Out of Context

I’d like to address the commentary printed in Vol. 31, Issue 24 of The Link accusing student representatives of having no manners.

In this article, myself along with a few other councillors were referred to as being rude and arrogant.

The reasoning being that I was nodding to what councillor Tamara Gordon was saying when she expressed her offence to the blame being put on council by CSU executive Morgan Pudwell.

Well, if I nodded, it’s because I agreed with what she was saying. Morgan was accusing council of not taking part in the organization of the WHALE; however no one, including herself, had ever contacted us about it. Reaching us by email is simply a click away for her. Most of us are more than happy to help with the organization and volunteering of events for the CSU. We like to get involved and encourage other students to do so as well. After all, that’s why a lot of us got involved with CSU in the first place!

Of course, no one would be able to understand that having read last week’s commentary, because things change when you take them completely out of context, don’t they?

I apologize if I seemed rude, that was definitely not my intention, and none of my frustration was directed towards the student volunteers.

Now, to suggest that many members of council are “non-entities of the community” is just being plain ignorant.

I, myself, am VP of Membership Development in my international sorority Delta Phi Epsilon, as well as VP Internal on the John Molson Marketing Association. I have also volunteered for various Concordia associations on countless occasions and I even work for the school as a tour guide.

I know for a fact that most, if not all, of the other council members are part of other associations as well. All of this could have been discovered with a little bit of homework.

Contrary to popular belief, being part of the community does not just start and end with taking part in sneaky politics and getting write-ups in The Link.

All this being said, I commend the student volunteers and CSU executives on all the work they did for the WHALE. Quite frankly, they did an amazing job and none of it could have been possible without them.

—Alison Revine,
CSU Councillor Fine Arts

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 25, published March 8, 2011.