punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

The message below was directed to me by the DSU’s Communications Coordinator, Meghann Bryans. It is the most up-to-date statement regarding the admittance procedures that will be in place at tomorrow’s AGM. I am posting it for the sake of clarification, since much speculation has been floating around as to what is going to happen tomorrow evening with regard to admittance. It is unknown to me how much this is subject to change in advance of the meeting, but this is where things stand as of 4:00pm today:

At last night’s Judicial Board meeting, a decision was made to allow ALL students attending a class or classes at Dalhousie University to attend and have speaking rights at tomorrow evening’s DSU Annual General Meeting. This applies, but is not limited to, University of King’s College students currently enrolled in Dalhousie classes. All students enrolled in Dalhousie classes, but who do not have valid Dalhousie IDs, must provide proof of registration. Acceptable proof of registration will include a class syllabus and proof that the student is in the class, or a printoff of a class schedule. This decision, however, does not give these students the right to vote at the AGM.

The AGM will be held at the McInnes Room of the Dalhousie Student Union Building. Upon arrival, attendees will receive direction as to where to go. Students with valid Dalhousie IDs will check-in at the main door of the McInnes Room. Due to capacity concerns, Dalhousie students with voting rights will be the first to enter the room, followed by non-voting students. Attendance for students without Dalhousie IDs will be on a first-come, first-serve basis, and will be limited based on the capacity of the room.

A live audio-feed will be streamed in Room 224 for community members and interested parties not registered for classes at Dalhousie.

Media should register with the DSU Communications Coordinator (meghann.bryans@dal.ca) no later than the morning of the event. Media will be escorted to a designated section at the back of the room once the majority of attendees are seated. In order to protect the privacy of voting members, no video cameras will be allowed.

Part… 6? of my look at AGM resolutions turns to the TurnItIn.com motion.

Not all readers know about me and TurnItIn, and our… association.  In December 2005, I wrote an open letter to the University questioning the use of TurnItIn.com.  It might have ended there, because no one replied (actually, I did get a reply after 4 months, when I’d elevated it to a campus-wide issue).  But then MSVU banned TurnItIn, and people started repeating TurnItIn’s claim that full text copies of the paper are not retained.  I looked into it, and found this claim was provably false.  I and others found it was easy to beat (but took down the posts on how to do so, because I don’t support plagiarism).  I found it was impossible to have things removed from their database, despite them telling me they had done so.  I pointed out cosmetic security problems that TurnItIn eventually fixed.  When Dalhousie refused to release even the most basic statistics on the use of the service, I filed a freedom of information request, which they partially answered.  (PROTIP: Dealing with Dal lawyers is a painful experience.)  I debunked Dal’s documentation, and questioned their double standard about flows of information.  Along the way, I pissed off a lot of people I really respect, I was threatened with legal action by Dalhousie staff members, and Dal administrators and TurnItIn.com employees were frequent visitors to my site.  I eventually was deposed for the turnitin lawsuit, which is currently on appeal in the States. 

That is of course only a summary; I worked on the topic off-and-on for 2 years before it got sidelined by other pursuits, and by my departure to a university that does not use TurnItIn.  (U of A flew me out to visit the campus before I accepted their offer of admission; I had lunch with the Vice-provost [Information Technology] and actually asked him about it).  I still get questions and horror stories via email, and every one of them saddens me.  I know of a kid who was forced to repeat grade 12 because TurnItIn said his paper was 15% plagiarized; I saw both the TurnItIn report and the original paper, and the only thing the kid was guilty of was using too many cliches.  But I digress.

I tell you this for two reasons: the first is that I have a clear and obvious bias here, and the second is that if you were to write a list of the top five student/alumni who know the most about Dal and TurnItIn, I would be on that list. I would suggest that a well-researched policy resolution would have touched base with one or all of the top 5. SMAC is mobilizing students, that’s great, but there’s no need to start from scratch…

In general, let me say that this is the first AGM resolution I’ve read that is clearly and unambiguously about academic matters, and I’m so happy I could do the Macarena.

WHEREAS Turnitin.com assumes that all students are guilty of plagiarism until proven innocent and that by proxy Dalhousie University also assumes that all students are guilty of plagiarism until proven innocent;

Granted.

WHEREAS Turnitin.com violates, by any reasonable standard, the intellectual property rights of the students who use it by storing, copying and creating for-profit, derivative works-based services from intellectual property taken from often unwilling students.

Here we have a problem.  I think this is true, too.  However, pending appeal, a US court has held that this is fair-use, at least in that country.

Also, the list “storing, copying, and creating” does not have list item agreement.  (if they store [the papers] and copy [the papers], for there to be list item agreement they would need to create [the papers] as well.)

I think Dalhousie bears a measure of this guilt – they are the ones who force students to submit on pain of failing classes.

WHEREAS Turnitin.com is a costly and unproven method of reducing plagiarism;

It’s not *that* costly; about $10k a year.  Yes, there are better things you can do with $10,000, like stacking it in a pile and burning it, but that particular argument won’t get you anywhere.

BIRT that the DSU will take an active stance against the use of Turnitin.com on campus and will petition, lobby and fight Dalhousie University to remove this gross violation of student rights from all classes.

DSU policy on TurnItIn exists; that the author of this resolution was not aware of this policy before bringing the issue to the AGM is unfortunate.  Research first, resolve later.  The existing policy reads like this:

The DSU stands against the mandatory nature of turnitin.com. It calls on the University to adopt an opt-out policy for concerned students. It further calls for better education for students, faculty and staff about turnitin.com and its functions.

A few weeks after writing the motion, SMAC compared their motion to the DSU’s existing policy.  They declare the DSU policy “flawed and toothless”.

Is the DSU policy toothless?  Probably.  I think in particular an opt-out is a less-than-ideal solution, because it doesn’t do enough to protect students.  Opting out requires students be aware of the implications.  (Full disclosure: I helped write the current policy.  Actually, I’m pretty sure punditry.ca pundits dominated the authoring of that policy).  However, I recognize that writing policy in a democratic organization is a compromise; the DSU policy was what we passed through A&E and through Council.  Not everyone had a problem with TurnItIn, to my frustration.

I don’t know how much advocacy the DSU has done on this front in the past few years.  After we passed the policy, a committee (actually, a Dal lawyer) submitted a report declaring that we were stupid kids and lying about everything and that there was nothing wrong with TurnItIn.  (… I’m paraphrasing here).  I suspect things may have cooled down a bit after that.

I don’t know what the “flaws” are, other than that it is toothless.

The SMAC website goes on to say:

[1] Our motion requires that the DSU take an active, not a passive, stand on the use of Turnitin.com in all classes and in all situations.  

[2] We must pass this motion to make the DSU do more than morally object to Turnitin.com. Our Student Union will have to make an effort to inform students about Turnitin.com, and will have to pressure faculty and the administration to stop using it in all circumstances.

[3] We have a chance to make the DSU’s policy more forceful and proactive. Let’s get out on April 1st and pass some student-positive policies!  [numbers added]

Re [1], I disagree that the DSU policy is passive.  I do agree that SMAC goes further, demanding the total removal of TurnItIn and not just demanding an opt-out.  Otherwise, I consider the two policy statements nearly identical in terms of what their force and effect will be.

Re [2], there is nothing in that resolution that will force the DSU to “make an effort to inform students about TurnItIn.com”.  If you want to force them to do that, you should probably say so.  It’s a good idea – put an information sheet in the Frosh packs, for example.  I’ll write it personally.

Re [3], I resent the implication that the current TurnItIn policy is not student-positive.  :)

Anyway, all things considered, I’d vote in favor of this motion.  The only reasons to vote no I can think of are (a) if you think the priorities of the DSU should lay elsewhere, or (b) if you think A&E policy should be decided through regular means via democratically elected representatives instead of being imposed at an AGM.  I’d respect either reason, and am open to hearing more.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that I still oppose the venue and methods.  I happen to agree with this resolution, but stacking an AGM is STILL not the right way to raise issues for debate and discussion.  TurnItIn was a noteworthy issue on campus for a while, thanks to people like Jen Bond, Jess McDiarmid (and other Gazette writers), Sean Smith, and myself.  Our efforts were noticed and have had impact at schools and universities across North America, including some who briefly considered adopting TurnItIn.  I am certain that to this day, saying “MikeSmit.com” in a TurnItIn office results in spitting and cursing (or general laughter, who knows?).  Our way is not the only way, but it sure beats making a spectacle at an AGM.

(If the font for this comes out very tiny on your browser, many apologies. I’m pressed for time and have no idea how to start fixing it – maybe Mike knows what to do!)

NSPIRG held a rather unusual sort of press conference this morning. They refused to have a question period, decreeing that this press conference was a time to focus on the positive, and disengage from the divisive rhetoric that has been plaguing the debate these past few weeks. Ben Wedge did some live-blogging of the event on the Stop NSPIRG website, so if you want an agenda of what happened when, that might be worth checking out. I have a few thoughts on the proceedings, and unlike NSPIRG this morning, I’ll even leave the comments section open for debate.

First of all, isn’t it a little hypocritical for a group that claims to be the champion of dialogue and free speech on campus to hold a press conference in which no one can ask questions? Yes, I appreciated the comedic value of not being able to ask questions at an hour long press conference in which every single candidate told me that NSPIRG was the last great hope for free speech at Dalhousie university, but I’m not sure that was the reaction that NSPIRG was going for. Also, there was an amazing similarity between the “diverse opinions” they championed at the press conference today. One moment that brought a very big smile to my face was when Megan Leslie declared that we need dissent and debate for democracy, and claimed that the House of Commons is an awful place because dissenting questions are often silenced. Was she actually that oblivious to the nature of the event she was speaking at, or was she perhaps speaking to us live via some sort of futuristic CNN holograph?

Next, I have to say, for an event that was supposedly taking the high road and focusing on the positive aspects of NSPIRG, they sure spent a lot of time talking trash about their opponents – not that they seemed to have a solid idea of who these opponents were, exactly. Most seemed convinced that this was a Conservative conspiracy of some sort, though they often differed on the details. Megan Leslie was repulsed by the idea of political agents meddling in student union activities (unlike, say, an NDP MP flying in from Ottawa to act as the keynote speaker of a rally in favour of a supposedly non-partisan student group) but she seemed somewhat uncertain as to who these conspirators were, beyond their slavish loyalty to Harper and their sexist beliefs.

Many echoed this sentiment, but El Jones took a slightly different approach. Jones, a spoken word artist, directed her attacks against the clearly racist DSU, which hates people who look like her, apparently. It was unclear if the racists in question were DSU councillors, or just students of the DSU in general, but her message was direct: you hate me and want to destroy all non-white cultures, so please continue to support NSPIRG – that way maybe you won’t be punished quite as long in hell.

Given that one of the central charges levelled against the imagined Conservative fiends masterminding this evil plot is that they are dealing in misinformation and deception, the speakers themselves might have benefited from some basic research into the issue themselves – you know, beyond the pamphlets NSPIRG gave them. If they’d even given people a chance to ask questions, maybe some of us might have even been able to mention that the Stop NSPIRG campaign is a grassroots coalition consisting of members of all political stripes, or that we are concerned with accountability, not trying to ruin the lives of young immigrant lesbian single mothers who read Marx.

After listening to all of the speakers, there is one big question that I wished I could have asked. There seemed to be a unanimous consent in the room that if the evil sexist, racist, Conservative conspirators succeeded in stripping NSPIRG of its levy, Dalhousie students would somehow lose their capacity to think critically or express diverse opinions.

Why? Is critical thinking on campus really promoted by throwing large amounts of student money at unnecessary staff members who do next to nothing to facilitate freedom of thought at Dalhousie university – and, in the case of at least one of the current paid staff, actively encourage a culture of screaming at each other rather than engaging in debate?

This is a crucial aspect of the debate, and it was completely ignored at the press conference. For an hour straight, NSPIRG advocates attempted to hammer home the message that they represented all that was good and pure on campus, and that if NSPIRG was to cease functioning in exactly the way that it does now, diversity of opinion and social awareness on Dalhousie campus would wither up and die before our eyes. Again…why?

I think that it is safe to say that the bulk of support for the Stop NSPIRG movement comes from people who are fed up with the antics and structure of NSPIRG, not from opponents of social justice/community relations. Many of us feel that, were NSPIRG to lose its levy, its members would be forced to do some soul searching so that they could come back with a package that was more appealing to students. For arguments sake, wouldn’t a $60,000 levy dedicated exclusively to providing grants for student/community projects go a lot further towards promoting our role in the community? Such an arrangement could easily function with a non-partisan, volunteer board of directors who considered the grant requests on a regular basis, and it would likely please a number of the people I’ve talked to who feel that the NSPIRG levy primarily goes to hiring two protestors in residence.

I’m fast running out of time to post this, so I’ll shut up for now. Feel free to call me a Conservative monster – if NSPIRG keeps up the great work, I might yet turn into one. I may have voted NDP consistently since 2003, but I’ll likely be living near campus the next time an election rolls around, and I sure as hell won’t be voting for a representative that can’t be bothered to do some basic research before taking a very public stance and embarrassing both herself and her party. That’s just me exercising the power of critical thinking.

In the spirit of punditry.ca having morphed into somewhat of an “everything about campus politics” blog, we interrupt this regularly scheduled programming for a Dalhousie public service announcement:

The NSPIRG Board Elections are happening *today* and *tomorrow* from 10:00pm-4:00pm. All Dalhousie students who did not opt-out of their NSPIRG fees are able to vote.

Go *here* to check out the bios of people who are running.

Assuming the “Upcoming Events” section of the NSPIRG website has the most up to date information, there will be polling stations at the Killam atrium and the B-Building Student Lounge on Sexton campus.  No word on whether or not Carlton campus ever did win their battle to have easy access to their franchise.  I know NSPIRG CRO Jane Kirby reads this blog from time to time, so maybe she can let us know if there have been any changes.  I assume you’ll have to have your Dalcard to vote, but I’m just speculating on that one.

Happy Voting!

This resolution, in part 5 of my series, actually bothered me.  I kind of skimmed over it at first, but on taking time to assess it, it saddened me.

This is a resolution written by people who hate the Dalhousie Student Union, or at least its elected representatives.  To claim otherwise is absurd.  I’ve been striving to engage with SMAC and discuss their issues, and now I find that they were unwilling to do the same. What we see here is total unwillingness to engage with the DSU leadership, just a demand for an apology based on unsubstantiated claims.  And that saddens me.

This is a childish, petulant resolution.  It screams “We don’t like the way things are, and we hate you, therefore we blame you”.  It skips judge and jury and moves to punishment.  And that saddens me.

This group has used their ability to bring forward any resolution they want to demand that the DSU execs offer a meaningless apology for baseless accusations.  The total effect of this resolution and action would be nothing.  The ability to introduce a resolution at an AGM does not require it be anything more than a useless exercise, but nonetheless this saddens me.

I am not surprised there are students who truly believe the DSU is secretly working to raise tuition; we all know the crazies are out there.  What gets me is that some things SMAC says make sense, and some things they argue for are relatively reasonable points of view, but then you come to something like this.  I like the idea of students of common interest coming together, but then they produce this nonsense.  It is a tragedy.

After reading this resolution, my advice is to ignore them until they just disappear.  They’ve sacrificed their credibility on the altar of hatred.  (Well, as much credibility as an unknown, unidentified group of people can have.)

APOLOGY MOTION

“WHEREAS students at Dalhousie are paying astronomical prices for books, rent, tuition and other basic costs of student life;”

Raise your hand if you’re surprised I have a problem with the word “astronomical” here.  Yeah.  I’ll save the sarcasm about the use of this term for another day.

Anyway, tuition + books + rent is costly.  (I assume by “rent” we’re talking here about residence, as I think city-wide rent controls are a bit out of scope.)  Fair enough.  For the sake of the post, we’ll even assume it should be lower.

What are the other “basic costs” of student life?  Beer?  I see no reason to not list them.

WHEREAS Dalhousie has seen an increased corporatization of campus services and a decreasing amount of public funds invested into our university;

Per the discussion on a previous post, the amount of public funds is NOT decreasing; it decreased, and is now increasing.

I’d also ask for details on what campus services are being corporatized.  The Pepsi Registrar’s Office?  Dal Security Services, brought to you in part by Tim Hortons?

WHEREAS the Dalhousie Student Union (DSU) has in recent years not only failed to fight for affordable education, but has actively worked to raise tuition fees and to impede any movement which questions the strategy of passive negotiation and bargaining;

“recent years” is vague.

Pretty sure I read on the SMAC website that the DSU is every single student.  I think you might have meant to refer to some other group here?

Actively worked to raise tution fees?  You mean by, say, demanding that the university give up millions of dollars in private funding?  That would certainly qualify as actively working to raise tuition. 

Sarcasm aside, I truly don’t understand what this means.  I’ve been thinking about it, and all I can come up with in my personal experience is at least a decade of BAC reports arguing against tuition increases, a decade of BoG representatives voting no to tuition increases, a decade of lobbying through CASA, through ANSSA and NSSAC before them… Oh, and, uh, lowered tuition.

It’s a bizarre claim, and I’ll give it no more attention until someone offers something a little more solid than a pointed finger.

WHEREAS student participation in the DSU has been waning in the last decade and the general apathy on campus is nothing short of alienation from a true democratic process;

“Waning”, the king of the unsubstantiated claim words.  Plus… look, can’t we just agree the language in all of these resolutions is crap?  Thanks.

So much to talk about, though.  Student participation is waning?  By what metric?  How do you even measure something like that? Voter turnout is a crappy metric, but it’s all I can think of, and it climbed from 5% to 15-25%.  

Out of curiousity, how many SMAC members have been paying close attention to the DSU for a decade? 

“General apathy on campus”.  Wow.  ”general apathy” means apathy toward everything.  It conjures up an image of mindless automatons, walking around campus devoid of any interests.  I couldn’t disagree more.  I didn’t meet a single person on campus without an interest in something.  I met people who cared about politics, of course, but also sailing, swimming, programming, diving, skiing, surfing, driving, biking, religion, engineering… The people I met were energetic and passionate, and some of them changed my life.  That a whole group of people can look at the same campus and see a herd of apathetic people saddens me.  I cannot explain this.  To call someone apathetic because he doesn’t care about what you care about is rather close-minded, so I sincerely hope that is not the explanation.

“alienation from a true democratic process”.  I’m through parsing bullshit slogans, I really am.  This phrase has no meaning to me.

BIRT That the DSU issues a formal apology to all students on campus for becoming an ineffective and bureaucratic organization which has lost touch with regular students and their concerns.

Per the SMAC website, the DSU is every Dal student.  So my first question is one of procedure: how do we collect the apology from every student?  Perhaps when they pay tuition?  Or maybe at convocation? …. but not everyone convocates.  Hmm.  Should this apology be written or oral?

Here we are again with the “ineffective”.  And who are these “regular students”? Is SMAC speaking for them?  The DSU exec may only be elected by 20% of the student population, but who elected SMAC?  An organization that won’t even reveal how many members it has, let alone who they are?  An organization that fires off a whole bunch of resolutions but doesn’t bother to back them up with facts?  Who declared you the voice of all 16,000 Dal students?

BIRT That the DSU council and executive will make a public pledge to reform the constitution to allow for the immediate recall of representatives of the student body who refuse or are unable to carry out the will of the rank and file members of the DSU.

I hate it when my time is wasted.  What is the “will of the rank and file members”?  Majority rules?  Consensus of 16,000 students?  Can someone who disagrees with the rest of the “rank and file” demand the immediate recall of councilors?

And what if the will is “free tuition”?  Do you truly expect the student reps to achieve this goal?

What is “immediate recall”?  As far as I can tell, that already exists.  The constitution currently allows for the recall of any member of Council via a petition signed by more people than voted for that member.  That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.  It’s unprecedented in other areas with democratically representatives.

First of all, how awesome was Villanova-Pittsburgh?  What a game, what a finish.

This is part four in my look at resolutions.  I assume by this point we can skip my usual railing against Whereas clauses in general, as well as the AGM as a venue. Super.  On with the show.

CASA MOTION

“WHEREAS the most recent federal budget held little relief for students struggling with the increasing costs of post-secondary education;”

“Little” is a vague word heavily subject to interpretation.  To give your words meaning, you need to establish a standard, establish what was done, and describe the difference.  Similarly, “increasing costs”.

“WHEREAS the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is the Dalhousie Student’s Union’s current voice in federal politics;”

Well I’ll be hogtied – this is what a whereas clause should be!  If I were to nitpick, I would point out that you start using the acronym later, so you should probably add a (CASA) after the full name.  But seriously, well done.

“WHEREAS the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations has proven itself ineffectual in achieving meaningful gains for the students of Dalhousie University;”

… well that didn’t last.  What is a “meaningful gain”?  What does it take to be “effectual”?

But it’s worse than that.  Typically when I ask for more details, I believe an answer to my question does exist.  In this case, I don’t.  I’m not up on the latest Poli Sci research, and I think 75% of it is crap anyway**, but if someone’s come up with a fool-proof way to measure the impact of political lobbying efforts, I’ve never heard about it.  I do know it is generally accepted that lobbyists wield influence and power based on money and membership; I do not know how CASA stacks up federally.  I do know they succeed in meeting with important federal figures, which is at least a start.  I know that when I met with one of the deputy ministers of industry, he told me the other Dalhousie student he remembered meeting was part of CASA, for whatever a single anecdote is worth.

Though there is no foolproof way to measure impact, we measure something similar in computing science to measure the effectiveness of testers, who advocate for quality and bug fixes in software.  I suggest taking a look at results mapping (the International Development Research Centre uses something similar called outcome mapping), an unbiased application of that or a similar tool might at least give you something approaching evidence.  At the very least I think it’s an interesting research question.

When doing this analysis, you would compare CASA’s goals to its results, NOT what you think CASA should be achieving to what it IS achieving.  Remember, CASA isn’t always lobbying for a paper bag stuffed with unmarked bills for PSE.  ”TUITION IS STILL HIGHER, THEREFORE CASA HAS ACHIEVED NOTHING, QED” is not a fair assessment.  Aside from the obvious “how high would it be without them?”, right now they are lobbying for other things, like to stop the powers that be from putting strings on tri-council funding.  To me, (successfully) advocating for making scholarships tax-free was one of the more brilliant lobbying points of the last decade.  I think such lobbying is important but unfortunately not very visible; if you disagree, fine, but that’s a different discussion.  ”Not doing what we want you to do” is not the same as “ineffectual”. 

I think such an analysis would show that CASA is not completely ineffectual, but let’s pretend for a minute it doesn’t.  Imagine that CASA really has not achieved any “meaningful gains”.  Then the problem is this: an absence of positive results to date is not necessarily an argument to stop.  If none of these resolutions pass, will SMAC disband?  Consider asking your sister/parent organization NSPIRG how it feels about persisting in lobbying in the absence of results; some of its working groups have been opposing the war in Iraq since day one, but the US military is still firmly entrenched.  The Halifax Coalition Against Poverty has been around for 8 years; poverty still exists.  When do you think they’ll throw in the towel?

Obviously I’ve picked a number of causes in line with the politics of SMAC here, and I’m using the same flawed comparison the resolution does (“absence of total success on a single issue = failure”), but my point stands: imperfect results should not always require a complete abandonment of the ideals for which you are advocating.

** = that’s not a shot at Poli Sci.  I think at least 75% of computing science research is crap, too.  We need to completely revisit publication standards and the pressure to publish that has been born in the last two decades.  Butthat’s a topic for another day.  Also, to be clear, in general I have no problem with taking shots at political science students; in fact, I encourage it.  I’ll probably do it the next time I’m out grabbing a Big Mac.

WHEREAS the Dalhousie Student Union’s investment in our CASA membership has gained little in return from our federal voice;

This is almost exactly a restatement of the previous clause.  Adding words does not impress me; I think I’ve proven I can be verbose, too.  And the problems named above still apply.

BIRT the Dalhousie Student Union will immediately withdraw from the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, first by dropping down to ‘Associate Member.’

“Immediately” and “[by taking several steps,] first by…” are contradictory.

BIRT the fees previously allotted to the CASA membership will be given back to students in ways the federal government should have, including but not limited to needs-based grants and bursaries.

I won’t bother arguing against needs-based grants; I will just let that slide because I think it’s off-topic.

My problem with this BIRT (and by extension the previous one) is simple.  We take the $40k-50k in CASA fees and give it to students, fine.  That is immediate and direct benefit: it will never get lower, and will never get higher.  We absolutely could pay the tuition of 9 students by using the money from the other 15,000.  The problem is this plan has no potential energy: it is what it is.  On the other hand, federal lobbying has the potential to free up vast sums of money, like $2 billion for infrastructure upgrades, or another $10 million for tri-council scholarships.  The potential energy is incredible, if you can harness any of it.

Let’s consider some options, then, if we leave CASA.  We’ll assume an assessment of the situation as given in this resolution, but assume also that we can recognize that federal lobbying CAN be effective.

1. No federal presence whatsoever.  There is some virtue to that: if Dalhousie withdraws, it’s not like CASA will fold; we then get the benefits of federal lobbying without the expense.  We lose our voice on CASA in terms of influencing lobbying efforts, and our CASA delegates miss out on meetings with federal leaders, but that’s the price you pay.  On the other hand, I think the Union has a responsibility to conduct itself in a manner that would ensure the greatest good if every other Union conducted itself the same (coarsely expressed, but you get the idea).  If every Union tries to get benefits from CASA without contributing, CASA *will* fall.
2. Establish our own federal presence.  I expect this would be fairly expensive; effective or not, obviously the benefit of CASA is that it pools resources.  On the other hand, we could lobby for whatever we wanted, assuming we could get people to deal with us rather than CFS or CASA.  No policy debates, no national votes, just lobbying for us  (… perhaps ANSSA should consider a federal presence).
3. Join the CFS.  This costs more than CASA, and according to the formula for measuring ineffectual groups given in this resolution, it is also ineffectual.

Just so it’s clear, I’m no big fan of CASA.  I think they are weak on graduate issues in particular.  I’ve never been impressed by one of their presentations to DSU Council.  Most of the national directors I’ve met had a hard time convincing me to pay attention to them, let alone to give their cause a few billion in funding.  Mostly I am totally indifferent to them.  In short, I think they are the worst option for federal representation, except for all of the other options (to borrow from Churchill).  Something is better than nothing.

Tonight, CKDU hosted a panel discussion on student activism. I wasn’t able to listen live, but will live-blog as I stream the discussion. You can do the same if you missed the live broadcast by visiting the Program Archive and start streaming at 21:00. (I’ll base my time-stamps on this start time.)

On with the show:

9:03: Oh, there’s some music first. I feel very at ease. While listening to BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday, I learned from Dr. Frank Lipman that reggae music is a great way to slow down and bring your body back to it’s natural rhythm. I suspect the effects will be undone once the discussion starts.

Beauty of streaming: skip to 20 minutes in to get to the good stuff.

9:21: Julie & Bethany from The Gazette are also in the studio. Julie spoke to Council last night about The Gazette and I learned why they print so many copies of the paper (number of papers printed determines what they get from a national advertiser). Julie got a lot of questions but didn’t get defensive. I like the cut of her jib.

9:26: I have a little rant about Bethany not abiding by the “two Gazette writers” rule despite having received advance notice of the decision. I may have gone so far as to take a red pen to her article in The Gazette last week, but I can save that for another time.

9:28: I agree that students should receive information about potential employers in a critical environment. However, I don’t think Lockheed Martin is hiding the fact that they manufacture weapons. I also agree that students should be allowed to protest in a democratic society, but I don’t think protesters should prevent students from speaking to those on the other side of the issue (i.e. Lockheed Martin recruiters). I also have a little rant about hypocrites which I’m saving for a future post. [I'm not saying Angela was hypocritical in her response. I actually think I like the cut of her jib, too.]

9:32: I completely agree that NSPIRG has not advertised their opt-out period effectively. I don’t like the “it’s been 19 years” argument because I’m of the mind that if a society is still meeting its mandate as set out at the time their referendum passed, and that mandate is still relevant to contemporary society, the passage of time cannot be the only reason for sending a levy back to referendum. I know why they’re making the argument (the levy is as old as most first-year undergrads), but it’s not why I think a new referendum may be necessary.

9:36: <sarcasm>You mean to say that Political Science and IDS students are studying war and national defence?! What?!</sarcasm> Seriously, find me a poli sci student who doesn’t expect some discussion of defence in a foreign policy class.

9:37: I am so canvassing the Poli Sci course listings once this is over.

9:39: I may have written my Poli Sci Honours thesis about modern applications of Virginia Woolf’s ideas about preventing war and fascism by means other than violence and war. This could make me a little bit sensitive when someone claims my education has somehow been compromised by the Department of National Defence.

9:41: Past and future DSU executive are “intimately connected.” Someone’s been reading my DSU Gossip Girl blog.

9:43: Oh, here we go…increasing “conservativization” of the DSU. But we’re not woefully incompetent. Gee, thanks.

9:45: I resent discussion of slander and libel, as it made me pick up my Criminal Code.

9:51: FYI, libel is published defamation while slander is oral, so unless it’s an audio blog, slander is not going to happen on a website.

Something went funny with the stream. I’m warming up another Krispy Kreme while it reloads.

9:53: The panelists are going on a pee parade. I didn’t really need to know that.

9:59: Damn the man!

10:01: SMAC’s vision of student engagement is in line with that of NSPIRG. I’m shocked.

10:08: Okay, I’m trying to understand Stop NSPIRG’s “students should have a choice” argument. I agree that students should be allowed to conform and consume if that’s what they want to do, but I’m not sure I agree that it’s NSPIRG’s job provide equal time to “the man”, for lack of a better term. Isn’t the whole problem that those are the dominant viewpoints presented to us whether we like it or not and NSPIRG’s critical perspective is meant to provide a counterbalance? It’s sort of like saying, “DalOUT, you have to present the gender binary as a viable option even though you’re supposed to be educating us about alternatives to that binary that gets shoved down our throats from the moment we’re born.”

10:09: Okay, Angela picked up on that point.

10:15: I don’t have a problem with a society like NSPIRG paying a non-student staff person (though it would be nice if students were given priority for such jobs), but I have a copy of Dal-PIRG’s 1989-90 constitution, and it’s so lovely and student-focused…

10:24: I agree that the campus and community are inextricably linked, so it makes sense for NSPIRG to focus not just on the campus.

10:25: Safe space! Yay!

10:32: Well, that was sort of interesting, actually. Gave me a few things to think about. I’ll be posting at least once more before the AGM once I’ve had a chance to finally read everything on the NSPIRG, SMAC, and Stop NSPIRG websites.