Friday, November 23, 2012

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w w w .w e sterngazette.c a • @uw ogazette

The Fontana effect

thegazette Having poor mayoral judgement since 1906

Protesters and national media descended upon London yesterday as Joe Fontana claimed his innocence. >> pg. 3 today high 7 low -2

canada’s only Daily Student Newspaper • founded 1906

Friday, November 23, 2012

tomorrow high 0 low -2 Volume 106, Issue 46

USC approves radical change to structure After a nine-hour meeting Wednesday night, council elected to overhaul the current governance structure of the USC. Online Editor Julian Uzielli has the story. This February, instead of just choosing the University Students’ Council president, students will be asked to elect a three-candidate ticket. After debating until 4 a.m. Thursday morning, council voted in favour of overhauling the structure of the executive council and election process. After several hours of heated debate, the proposal, first brought to council by President Adam Fearnall last month, was approved. The overhaul abolishes the jobs of the vice-president university affairs and vice-president campus issues. These jobs will be replaced with the more broadly defined vicepresidents external and internal, respectively. The external portfolio will focus on the USC’s relationship with governments and the university, and the internal portfolio will oversee social issues on campus. The new election process will see presidential candidates run with two running-mates—one for VP internal, and one for VP external. The other three positions on the executive council—vice-presidents communications, finance and student events—will be changed as well. Instead of being elected by the USC, as they have been in the past, they will be hired directly by the incoming executive slate after the election. Students do not need previous USC experience to apply or run for any of these positions.

With each passing hour, tempers ran higher, but the motion to create the three-person executive slate—to be made up of the president and vice-presidents internal and external—finally passed at 1:45 a.m. by a margin of 36 to 20.

I’m really concerned with how we’re going to promote this. It’s the end of November, in exam season people are in their own little bubble—they’re not going to care. —Kelly Mark

Faculty of Information and Media Studies Students’ Council representative

In a surprise appearance, former USC president Mike Tithecott, now a regular student, attended the meeting. He spoke against the change, saying council was moving too quickly. At the meeting, Tithecott asked council, “Is this something that you need to push forward this election cycle, this year and really watch it unfold, giving nothing but one council meeting’s thought—which is three hours?” Faculty of Information and

Media Studies Students’ Council representative Kelly Mark agreed, adding she didn’t want to see students forced to make a potentially uninformed decision in February, so soon after the overhaul. “I’m really concerned with how we’re going to promote this. It’s the end of November, in exam season people are in their own little bubble—they’re not going to care. And that’s my main concern, because then how are we encouraging this inclusive candidacy when [students] don’t even know they can run?” Ultimately, however, those arguing in favour of the motion prevailed. “We could ask the opinion of Mr. Tithecott, or Mr. Forgione, as to how they feel, but quite frankly that’s no longer the relevant question,” Dave Ennett, King’s University College Students’ Council president, said at the meeting. “We might have a ticket where we like a president, and we like a vice-president, but we don’t really like one of the other vice-presidents—we like one of the other vice-presidents on the other campaign. Well, that’s politics,” Ennett said. “Sometimes we don’t get every single thing we want. But you know what we will get? For the first time, we’ll get a presidential platform that has multiple ideas on it, that has external and internal issues on it. What we will get out of that is a vision—a unified vision.”

>> Board of directors breakdown If you’re a student looking for experience overseeing a multi-million dollar corporation, it may be your lucky day. In addition to overhauling the structure of the University Students’ Council Wednesday night, council voted to shuffle the board of directors, creating new job openings for students at large. Currently, the president and five vice-presidents of the USC’s executive council also make up the board of directors. While they’re primarily student advocates, their job as directors means they must decide what’s best for the USC as a corporation—this change aims to eliminate this potential conflict of interest. The new board structure will remove the vice-presidents and create positions for four students-

at-large, and four members of the community. USC President Adam Fearnall explained the new board members will mainly be responsible for legal, financial and HR-related decisions. “Typically, you have criteria around maybe somebody with a law background, somebody with an accounting background, somebody with a non-profit background,” he said. The details of the job descriptions will be finalized at the next meeting of council on December 5, and the members will be announced at the USC’s spring annual general meeting. The change was criticized for coming too close to the next election. At council Wednesday, Emily Soti, King’s University College Stu-

dents’ Council representative, proposed an unsuccessful motion to delay the decision. “There were too many ‘what ifs,’ kinks and other ideas that still need to be further discussed and researched,” Soti said. “I believe, as a council, we should have made more of an effort to do our due diligence and take our time with proposals so huge and influential.” Fearnall said he was satisfied with the debate. “We have a certain amount of momentum right now in terms of looking to change the conversation about what the USC’s role is in the university, and we didn’t want to miss that opportunity. And I think there was a certain interest in showing that we were serious about that.” —Julian Uzielli

Mike Laine Gazette


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