Too Much at Stake to Shut Students Out of Meetings

Alex Matak Photo Julia Wolfe

The Board of Governors meeting on Sept. 28 was a disaster.

I left feeling frustrated, angered, disrespected, shamed and utterly bewildered. Peter Kruyt, the Board Chair, operates like a dictator, and the Board’s members ooze complacency. I stood up as a lone heckler, described by Board members as being “disrespectful and disruptive.”

I could write a novel about the events of that morning—but I won’t. Instead, I want to focus on what we can learn from Wednesday’s meeting and what we can do about it.

Some will say that the vote didn’t change much, that whether students have four members or one member representing them, those representatives have never been respected by the Board, and never will be.

I think they are right and the BoG meeting seems to back me up on that. No matter how poignant or insightful the points were that came from student representatives, they were lucky to be met with more than an eye roll and a sniffle of contempt. Any and every opportunity to be just, transparent and accountable was quickly and actively turned down.

So what can we learn here? We can learn to stop wasting our time in a venue that chooses not to respect us. We can decide whether it’s representation we want, or if it’s self-determination.

Are we satisfied with this flawed, hierarchical structure in which over 35,000 undergrad voices are distilled to the fleeting comments of one or two figureheads? Representatives who then have to schmooze and strategize just to have that distilled voice be further watered down—or be officially brushed off—by the Board?

Andrea Smith, an expert on movements towards self-determination who spoke about Aboriginal women on campus last week, offered some words of warning that I think apply very deeply here.

She said that when the method of our movements becomes to fight for self-determination from within unjust and imbalanced institutions (like the BoG) what we actually end up fighting for is “recognition”—the privilege to be heard.

When our primary fight becomes for recognition instead of self-determination, we only serve to reaffirm the institution’s power and give it legitimacy. We accomplish nothing but to strengthen the force that crushes the progress of our movements.

If we continue to look for this type of recognition, we will only continue to be strategically drowned by the BoG’s manipulative “business as usual” bureaucracy. We will effectively continue to leave our futures in the hands of those who profit from keeping us struggling, stressed, in debt, and without space to speak or organize or imagine other possibilities.

We will continue to lose precious time, money and momentum as the Concordia Student Union and Graduate Students’ Association spend hours in meetings only to be belittled and ignored.

We risk losing interest as we are consistently left feeling helpless and frustrated. We will become the “losers” they want us to be.

But wait. Imagine if that BoG meeting had been filled with 35,000 of us. Or even 100. If we had all become “hecklers” in the eyes of the “business as usual” Board members, refusing to accept the lack of fairness, respect, consideration and transparency.

Imagine if we attacked the legitimacy of their institution by rendering it impossible for them to continue without addressing our concerns.

Imagine if we—Concordia’s largest stakeholder body—actually used our own systems of inclusive, participatory decision-making, our General Assemblies, to generate a powerful alternative to the BoG.

Imagine seeing Concordia as a place where we are all active members, allowing us all the benefits and responsibilities that come with it.

The BoG and Peter Kruyt will never represent us the way we want or deserve.

Balloons in the Hall Building lobby and a couple of voices at a meeting won’t mean anything if students remain naive and asleep.

We need to stop waiting and we need to wake up.

We need to begin to build our Concordia.