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Students, Faculty Voice Concerns About Concordia Governance at Packed Meeting
Though the report presented by the External Governance Committee was over 40 pages long, the focus of much of the talk at an open forum held to discuss the report’s recommendations for Concordia was just a three word snippet: “culture of contempt.”
The phrase was brought up by both faculty members and students June 28 at the roughly 90-minute long meeting, which was attended by over 150 people, filling up the J.A. de Sève Cinema and an adjoining overflow room.
Members of the Concordia community were encouraged to give feedback about the report, which made recommendations on subjects such as increasing transparency in the administration, reforming the hiring policies for presidents and vice-presidents, and reforming the Board of Governors and Senate.
Some who spoke also complained about the format of the forum, as questions and comments were rarely replied to by Concordia President Frederick Lowy.
“It would have been nice had the format been more amenable to dialogue,” said Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill. “That being said, I think it’s welcome, because it means the university is trying to engage on these issues.”
Lowy did take the time to respond to one particular pointed comment about the relationships between the various elements of the university.
“There is no doubt that we have a strong adversarial culture here, and that this is inevitable to the normal function of the university,” he said. “But to categorize this very large 45,000-student, 7,000-professor-and-staff institution as living in a culture of contempt is possibly saying too much.”
At a Board of Governors meeting held on June 23, the majority of those in attendance expressed support for the report. Though many members of the faculty and student body who spoke at the open forum also praised it, some are still hoping for more chances to make recommendations to the administration.
“Hopefully this is the first of many public forums that will get more and more meaningful,” said Graduate Student Association President Robert Sonin. “This one was a bit scattershot. […] We don’t have time in an hour and a half to get to the real meat of the report, or go beyond the report.”
However, according to Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota, there are no concrete plans for more events of this kind. Rather, the next discussions will be behind closed doors as the Senate Steering Committee and the Board of Governors’ ad hoc committee on governance will be meeting over the summer.
“I haven’t heard of anything else at this point,” she said. “I have not heard anything about another open meeting as such. The next step is for people to write in their comments.”
As for plans for implementing the recommendations, there is no set procedure in place as of yet. Mota said that once the recommendations have been reviewed and revised, there still remains the task of figuring out how to go about transitioning from plan to reality.
“That’s where they’ll be doing their homework. To see what should be implemented, what can be implemented quickly, what might need to be implemented in stages.”
To send a comment about the report to the administration, you can e-mail Andrea Renaud at andrea.renaud@concordia.ca.
To consult the report from the external governance review committee, visit http://www.concordia.ca/vpirsg/board-and-senate/external-governance-review-committee
