Praise For Morgan
After almost two years of campaigning for a tuition freeze with Free Education Montreal, I can say that I have never seen a CSU executive work so hard for tuition freeze and student democracy as Morgan Pudwell.
Leading up to the WHALE/SGM on Feb. 14, I personally saw Morgan go through sleepless nights, attend countless meetings, post countless posters, make countless phone calls and coordinate an enormous part of what had to happen for WHALE to be successful.
Sure, it was part of her job, but Morgan did more than was expected of her. Clearly, she was often alone within the CSU executive doing it, though I did not realize just how alone and excluded she was prior to reading her resignation letter.
I remember being in Morgan’s office one Friday watching her multi-task everything from phone calls and emails to reserving equipment for WHALE. After finding the one place in Montreal that seemed to rent out patio heaters, Morgan did everything she could to make sure we had the safest and cheapest heaters (a whopping $604.09), so as not to overspend the CSU budget of $1,900 for the event. Morgan was not an executive who flung money around thoughtlessly. She was an executive who sacrificed her own mental and physical health— not for her career, as is obvious from her resignation— but for her beliefs and convictions, and mostly for the students she represents. Let me tell you, that is rare in student politics these days.We should praise Morgan for her honesty and hard work, and hope that future executives and councillors are inspired by her.
With our tuition likely to double starting in 2012, believe me, we need it.
—Nadia Hausfather,
PhD Huma
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 25, published March 8, 2011.
