Dear Editor,
As many students know, over the weekend the SFUO held a General Assembly (GA) at Marion Hall. Myself, and a team of fellow students from Student Voices-uOttawa began to notice that the SFUO executive wasn’t properly promoting the GA. So we formed the Student Voices page in order to give students a chance to voice their thoughts on the SFUO, and to use it as a tool to promote engagement between students and their elected student politicians. We determined that our first action would be to pick up the slack from the SFUO and promote the GA ourselves.
Before we had launched our initiative, we had been told as student members on the SFUO’s GA Outreach Committee that the SFUO would be doing promotional videos, setting up an event on Facebook, and making sure that students came out to the GA.
However, when they failed to live up to their promises we felt that we had to step in and do something.
Over the past few weeks we have spent all of our free time getting the word out there, and making sure that students heard about the GA.
We had hoped that the SFUO executive would be stepping up to help us in our efforts to get students out to make quorum. After four consecutive GAs failing to meet quorum, we figured that they would be more than happy to help ensure that students voices were heard.
However, after getting the minimum amount of help from the SFUO executive, we were disappointed on Saturday when we did not make quorum, and especially when we heard the executive take credit for our work, and then chastise us for demanding answers and asking for the SFUO to take credit for another failed GA.
Since the SFUO decided to refuse to work with the GA Outreach Committee and publicly scolded students for taking matters in their own hands, I can not in good conscience continue to serve the SFUO on this committee and as a result I am leaving it effective immediately.
If the SFUO truly wants students to be involved in the democratic process on campus they need to do a better job listening to students and taking the initiative to collaborate with students.
Because students at the University of Ottawa deserve better.
—Jordan Kent, first-year political science student at the U of O.
