At
Capilano, there are many opportunities for students to get involved. One of these
ways is through becoming a student representative on one of the institution’s
five faculties, as well as sitting on the Senate or Board of Governors (BOG).
However, each faculty is different, and as a result, they may not be getting the
student representation they need from their decision-making bodies.
Provincial
laws mandate that these university structures facilitate student representation
and participation in these bodies, which ensures that those for whom decisions
are being made have a voice and influence on the outcome. The University Act of
B.C. requires all universities to have two students elected to its BOG, and
four students to its Senate (something that was not required when Capilano was
a college). It also requires that a certain number of students sit on the
committee that governs each of the faculties of the university (which are also
made up of the faculty’s Dean, the president, the faculty, and staff).
Capilano
University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences recently held a call-out for
nominations to fill its newly vacated student representative positions. The
Faculty’s terms of reference stipulate that “an election is to be conducted by
the student union … [and] the term of appointment of a representative is one
year.”
Stanley
Greenspoon, vice-chair of the faculty, coordinates the elections every year in
partnership with the students’ union. “It was my feeling that students
shouldn’t just be appointed … they should elect their representatives to these
meetings themselves. Student input in the direction of the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences is important,” he says.
However,
this year’s election ended up with an unusual outcome. The faculty has two
student positions for arts, and one for sciences, and there were two nominees
in both categories. Greenspoon decided to exercise some creativity, so as to
maximize student involvement. “I thought, why discourage one student from being
on [faculty], so I asked the dean, ‘How about if we have four representatives,
but they only have three voting rights?’,” he says.
Dean
Robert Campbell agreed to this proposal, and subsequently, an election was not held.
The candidates for the sciences position decided to share their vote, rendering
the time and expense of holding an election unnecessary.
“Being
a student representative in the faculty seemed like an interesting way to learn
about, and participate in, the running of the school,” said Christina Coambs, a
biology student in her first year. Coambs holds one-half of the vote
representing science students, the other half held by second-year student
Daniel Zayonc.
Addressing
the issue of how they will make decisions on how to vote on items, especially
in the event of disagreement, she says, “For myself, I plan to attend all the
scheduled meetings, [so] vote by consensus will no doubt be our approach to any
arising topics.”
FACULTY
OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Although
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences typically holds elections to select its
student representatives, this does not appear to be common practice amongst the
five other faculties. New representatives have been selected for these positions
throughout the last year, but it was rare to see posters around campus
advertising the available positions. However, a resolution approved by Senate
in 2009 reads, “There shall be a minimum of two students identified to
participate in Faculty meetings with voting rights. Each Faculty shall work
with its students to establish clear procedures for the selection of student
representation with the goal of fair proportional representation. Students may
be selected by faculty members in the absence of nominations from students in
the Faculty.”
It
is apparent that all of the deans want to facilitate some meaningful student
involvement. Each faculty faces its own unique barriers to achieving student
representation, and as a result the processes used to find student
representation are diverse.
FACULTY
OF HEALTH AND EDUCATION
Jean
Bennett is the Dean of the Faculty of Health and Education, and the acting Dean
of Student Services and Development. Bennett has noted that there is difficulty
finding representation from her faculty, “because there isn’t a single student
body within the Faculty of Health and Education, [so] we have looked to groups
like the Human Kinetics Student Council, music therapy, and early childhood
education, that have a student club … to appoint someone to the faculty,” says
Bennett.
Part
of the challenge, she says, is that the faculty has programs that have unusual
timelines, such as the Health Care Assistant program, in which students study
for seven months, partly in placements off-campus. “Quite frankly, we’ve had
students appointed, and then they maybe attend one meeting, and then they don’t
make it to another meeting. Because this is all relatively new, we’re trying to
figure this out; how to do this more effectively. So it really is more about
‘how do we make the student voice in the faculty an effective voice?’”
FACULTY
OF STUDENT SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENTAL STUDIES
The
Faculty of Student Services and Developmental Studies includes programs such as
Adult Basic Education and ESL. “I don’t think they, at this point, have had any
student representation,” says Bennett. “I think it’s partly the challenge that almost
all those programs, you’ve got people that are coming in for a very specific
time period, or there are going to be really different kinds of things to
consider in how to involve them.”
FACULTY
OF FINE AND APPLIED ARTS
The
Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts does not currently have sitting student
representatives. “It hasn’t worked well for Fine and Applied Arts yet,” says
Dean Jennifer Moore. “Fine and Applied Arts programs are so time-intensive,
it’s like an immersion program.”
In
the past, the Faculty has made call-outs for students in the fall, organized by
the heads of each school in the Faculty. “It’s different in each of the
schools. Typically, the cohorts will elect a cohort representative, and amongst
the cohort representatives, they will elect people who will represent the year,
the program or the certificate, depending on how it is organized, and generally
out of that group of people, someone is nominated to be a rep to the faculty.”
Moore
confessed that she was not familiar with the details of how each representative
gets chosen, due to it being run by the division heads.
FACULTY
OF BUSINESS
The
Faculty of Business, similar to other faculties, has the problem of lack of
interest or ability from students. “We’d never get enough students. If there
was more than the number [of students] that were required, we would hold an
election as well, but we haven’t yet, because there isn’t. So it’s an election
by acclamation, or the equivalent of an appointment,” says Dean Graham Fane.
The
Faculty of Business also asks its student organizations to submit
representatives. “We have an undergraduate student society, CUBES, and they get
together and say, ‘Who among us would like to do this?’ I guess they have gone
through some process within their society as to who will have their name
advanced, as it’s only ever the prescribed number that we need. [CUBES does this]
just for the school of business representatives. The other departments will
have a similar process, in that they go to their students and say, ‘What would
you people like to do in terms of making this appointment?’”
Fane
adds that communication within business may be somewhat different than in other
faculties. “Within my department, we are cohorts … [so] the student organizing
group talks to all of the eligible members of the group because they are all in
classes together,” he says. “There’s no need for posters, because the system of
communicating is by students talking in classes. If I want to talk to all
students in the school of business, I know that there are four classes on
Tuesday that I go to.”
“We
do a hiring process, and we try to get as many students aware of what’s going
on as possible. And then they apply for the job,” says Adam Browne, CUBES
President. They do outreach by talking in classes, email, social media, and on their
website.
The
currently sitting representatives are Browne himself, and Kelly-Ann Warawa. In
terms of the differences between how the different faculties elect their
representatives, he explains, “We don’t have a list of the students in the
faculty of business, so that’s one of our difficulties in having a voting
process, in that we don’t have the ability to contact every student. We try our
best to get awareness out.”
Chris
Bottrill, Dean of the Faculty of Tourism and Outdoor Recreation, did not
respond to requests for an interview.
///Gurpreet Kambo, news editor
///Gurpreet Kambo, news editor
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