Disappointed with AUTSA during COVID? So was our AUTSA Vice President By Rebecca Zhong
AUTSA's newly appointed Academic Vice President, Michael Kanara, left the Student Representative Council (SRC) in 2020 due to a number of complaints towards both the SRC and AUTSA. He is not only back, but now sits in an even more high profile position. Debate talks to Kanara on why he chose to leave the SRC, and whether we can actually expect to see any tangible changes from our student association. A quick scroll on Facebook and you’ll notice that AUTSA isn’t the most popular kid on the block. The comment sections are barren with the exception of that one oddball mature student who doesn’t let us forget that they’re “very disappointed with our services.” And apparently, our new academic Vice president feels the same way.
Michael Kanara is our newly appointed Academic Vice President, elected alongside our Community Vice President Amandeep Singh. When asked to summarize himself in just a few words Michael said “I’m Māori, I’m mature and I care.” In a resignation letter dated 19th August 2020, Michael Kanara left his positions as the Disabilities Affairs Officer, Te Ara Poutama Officer and one of the Business, Economics and Law roles at AUTSA. In his letter of resignation he indicated that this was due to a number of reasons including: • • • • • •
Incompetency to the SRC meeting process Incompetency to the AGM process Incompetency to the electoral process Incompetency to the financial process Lack of communication across all AUTSA internally Lack of accountability for the above failures
