Communicating Your Student Life

Action Video Ducks the Issues

NewsLaura Beeston — Published March 22, 2011

Before speaking about impending tuition hikes, the crisis of representation on Concordia’s Board of Governors and a $43 million student centre project, “Barbara Streisand” was the unified message for students advocating Action—at least if one were to judge from the slate’s promotional materials.

“The reason we decided to make the first video interactive and fun is to bring the community together,” said Action video producer and Vice-President of Student Life and Loyola-hopeful Natasha Launi. “Without a community that loves each other, supports each other and is together, it’s hard to come to a unified agreement about what we should do with our university.”

The team uploaded a second, more serious video from last week’s tuition hike protest yesterday. And though they made the decision as a team to disable the comments function from their YouTube page—allegedly due to negative remarks from the Your Concordia slate demanding for platform points instead of pop hits—the communications major in charge of the Action image explained that an open and transparent exchange of ideas with students is key to improving the Concordia Student Union.

“If we are going to move forward, we will have to show students exactly what is going to happen, what our plan of action is and what is the cost,” said Launi.

Especially motivated to nail her own portfolio—which involves throwing the orientation parties and cultural nights as well as making our satellite NDG-based campus feel like they’re in on the Action —Launi said she is most excited about the fight for student space.

“We want to turn the Hive into a Hive Café,” she said, of an already existing CSU initiative. “With the proper executives for next year we will have [the Café] installed for the entire year.”

Launi, who is currently VP Communications for the Arts and Science Federation of Associations, also believes that some of the initiatives put forth during her time on ASFA council will be crucial to changing some of the problems she sees at the CSU and Board of Governors level.

“This year the CSU was criticized about being very non-transparent and having a lot of closed sessions,” she explained. “As VP Communications on ASFA, I made sure our finances were online—where everyone could see what’s happening. The same should be applied at the CSU.

“I am very against closed doors,” she added, explaining her disappointment that this year’s Board of Governors student representatives rarely attended council meetings.

Launi’s work on ASFA’s executive has not been without controversy however. Several students and the Office of the Dean of Students criticized a poster she designed for ASFA’s “Ultimate Chocoloate Wrestling” event as being sexist.

“[Opponents of the posters] were calling me sexist towards women, and I am a woman and I don’t understand, because I made sure that both guys and girls were both wrestling,” she told The Link in a February interview.