Student Union Fires Back
Councillors Accuse Former CSU VP of Neglecting Duties on Women’s Caucus
Hours before former Concordia Student Union VP Sustainability & Promotions Morgan Pudwell read her letter of resignation to a packed council meeting on March 9, 14 of her former colleagues released a letter of their own.
The letter, which was also signed by two senators, accused Pudwell of a variety of transgressions, most related to her ineptitude as chair of the women’s caucus. In an interview with The Link, Pudwell denied ever being the sole chair of the caucus.
“I was actually the co-chair,” she said. “[CSU President] Heather Lucas was the co-chair with me.”
“I tried to hold, I think, three meetings, and those were either not attended, or the emails weren’t approved by the administrator in time, and it wasn’t sent out until after the meetings had been set,” she continued. “[Lucas] never sent out one message, even though at the February council meeting she specifically said she would be sending one the week following. She never sent out any other emails or calls to hold a meeting.”
At a press conference on March 14, Lucas denied ever being co-chair, saying she was only “helping out.” Women’s caucus member and CSU councilor Teresa Seminara said that this claim is not quite accurate.
“Absolutely,” she said when asked if Lucas was named co-chair of the caucus. “If I can just make it clear, at the beginning of the year, when we were appointing councillors on the women’s caucus, Morgan was very enthusiastic to take the role of the chair. Heather asked to be the co-chair to help her out. It was to my understanding that she wanted to be appointed as chair so she would be primary contact. Heather was helping her out.”
As evidence that she wasn’t negligent in her duties, Pudwell pointed out several women’s week activities she had presented to members of the caucus, including Seminara. They included participating in a Women’s Day march, a presentation on women in social movement, a queer community celebration and a gender neutral bathroom information seminar. Seminara claimed that she had never been consulted on most of these events.“Wow, that is so disappointing,” she said. “I’ve actually never heard of these events. This is so sad, I can’t believe it, because I was never informed of these things. The one thing I know Morgan did was propose to go to the women’s march. That was pretty much it.”
The letter accused Pudwell of not responding to emails or phone calls, a charge that she vigorously denied, saying the one phone call she didn’t return was when she was in New York City for the CSU trip in February, and didn’t want to rack up long distance charges. However, one of the key organizers of women’s week, Nancy Salama of Volunteers in Action, disputes this.
“Morgan Pudwell, I only heard from her on Feb. 28,” she said. “By that point in time, we pretty much had everything done in terms of figuring out what projects we could pull off with my team of seven executives.”The first activities for women’s week began on March 1.
