News Brief: KSA announces resignation of ED, reallocates funds
The next KSA council meeting will be held on June 23 at 10:00 am, and the next executive meeting is scheduled for June 30 at 2:00 pm. (File photo)
The Kwantlen Student Association held their first council meeting of the month on June 9 at 10:00 am in a hybrid format.
Council members Asad Husain, Jashanpreet Singh Maan, Abdullah Randhawa, Gurtejpreet Kaur Kaliyan, Jashan Sekhon, Upeksha Gunatilake, Destiny Lang, Jashandeep Singh, Gurnoor Kaur, Jasmine Kaur Kochhar, Nitin Aggarwal, Amandeep Brar, Amitoj Singh, Manraj Grewal, Taranpreet Singh, and Akashdeep Sidhu were in attendance. Yugveer Gill, Mehakdeep Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Jobanpreet Singh, and Jaspreet Shokar were unable to attend.
After a land acknowledgement, the minutes for the May 26 council meeting were approved. Randhawa announced that the KSA’s Executive Director Parveen Sehra resigned from her position with the association on June 2. The council then appointed Gagandeep Kaur as the new interim executive director. Gagandeep is a Kwantlen Polytechnic University alumni with an educational background in accounting and has worked in financial management departments.
“I would like to thank the KSA for giving me the opportunity to work with you all,” Gagandeep said.
During his report, Randhawa brought a motion to council, calling for the funds in Radio Free Kwantlen to be reallocated to support their new sound stage project, a studio the council is working towards creating that will provide students with an accessible space to fulfill their creative outlets. The motion was carried.
The KSA created Radio Free Kwantlen in 2009 as an initiative to start up a radio station for the university. The association collected $0.13 per credit per student from 2013 to 2015, accumulating a total of $83,569, however the initiative was never successful and the funds were never touched.
“We are providing this service for [students] to use and to come in and record their songs,” Randhawa said. “They can do podcasting with management and do whatever makes them feel good in that space.”
Council carried another motion that called to reallocate $15,000 from the budget for outside events to the budget for KSA events, cutting down the funds for external events to $25,000 which funds projects like KDocsFF, KPU’s social justice film festival.
“We don’t have enough in our budget for on-campus [events]. We should concentrate on on-campus [events] first. So that’s why we reallocated [the funds],” Randhawa said.
At the end of the meeting, Jeremy Law, executive secretary for the KSA, announced he will be leaving the association.
Law has been part of the association for several years, serving as a council member for various terms, including Tech Campus Rep during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 terms. He’s also worked on initiatives that aimed to empower students like polling campuses for provincial lobbying priorities.
“The KSA’s been a big part of my life and I thank everyone for being part of this journey and supporting me,” he said.
The KSA also held an executive meeting on June 16 where they discussed an upcoming hiking event for students. The hike will take place off-campus on June 24 at Watershed Park in Delta from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Water and energy drinks will be supplied to attending students, and the event serves as an opportunity to take a break from course studies, get some exercise, and take in local nature.
The next council meeting is scheduled for June 23 at 10:00am, and the next executive meeting will take place on June 30 at 2:00pm. Students can email info@kusa.ca to join the meetings.
