KSA Regulation Changes to be Proposed July 15

If passed, changes will affect many of KPU’s committees

A number of regulation changes under the Kwantlen Student Association will be going to council on Friday, July 15. KSA President Alex McGowan calls them “updates to get in line with the current practices,” but more specifically, they are modifications to the way that the association’s committees operate.

For instance, the Academic Affairs Committee has been relatively dormant since its inception due to “some trouble with the way it was formulated,” so the Student Services committee “took on a lot of the roles that were initially planned” for it, according to McGowan. As a result, they are getting rid of the Academic Affairs Committee entirely, “with the understanding that the role of that committee is going to be continued” by Student Services.

There will also be updates to the Constituency Committee, which has recently been criticized for its number of vacant seats. Unfilled seats—such as those for the student of colour and mature student representatives—cause a lack of representation on the committee, potentially because only councillors can be elected to represent a constituency. Since there are a limited number of councillors, and even less that identify as part of specific minority groups, the KSA was not receiving applications to fill unoccupied positions.

In order to resolve the issue, they are proposing that non-council members be able to apply as student members on the constituency committee as well.

“A call out will go, in the same way that we fill student member seats on our other committees. We also don’t have anyone representing those constituency groups on the constituency committee, so there will be a call out saying, ‘If you identify as a mature student or a student of colour, you can apply as a student member on the constituency committee.’”

Finally, there will be a proposed change to the Environmental Sustainability Committee, which will allow them “to recommend delegates to conferences related to sustainability,” and make recommendations to the Council about external affairs, “changes, developments, expansions, or other issues relating to student services provided or operated by the Society from the perspective of environmental sustainability.”

“There are quite a lot of minor updates, but those are the only substantial changes,” McGowan says.