always have to do that but they should have some other plans. Tayo: The agenda says that we should see the final section for updates for VP Students and Services Committees, and I have looked through the agenda and I don’t see any updates.Speaker: So you’re questioning whether there should be a motion or agenda item to see the report of the VP Services, and you don’t see it?Tayo: Yes.Pouya: What is the question?Speaker: There is supposed to be a report from you in the agenda, and Tayo doesn’t see it. John: That means that that there were no updates from that particular executive for this meeting. If there were, they would be in the supporting documents.Speaker: Any other questions? I’m not stopping this conversation; it should go to committee, respecting Council’s time.Phil A.: I’m on the Services committee and we’ve already dealt with this. It should not go back to the committee.Speaker: Great. Thank you for the clarification.

c. Matter #1

2. Matters for Decision a. Affiliate Organization Recognition

i. Motion: WHEREAS the following organizations have submitted a petition for recognition as an Affiliate Organization, thereforeBIRT the following organizations be recognized as Affiliate Organizations for one year, ending at the meeting of Council in April 2020:

● Centre for Heart Lung Innovation Trainee Association● Creative Writing Students Association

MOVER: Larissa Peck SECONDER: Karen Devendrakumar

RESULT: For (18): Rahaf al Assil, Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Pouya Rezaenia, Arash Shadkam, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Philip Karangu, Maria Martinez, Sebastien Rettie

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… Next page: Strategic Theme 1: Graduate Student Academics

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G. Strategic Theme 1: Academics: Presentations & Motions

Vision: The GSS empowers UBC graduate students to succeed in their academic endeavours by conducting data-driven advocacy.


i. VP University & Academic Affairsii. VP External Relationsiii. Academic & External Affairs

Committee

iv. Graduate Councilv. Senatevi. Board of Governors

b. QuestionsArezoo: I have a question for Sara. I was wondering if the allocated money for off-campus renting has ever been used or advertised.Sarah: There have been very few discussions at the Executive committee about how to use that money, but we haven’t finalized how to use the money. The money is still there.Arezoo: Is that going to be mentioned in the transition so that it doesn’t get lost.Sarah: Yes.

2. Matters for Decision

a. Graduate Student Financial Aid (GSFA)

WHEREAS the policy amendment was not submitted to council 7 days prior, which is in violation of our bylaws,

BIRT we refer the issue to the CPC and strike on the agenda for the motion that follows.

BIRT Policy 15 in the GSS Policy Manual be repealed and replaced with the policy contained in the notes (see attachment).

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BIFRT the GSS Academic and External Committee will propose implementing guidelines for the GSFA by April 2020 council meeting, following the recommendations of the GSFA Adjudication Committee based on their initial two terms of disbursing funds.

Speaker: There needs to be presentation before this motion. I need a friendly amendment to allow for the presentation first.John: It’s friendly.

Presentation #1Presentation Title: Graduate Student Financial Aid (GSFA)Group Responsible: VP University Affairs and AcademicPresentation Time:

John: Thank you Sara what you’ve done and for the presentation. For the procedure that they just concluded, I’m wondering how prepared Enrollment Services is to give such a letter to the applicant and whether that will become a stumbling block for them.Sara: At the beginning of my term, in the first few months, I met with representatives from Enrollment Services and this was one of their suggestions from them, and AcEx liked that suggestion. I haven’t discussed it further with Enrollment Services because I want to see whether Council approves it.Ty: And in our discussion, going through the UBC Enrollment Services is just another layer of accountability that we can build into financial aid because they’re trained to assess need of students. We don’t necessarily have that capability. Just to be accountable to Council and to students who secure our funds, we’re requiring this additional layer so that we can have that confidence that there’s definitely a need. Sara has a great job in connecting us with Enrollment Services.Kate: It has unfortunately come to my attention that the policy revision form for this has not been circulated 7 days ahead of time as required by the policy manual and the Bylaws. I would like to give Sara the opportunity to speak to that, and thank her for her work, but raise this as a procedural point that would prevent us from amending the policy manual without that notice.Sara: Thank you so much for bringing this up. I agree with you and that we need to remove the motion.Speaker: We can table it to next month, which is the most appropriate procedure. It is good procedure that Council gets the presentation this month and the policy comes next month.Rahaf: Given what Kate says that the policy document was just circulated two minutes before this meeting, and I was quickly reading it; I want to raise a few points about it,

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not necessarily to have my questions answered. In section 15.1.3, I think that (b) is a weird wording for me: what is a demonstrated financial hardship? At the moment when the application is at the GSS, then the financial hardship is already demonstrated and no longer hidden. Something else was saying that adjudication will determine how much money the student will be given – that is section 15.1.4. However, when you go down to 15.1.12, I see a little bit of a contradiction by saying that the financial decision will be with the AcEx committee, that will be after the total allocation of GFSA has been finalized at the annual GSS budget, and approved by the GSS Council. Does that mean Council needs to approve ever single amount of money to be given to the student before the money is released? My final comment is regarding the 4-week period given to us to decide the financial aid: I’m finding it a bit long. For a student who is actually in unforeseen circumstances, to wait 4 weeks to get that money. I would appreciate to see this period of time be less than 4 weeks. We would probably listen to suggestions from councillors and other students: how can we shorten this time? The final comment will be as well that there is a section in the policy draft that “the student cannot appeal to any other body of the Society.” I find that bita little paternalistic. The student can always have the right to appeal. And we can’t always give a decision we think that is fair enough to the student. I would suggest to delete that from the policy. We cannot force any students not to appeal. Probably Kate, Ty, and VP Academic can have their input on my comments.Speaker: You were saying that you don’t seek answers. These are great comments, and if anybody wants to comment on those, please go ahead.Arash: Point of information. What are we doing right now? If we’re not going to vote, it’s out order, then why are we discussing it? If you want to discuss it, then move it to the discussion section.Speaker: We’re asking questions of the presentation right now. We have an amended agenda item which I had asked John to consent to insert the presentation that was supposed to be there. We have not gone into the motion. We have not moved nor seconded the motion. Sara: I want to talk about the controversy that Rahaf referred to. I understand why that might look like a controversy, but just to clarify 15.1.12, which indicates that the budget should be approved at Council. The overall budget for the year should be approved in the Council every May and then the budget for each individual is dependent on their adjudication committee. As for the wording of some of the other lines, I’d like to pass it to few of the other native speakers to look into that.Philip K: I have one or two questions regarding Enrollment participating in these things. If enrollment has money to give to our students in terms of need, why would they want to recommend us to use our money to give to students? Sara: Their definitions of emergency are a little bit different from what we define it. They use it for emergencies that are urgent. For example, if you need to attend a funeral. They don’t consider a fund for improving quality of life as an emergency. The

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whole purpose of this proposal is to cover some financial needs of the students to improve their quality of life, instead of just emergency situations.Nicolas: In your presentation, you very correctly pointed out to us that nobody that sits on this Council or works for the GSS should be eligible for this fund for the clear conflict of interest. Or at least that’s what I got from your presentation. I don’t need an answer. I just want to point out that that conflict of interest I don’t see addressed in the written policy. Now, we’re not going to vote on the matter, because of what Kate has pointed out. But instead of tabling the issue, it looks like a lot of us have questions, and it would be more efficient if we discuss them in committee before we come back to Council, instead of waiting for Council next month. So instead of tablinig, I move that we refer the issue of the GSS emergency fund to the CPC committee, and we strike the motion from the agenda. So this would give us the opportunity to discuss this matter in the CPC committee as much as we need before the next meeting. By the time we get to the next meeting, we’re ready to vote.Speaker: And report back to Council next month?Nicolas: Not necessarily. The discussion may be longer. I’d rather this not come back to Council while we still have questions about it.Kate: I do agree it sounds like that there is some concerns, and it should move back to committee. I too agree that CPC would be well-equipped to deal with some of those concerns. I would like to remind people that CPC is involved with revising the clarity of motions and their structure in terms of our policy not necessarily the content. For example, CPC can speak to the question of demonstrated financial hardship, which may somewhat superfluous given the requirements that already say that it must demonstrated. But still makes it clear that we are expecting that this be demonstrated. It’s a bit of a redundant measure of clarity as it were. As was in our CPC minutes. However, CPC, for example, cannot speak to the logistical content-based issue of how long the aid should take to reach the recipients. Because that would be more of a question about the actual mechanical issue at hand, which is something that AcEx would be qualified to determine. So if this is being referred back to CPC, I would also request that AcEx be involved in this to discuss issues related to the content rather than the structure of the policy.Speaker: So Kate is speaking to the policy making procedure. Content submitted to CPC to crosscheck.Ty: Just two points. It has been through the CPC. And in the CPC minutes, it’ll reflect that they’ve been through it and they’ve made suggestions and recommendations, and one of their recommendations is to actually bring it to council. The second point about the conflict of interest, there’s actually a very well-defined piece on conflict of interest in the policy itself. It actually sets out penalties for people who don’t disclose their conflicts of interest. I don’t understand where the question is coming from. Lastly, this policy has been circulated for so long and discussed, and I just want to point out that there has been a long history of consultation for this policy.

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Rahaf: In my opinion, to improve the quality of life of the student who is really experiencing an extreme emergency situation, and needs to get money but cannot access this money in the student enrollment services, I propose that we need to clarify the process of this application and make it more precise so that it can be done quickly. A period of 4 weeks is really very long for somebody who is in an extreme emergency, such as has been said for someone who is going for a funeral – we cannot really wait for four weeks. The other comment is about the the student enrollment services, I don’t think they have a current policy that is about referring students to the GSS. If they want to be involved in this, they really need to develop that policy. I’m not aware that they have this kind of policy right now. So I’m also unsure how they will process that for us. The discussion of this financial aid has been prolonged for months in the AcEx. It has been sent to the CPC. This is the first time that this is discussed in Council. I would love to hear comments from Councillors about what they just heard. They probably did not read the draft that was just circulated, but I would appreciate that everyone would read it and give inputs about it, because it’s about the students. Next month, we can really discuss it in details. That’s in my opinion the best process about getting it done. I’m not sure how much power AcEx has on this financial aid to discuss this again and again. But I’m honestly finding myself repeating my comments again and again, and I’m not finding them well-represented in the draft. Not sure where this is going; it’s better to have input from some Councillors on it next month.Arash: Point of information. What are we doing? Are we discussing referring the item below to those committees, or are we discussing the presentation?Speaker: We’re still at the presentation stage. And there’s a proposed motion and we haven’t moved or seconded.Arash: What are we waiting on, may I ask?Speaker: I’m waiting on someone to move an actual motion.

Nicolas: I did say I move: BIRT we refer the issue to the CPC and strike on the agenda the motion that follows.

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Arash Shadkam

Nicolas: The reason I’m moving to refer this to committee and not to table is because we cannot pass it today. So there’s no point in having a lengthy discussion right now because we cannot vote on the motion. However, if we move to table, we cannot touch the issue again until next month. But referring to the committee means if we have questions, we have the chance to address them in committees can save ourselves time next Council meeting. So I strongly suggest that we refer this to committee. If CPC finds that this exceeds them, they can refer it back to AcEx – I don’t think that will be

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the case. But at least we have the opportunity to work on it offline and we don’t get stuck frozen in time until the next council meeting.Sara: A comment. Because this proposal has been going back and forth between AcEx and CPC, I’m pretty sure if we refer it to them, I’m not sure how much improvement we can see for this proposal. I agree with Rahaf that maybe discussing this a little bit and getting feedback from people would be helpful. Unless they don’t think they know enough about this.Nicolas: There’s no reason why Councillors cannot have input during CPC meetings. I would assume that if the issue gets out of hand at CPC, feel free to refer it to the Executive Committee to take it from there. However, CPC can simply vote to refer this back to Council, having submitted the policy revision form 7 days in advance, where we can have the discussion in Council. I just want to open up the discussion before to save us time next month.Kate: I would like to encourage that if anyone has any issues with this policy, now that it has been circulated, at least in the content if not in the full official form, that you please submit those comments or concerns to CPC in writing, or attend our next meeting, which has been schedule for April 30 at 6 pm. We will refer to the specific comments and see if there are any changes that do need to be made, and then decide whether to refer it back to Council or some other body.Jun: I would like to recommend that instead of having the current form as a Word document, that we have a Google Doc to allow all Councillors to give their comments right away. Instead of having a Word document, we can have a Google Doc so that Councillors can give their comments online/offline. Essentially to comment on the draft and give their input, which should be more efficient instead of attending the meetings, which for some people, they may not be able to attend. Speaker: Any other comments on the motion at hand to refer the motion below to Committee.Rahaf: Can we suggest that AcEx join the CPC meeting on April 30 and have that open discussion at the same meeting?Speaker: Do you want this as a recommendation or add this to the motion?Rahaf: Add this to the motion. Move to amend: BIRT AcEx joins the CPC meeting on April 30 at 6 pm to discuss this matter.

MOVER: Rahaf Al Assil SECONDER: Jun Sian Lee

Ty: That is an unfair request because the meeting has been set and we were not consulted on the April 30th date.Kate: I think that having the entire AcEx join that particular meeting is certainly a feasibility issue. If it is desired that there be some AcEx representative, then I would

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request that the motion be amended as such to say that Council requests that a representative from the AcEx committee attend one of the two CPC meetings before the next Council. Because CPC will be having an additional meeting and that allows some flexibility on a meeting in which we can determine a time that works with an AcEx representative. Move to amend: BIRT at least one AcEx representative joins the CPC meetings that discuss this matter.Speaker: Is this a friendly amendment?Rahaf: Friendly.Arash: I’m not sure that’s a good suggestion to force one committee to join another committee’s meeting. I don’t think that’s a good idea.Nicolas: I think CPC just won best committee. Kate just won best chair. I would just put it in their hands and consult as they see fit. With that, I call the question.Speaker: We’re calling to the question for the second amended clause. If you vote yes, we will discuss the whole motion with that condition, if not, that line disappears. Nicolas: Point of order. We need to vote on the call to the question.Sara H: Point of information: how do you enforce someone to do that?Speaker: Enforceability is a different question. We now vote on the call to the question.

RESULT: For (22): Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Lois Evans, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Areezo M., Larissa Peck

Speaker: The motion passes. Now we vote on the second BIRT clause. If you vote yes, that clause stays. If you vote no, that clause disappears.

RESULT: For (5): John Ede, Eric Frieling , Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Karanpreet M.Against (17): Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Logan Lorenz, Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Lois Evans, Areezo M., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Kate Sedivy

Speaker: The motion fails. Now we’re back to the main motion.

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Nicolas: Given the result of the two votes we just had, everyone is ready to vote on this matter. I call the question again. And I’m the last speaker on the list.Speaker: Because you’re last, we don’t need to vote on that. We’re going to vote to refer the issue to CPC. If you vote yes, CPC will take care of it.

RESULT: For (27): Rahaf al Assil, Phil Angel, Farah Deeba, Karen Devendrakumar, Fapu Duan, John Ede, Kamaldeep Gill, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Karanpreet M., Maria Martinez, Temitope O., Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Gurjot Singh, Anoras Szeitz, Lily TakeuchiAbstained: Lois Evans, Areezo M.

Kate: I need to make a motion before we move into matters for discussion because CPC has submitted three matters for decision for this particular agenda, but of them has been missed. We had “An establishment of the position of a deputy chair”. Move to amend the agenda to add this. I can email the text to the Speaker and to the Councillors. I apologize for the inconvenience that I had not noticed that omission until Council has started.Speaker: I need the information on a USB stick. If I may, we will move onto the first presentation for Matters for Discussion until I get the information, and then we’ll talk about the amendment of the agenda.Kate: Ok.

Speaker: I have a motion to amend the agenda to add the motion in red. You heard Kate’s motivation that it was supposed to be on the agenda but it was missed.MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi.

Speaker: Any opposed? Seeing none. Let’s go into the motion.

RESULT: Carried.

b. An Establishment of the Position of a Deputy Chair

WHEREAS committees do not function effectively if a chair is temporarily absent, and the current policy of having executives chair a committee is not ideal,

WHEREAS the position of a deputy chair will both provide for the temporary absence of a chair and ease transitions between chairs, WHEREAS the practice of using a chair transition document should also be codified to improve chair transitions,

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BIRT Policies 7.1.3, 7.7.3, and 7.7.5(g)(ii) be repealed and replaced with the following:

7.1.3 Any member of a Committee, except the Chair, may appoint a proxy from among the members of the Society. The Chair may designate a deputy chair as per Policy 7.7.3.

7.7.3 In the event of the absence or anticipated absence of a Chair to fulfill their duties, the chair or committee should appoint a deputy chair from among the members of the committee. A deputy chair:

(a) is primarily intended to provide a backup in the event that a chair is temporarily absent and to ease the transition between chairs;

(b) is appointed by the chair or by a quorate meeting of the committee, and acts until removed by the chair or quorate committee unless otherwise specified at the time of appointment;

(c) assumes all of the duties of the chair in the event that the chair is absent or unseated;

(d) shall not receive remuneration if they assume the duties of the chair for less than one month; in the event that they fulfill these duties for one month or longer they should receive the remuneration due to the chair, and be elected chair as per Policy 7.7.1 or 7.7.2 if possible.

7.7.5 The Chair of each Committee shall:

(g)(ii) fill out a chair transition report and appoint a deputy chair, in the event they must step down,

MOVER: Code and Policy Committee SECONDER: Larissa Peck

Kate: We’ve seen the need for a Deputy Chair for several times now. It would have actually been very useful to have twice in the last year. Once when there was a temporary absence of AcEx chair, and another time when CPC was temporarily without a chair. This would have allowed us to fill that position before the Council meeting was coming around. The idea is that if there is for whatever reason a temporary absence of the chair, the chair can appoint a deputy temporarily without having Council approve that, as is the normal procedure. And that person can temporarily act as the chair until Council can formally fill that position. It’s pretty straight forward in that respect. We think this will really help out with chair transitions in situations where there may be that gap,

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because unfortunately, as we found, that committees really don’t function at all effectively when they don’t have a chair. So this should help us smooth over that transition a little bit and hopefully provide an opportunity for incoming chairs to transition into that role as well if they’re appointed as the deputy shortly before the unseating of the exiting chair.Nicolas: I speak strongly in favor of this motion. This was flagged originally by the Governance and Accountability ad hoc Committee back when the preceding president was an ordinary member sitting in the committee. It’s been not addressed ever since. It’s actually in the governance report. CPC did a great job in consultation with the Executive Committee chair to get opinions on how to form this motion. Last but not least, my formal apology for the omission.

RESULT: For (20): Rahaf al Assil, Farah Deeba, John Ede, Eric Frieling, Victoria Gomez, Sara Izadi-Najafabadi, Philip Karangu, Jun Sian Lee, Logan Lorenz, Areezo M., Maria Martinez, Tayo Olarewaju, Theresa Pauly, Larissa Peck, Claire Preston, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Lily Takeuchi

… Next page: Matters for Discussion

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H. Matters for Discussion1. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society:

Presentation #1Presentation Title: 2018/19 GSS Executive Team Goals ReviewProposed objective: To update the GSS Council on the Executives SMART GoalsGroup Responsible: Executive Oversight Committee (EOC)Presentation Time: 10 minutesSupporting Document: EOC Final Review 2019

Arash: Move to extend time by 6 minutes.MOVER: Arash Shadkam SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi.

Speaker: Any opposed? Seeing none. Motion carried. Presentation may carry on.

RESULT: Carried.

Ty: I am wondering if the committee has discussed consequences for executives who have not met most of their goals?Philip K: The committee has not yet decided on how to punish, if that is appropriate; however, you’ve just given us an agenda item for our next meeting.Tayo: Concerning the VP External’s goals, one of it is, which he has met, was to provide a white paper for our CASA withdrawal. I recalled and I also took a look in the minutes in Council had actually resolved that a presentation be made in Council about the advocacy options, and that hasn’t been done. I was wondering how come that was said that that goal has been achieved, although he didn’t obey Council.Philip K: The Council deals with Council’s stuff, and we deal with goals that we’ve set. And according to goals he set for us to see how he’s doing, he did it and did them well. He actually did develop with other people the white paper. The point of the paper was supposed to be used as a tool for advocacy on behalf of GSS to other bodies outside. But I’m now looking for help from anybody else who can solve the situation.Kate: As someone who was involved with at least the drafting of the original motion, I definitely think that that is a question that should be answered. But I don’t think it directly relates to the goal, given that the goal was a white paper for the advocacy and that the motion was about a different plan for federal advocacy outside of CASA. I’m definitely interested in seeing that followed up on – that failure to obey the motion that was set by Council. But I don’t think EOC’s evaluation of these goals necessarily has to reflect that within the context of the goals; it would be a wider EOC issue.Philip K: If I understand Tayo’s question correctly, whether the VP External provided us with metrics of leaving and joining any other organizations of CASA.

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Tayo: Whether he provided that to Council, and why you said that he had achieved his goal? I kind of conflated the two of them. Karan: Is the question if the white paper was to leave CASA or not…? He has a white paper for mental health advocacy that was supposed to be presented at CASA’s conference. Is that what his goal was? If we’re going to stay in CASA or not – that was not his initial goal. That was something that we asked in Council for him to do. His goal was met in the circumstance that he has a white paper for mental health advocacy based on the data. Tayo: Point of information: what happens when an executive does not obey Council?Speaker: There are currently no consequences set in the Bylaws.Nicolas: I believe what the feeling is is that, indeed, the review process that you currently have in place is very similar to the review process that the G and A committee has in the sense that all that is reviewed is that goals were set and goals were fulfilled. If the overall performance of the executive, committee, or anybody in the GSS, is subpar, it’s currently not in our reporting structure a clear way for that to be reflected. Of course, high importance of executives – what I think Council wants is for EOC and for your next goals, develop a performance evaluation process that more accurately reflects the performance of the executive. Because sometimes the opposite can also happen: a goal is not met because of external circumstances or unforeseen circumstances, but the executive did do a very good job, but the evaluation does not look that great. This is something for EOC to work with with the next executives. Arezoo: Could you please go back to the slide for VP Students programs? I couldn’t follow why there was an increase in programming. How was this goal met?Philip K: This goal was actually to increase the number of programs offered by GSS. I think he wanted to have more on-campus and at the same time off-campus. However, as we said that in point 3, once he realized that yoga off-campus is not performing, he replaced that with on-campus salsa. That was an effort that meant to us that he was not only sleeping on the job, he was even dreaming about it being a good job. Ty: I want to address that point that was raised by Tayo. I actually have an answer on the presentation by Gurjot’s alternative federal lobbying strategies. He’s actually working with AcEx on that presentation. There’s still going to be a presentation - it will be in May. He couldn’t present in March because he was away at CASA, and today, he has another appointment. But we are preparing a kickass, fabulous presentation so please bear with us – there will be a presentation.

Presentation #2Presentation Title: Financial UpdateProposed objective: To update the GSS Council on the finances of the societyGroup Responsible: Financial and Executive Oversight Officer (FEOO)Presentation Time: 6 minutes

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Supporting Document: GSS Financial Report Feb 2019

Kate: Can the legible copy with more details be made available after the meeting?Philip K: This is in the supporting materials.Arezoo: Can you please explain where the surplus of money in the overall budget comes from?Philip K: I don’t understand the question.Speaker: Is it through not spending the money?Philip K: Yes.Kate: The presentation that is included in the supporting document, that slide is also not legible. If that could be adjusted, that would be much appreciated.Philip K: Noted.Nicolas: I would encourage any members who have interest in specifics and details of our finances to join us at HF meetings. We’re super fun going over the budget. It’s very lengthy to explain sometimes here; I don’t think it’s the best use of time.Karan: The content of the slide is legible. You just need to increase the size of the page.Arash: The issue we have right now: we budget, then divide it into quarters – and we don’t take into account that we’re receiving money here, or that money allocated for the first quarter is actually spent in the last quarter. So all the reporting through the years don’t make much sense. That is the same thing that AMS does. Are you planning to at least make an effort to account for these little details in your future budget for next year.Philip K: Yes.Arezoo: Can you please explain where money was not spent?Philip K: The money that we have in excess – you know we had an issue of hiring a GM last year and the years before that. All that money was never spent. The balance was carried forward and has been accumulating. Same case with CPIF. As you can see in the way I presented, for example, VP Student has $40,000 spend, but spent only $18,000. But that amount was budgeted. That money that has not been used will also be brought forward. I’m happy to report that we have a plan with the President.Nicolas: There’s a presentation on this after.

Presentation #3Presentation Title: Report on 2019 GSS ElectionsProposed objective: To report the process, results of GSS Elections and to provide recommendations for future years. Summary of Presentation: 2019 GSS Election has seen a higher turnout of 8% compared to 2018 Election (3%). The potential reasons for the higher turnout are longer voting period (12 days vs 5 days in past years), more active campaigning by the two contested positions (VP Academic, VP External), poster posting at more than 20 buildings on and off campus as well as having a booth to ask students to vote in AMS Nest for 4 days. The total number of candidates, which was initially 12, remained the same at 10 after two candidates withdrew.

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Group Responsible: GSS Chief Electoral OfficerPresentation Time: 10 minutes

Speaker: Any questions? Seeing none, let’s move on to the next presentation.

Presentation #4Presentation Title: Voter survey 2019 results and recommendations on student engagementProposed objective: This report summarizes the results of a Survey conducted by the Elections Committee to investigate the primary reasons for low voter turnout in the 2018 elections and referendum. We obtained 111 responses. Respondents who voted did so because they believe the GSS plays a pivotal role in graduate student life and they also felt that voting was an important right and responsibility. Respondents who did not vote said that they did not have sufficient information about the topics or candidates to vote effectively or they were simply not interested in the election/referendum. Some respondents provided a more nuanced version of this view highlighting a lack of distinction between candidates platforms and a lack of understanding about the role the GSS plays as motivations for not participating. Some suggestions made by respondents to improve participation, particularly more targeted messaging, an active poster campaign and the use of video, have already been incorporated into the activity for the 2019 elections.Group Responsible: Elections CommitteePresentation Time: 10 minutes

Arash: Thank you for your presentation. It’s both a comment and a question. It was pointed out in the presentation about promoting the use of posters during the election. I wanted to bring to Council’s attention that AMS has recently passed a ban the use of posters during the election for several reasons: sustainability; putting up posters on walls is a bit of a financial burden on the candidates, which may not be a level playing field for every candidate who wants to participate; damage to walls; candidates are responsible to take them down and some candidates don’t. Bottomline is the AMS banned the use of posters during the election, and I would love to see a similar action for GSS election. My question is: what can we do or what should we do?Theresa: We gave our candidates funds to pay for posters. They don’t have to pay for them out of pocket. Actually the posters I was talking about are the posters from GSS, not from the candidates. They are to get people to vote, generally, not to campaign for a specific person. These posters are put up by the Election Committee, not by the candidates. Most of the posters were put up on public poster walls (e.g. cork) so there were no damages.Nevena: I want to support what Arash is saying. I know the technicalities of it. We can go back and forth on. The idea that we’re seeing the uneven proportions of online vs poster,

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and the push we want to make toward sustainability. You have these amazing posters that can be put on electronic screens at faculties that have them these days. When we print them up and put them on cork board, we still have to take them down, and that still creates paper and waste that we could be reducing. Just a push toward more conservative measures with printing and more electronic methods, and pushing social media as mentioned in the presentation.

Presentation #5Presentation Title: GSS Bank Accounts RearrangementProposed objective: To give Councillors and overview of the current Banking structure of the GSS and the structure that will be adopted after May 1st to increase transparency and ease of accountability.Group Responsible: Incoming President and FEOOPresentation Time: 5 minutes

Arash: Do we have some sort of investment portfolio that we’re managing?Nicolas: This would be step 1. This is technically an investment portfolio because it’s producing a return. There are ways to obtain more returns with zero risks, but before I do any of that, I want to finish putting the money in order, and then come back with a proposal to Council. That would be a proposal that we would see what we’re going to do before we do it.Kate: Are you concerned with F-4 filing requirements? If the person with signing authority has citizenship in the US or otherwise is required to file an F-4.Nicolas: We have been advised that in our present situation this is not an issue.Jun: I have a concern for the savings account. You propose that it is 3-month not redeemable. I thought the savings account acts as a surplus account that we may dip into, like the contingency fund, so I’m concerned that it is not redeemable while the contingency fund is, which is strange.Nicolas: “Non-redeemable, 3 months” means that every 3 months, we have access to the funds. We can either make that a rollover, that every 3 months it gets automatically renewed, or we could make it so that it stops and we would need to restart the fund. The idea is the following. First of all, we have $370,000 in our regular account, so we’re not going to need to touch our savings anytime soon. The $52,000, which are meant as a contingency fund, those need to be fully liquid. Even if technically we won’t need them, because there’s no expectations to need to touch it. But they need to be fully liquid because if we have a contingency, we need immediate access to the fund. Whereas the $186,000, that’s simply rollover surplus that has been accumulating over the years, so that money has no reason for it to be completely liquid. What I suggest as a first step, is to put it into the 3-month non-redeemable account, which means we have access to the account ever 3 months only. And if we ever want to change, or if we ever think we need to touch that, we would change it. But for the time being, this gives the best return.

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Arash: Since you mentioned that we’re moving toward an investment portfolio approach. I recommend, to save you time and effort in the future, be mindful of the fact that AMS has moved toward a fossil fuel-free investment portfolio. Which means they’re divesting any of their investment in companies that are fossil fuel related. Just be mindful of that as you’re working with advisors and banks. It’s a stepping stone in the right direction.Tayo: You mentioned you’ve spoken to advisors about this. I understand that we have an accountant in house. I want you to give your thoughts about what you said about the proposed change. Nicolas: What we’re proposing to do now is decided between the FEOO and advisors. Basically, we’re not advised in terms of financial investments. We simply asked the banks that we’re banking with on what they have and made a decision based on that. We’re not working with a financial advisor for this.Tayo: Did you have a discussion with the in-house accountant?Nicolas: No. I still think this is orders of magnitude better than what we have.Sebastien: Which bank are you dealing with?Nicolas: Scotiabank.Sebastien: Did you ask, since this is a considerable amount of money, whether you can get a better rate for this savings account?Nicolas: We can’t without incurring risks with longer-term non-redeemable situations. Once we finish separating the money, we can decide with the options to lay out, for example, whether we want to freeze $100,000 for a year. But I think that decision rises to the level of Council, even though there’s nothing restricting us from doing it.

2. Strategic Theme 2: Graduate Student Community:

3. Strategic Theme 1: Graduate Student Academics:

Presentation #1Presentation Title: 2019 GSS Student Satisfaction Survey Outreach StrategyPresentation description: Razi outlines how the GSS is going to reach out to UBC graduate members to complete the 2019 Student Satisfaction Survey and how councilors can help in our outreach.Proposed objective: To inform councilors about our outreach strategy and encourage them to do their partGroup Responsible: Razi Bayati / GSS Academic and External CommitteePresentation Time: 5 minutes

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Razi: I would like to ask who arranges the order of the presentations?Nicolas: I do.Razi: It says here that my presentation is to inform councillors about our outreach strategy. But as you can see there are not many councillors left in the meeting. I think it would have been arranged in a way that my presentation was put before others. It’s just a recommendation for next time.Speaker: Would you like to present this at the next meeting?Razi: No, because the next Council meeting will be after the deadline of the GSS survey. It’s not very effective. I can present that time as well. Just consider this when you’re arranging the motions and presentations so that we can better use the time.Arash: I have a comment. Regarding the order of stuff on the agenda, I understand that to wait 2-3 hours to wait to give a 5-minute presentation might not be the best. The flow is always open to amendment. All the other councillors as well, if you have a motion or presentation, and you have to leave early, whatever, you can always amend the agenda to put it up the agenda so that you can attend to it earlier. It’s common practice. If we have a guest, for instance, we do not want them to wait 3 hours to give a presentation.Arezoo: One comment is that one of the reasons there’s low participation is that people don’t think their voice is going to be noticed. Or they may feel that it’s just a yearly thing that needs to be done. One of the things that we can do to increase or encourage participation is that when we advertise the survey, we can give examples of how the surveys in the past have served students in the past.Razi: It’s not about the waiting. It’s about having an efficient presentation. Because most of the councillors have left; it was mentioned in the presentation that I wanted to talk with councillors, so it should be the default that the person who arranges the agenda should consider this. This is a recommendation for the next meeting.Speaker: Point taken.Nicolas: Razi, it was not intentional. The agenda has a template. Your presentation just goes where it falls. The order is not arbitrary. You fall under the Graduate Students’ Matter for Discussion, and the order is already in the template. I did not choose it.Speaker: I have also complained about this for a long time. Nicolas has promised me that he’ll look into this. Just because of this arrangement of the topics, these topics always go last is unfair. We hear you as well. Let’s focus on what you need to get from Council while we still have their time. Ty: Expect emails from us. We have a lot of fabulous materials. What Arezoo has suggested – we’re preparing as well. Please send the survey links to all your friends in your department, and we’re encouraging you to use your own strategy to reach out to your circle.Karanpreet: I think my point has already been covered by Nicolas. One thing I’d like to add is that generally, the council meeting doesn’t usually last so long.

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I. Handover of executive seats ceremony

Handover of executive seats was conducted.

J. Adjournment1. BIRT there being no further business the meeting be adjourned at 9:03 pm.

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Sara Izadi-Najafabadi

Arezoo: I think the fact that we’re Councillors/Board of Directors is not respected, and I’ve seen a lot of paternalizing behavior. For example, when I raise a question, somebody suggested that I sit on a committee. I don’t want to sit on the committee. This is the Council; I come here, people present, and I have concerns/questions. I don’t need paternalizing. Please be respectful of that. This past year, I’ve seen a lot of this paternalizing behavior. Please respectful of that we’re a Board of Directors and we have a right to question.

Speaker: Thank you for that comment. Any opposed? Seeing none. The meeting is adjourned.

RESULT: Carried

K. Notices1. Notice of Next Meeting

a. Date: May 16, 2019b. Time: 5:30pmc. Location: Michael Kingsmill Forum, the Nest (4th floor)

2. Notice of UnseatingsVictoria Gomez to be unseated as departmental representative for the School of Library, Archives and Information StudiesJun Sian Lee to be unseated as departmental representative for Chemical and Biological EngineeringFapu Duan to be unseated as departmental representative for School of ForestryKaranpreet Matharu to be unseated from the Services CommitteeSolomon Atta, Ashenafi Alemu, and Ese Oheojo to be unseated from the Code and Policy Committee.

3. GSS Updates (~100 words, sent in advance and included in the final agenda)a. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society

i. President

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ii. Financial & Executive Oversight Officer●

iii. Executive Oversight Committee●

iv. Governance & Accountability CommitteeThe G&A committee and its activities remains to be an active and integral component of the governance structure of the GSS organization. In March 2019 we seated Mr. Joseph Ogbede as councillor; bringing the committees total membership to nine (9).

SMART goal setting process for committees is now complete and the G&A committee has officially requested mid-year goal reports from the respective GSS committees. We have collected approximately 80% of the same, and although this is commendable number, we urge the outstanding committees to submit their reports swiftly so as to facilitate timely dissemination of the progress made to council.

Notwithstanding, the committee itself, continues to actively work towards achieving its very own SMART goals. Key milestone for the period in review includes:1. Continued refinement of the new GSS Council Agenda Templates. These drafts are currently being reviewed by the committee; ultimately to be narrowed to the most appropriate, comprehensive and user-friendly agenda for these meetings. 2. G&A team has created a series of draft organization chart for the GSS so as to improve overall understanding of the GSS structure and roles played within the society.

Finally, the G&A committee continues to press forward with its mandate, which is to ensure proper governance within the GSS structure.

v. House Finance CommitteeThe HF committee has recently been working on creating an updated, easier-to-read, budget format, and has been working on creating the 2019/2020 budget. The committee has also been working with CPC to update our terms of reference to align with the strategic plan, updating the CPIF terms of reference, and approving building repairs and renovations.

vi. Code & Policy CommitteeCPC has provided advice to the Sustainability Working Group on embedding sustainability in GSS Policy, and to AcEx on their revisions to the Graduate Student Emergency Fund / Financial Aid. We continue to work with Services

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regarding proposed changes to the Event Fund. We have also made progress on our SMART Goals, drafting clarifications to the procedure for electing committee chairs, and amendments establishing the position of deputy chairs. CPC continues to consult with committees regarding changes to their Terms of Reference. CPC is currently drafting changes for Services Terms of Reference and will soon be able to draft or revise Terms of Reference for most committees.

vii. Human Resources Committee●

viii. AMS Council●

ix. Elections CommitteeElections committee has submitted its midterm progress report for its SMART goal to G&A committee and sent a revised draft of Policy 12 Elections Procedure and Policy 8.6 Elections committee Terms of Reference to Code and Policy Committee. In summer 2019, Elections committee intends to assist Communications Director, Ben Hill in the following activities:(1) Advise and give feedback on new web projects and online content. (2) Provide feedback on the communications tool for internal communications between committees (3) analyze the traffic data / statistics from social media and website.

4.

a. Strategic Theme 2: Graduate Student Community i. VP Students

●ii. Services Committee

●

b. Strategic Theme 1: Graduate Student Academics i. VP University & Academic Affairs

●

ii. VP External Relations

This month the VP External travelled to Halifax to attend the CASA AGM.

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From his trip he was happy to learn the accomplishments of CASA which are noted in the 2019 budget:

Supporting Student Research: Through CASA advocacy the budget included $114 million over five years to create 500 new master’s and doctoral level scholarship awards for student researchers and $37.4 million over five years to expand parental leave coverage for student researchers from 6 months to 12 months.

Creating Applied Learning and Work Opportunities: $631.2 million will be funded over five years to expand the Student Work Placement Program and offer work-integrated learning opportunities to students in fields outside of STEM – such as arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Both of the above were topics which were advocated for on behalf of CASA.

Other budget wins also include:

Reducing Student Loan Interest: Fixed rate is dropping from prime + 5% to prime + 2% Floating rate is dropping from prime + 2.5% to just prime. Students will have 6 months interest-free on the federal portion of their student loan after graduation

Supporting Students With Disabilities: Financial support to cover the cost of necessary equipment or services for students with disabilities is increasing from $8,000 per year to $20,000 per year (this was advocated by ABCS). Eligibility for the Severe Permanent Disability Benefit is expanding so that more students who need it can qualify for loan forgiveness

The VP External also showcased his white paper on Mental Health to the graduate committee.

Overall, there was a smooth transition from being members of CASA to eventually leaving the organization. The people at CASA do great work and the VP External recommends that his successor keep in close contact with the organization.

iii. Academic & External Affairs Committee

iv. Graduate Council

v. Senate

vi. Board of Governors

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