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GFC CoTW
Integrative Task Force Report
Respectfully submitted,
Holly Kletke (President, ULSU)
Mark Serebryansky (VP Operations + Finance, ULSU)
Rebecca Parkkari (VP Academic, ULSU)
Ryan Lindblad (VP External, ULSU)
Amy Mendenhall (VP Student Affairs, ULSU)
Gregory Robinson (President, GSA)
Priyanka Dutt (VP Internal, GSA)
What would you do if you were tasked with balancing the 2022-23 budget and
where would you suggest the budget savings/revenue increases can be achieved?
The ULSU and GSA executive teams got together to discuss this question and came
to a number of conclusions that will inform this report. The first conclusion
we came to was that we will not include in this report, anything that has not
already been reported through the task force process. Along with that
conclusion, we recognize and accept that the Budget Advisory Committee will
have to make largely impactful decisions to rectify the budget situation, and
we further accept that the “face” of the UofL is going to change as a result of
the decisions being made in the upcoming months. We also will not re-iterate
the UofL’s budget values here, as it has been illustrated that decisions are
always informed by those values, and we do trust this is the case. We will
further refrain from re-iterating any sentiments that have already been
reflected in the minutes of the individual task forces, as we trust those are
received and considered in good faith. Therefore, in this report, we would like
to offer and advocate for our broad suggestions to inform the University
restructuring from the student perspective. And, in the spirit of ultimately
accepting the largely impactful decisions that must be made by the Budget
Advisory Committee, we would like to offer some conditions to accompany the
upcoming changes. And, finally, we would like to take this opportunity to offer
some of our tangential feedback on the overall process of this restructuring,
in the hopes that our feedback will help inform the execution of similar
processes in the future.
Feedback from the process
Firstly, we want to state that we are appreciative of the fact that we were
able to provide feedback on this process both during the presentations of the
task force findings and at the end of the process as we write this submission.
We were happy to provide concerns and feedback on behalf of the students that
we represent throughout the process and overall, we felt listened to and
supported by administration when we presented our suggestions and concerns.
With that said, we do feel that we can provide meaningful feedback on how the
process could be improved in the future, as well as parts of the process that
we believe were missing or should have been expanded upon.
We would like to state that we were disappointed by the absence of an
upper-administration review or task force. While we understand the concerns
that it would have been difficult to conduct this task force without bias, or
that to use a third-party reviewer would have meant an extra cost, we still
cannot help but feel that a review should have occurred to review upper
administration. To be clear this is not a suggestion that we have negative
feelings towards upper administration in any way, but considering the financial
burden placed on students in recent years, and the extensive restructuring that
may occur in other parts of our institution, we feel it would have been a
symbol of good will and unity for upper administration to have received some
form of review as well. We understand it may not have been perfect for a number
of reasons including cost, or potential bias depending on the process selected,
but we feel as though many options would have been more positive than having
nothing at all in this area.
Another aspect of the process that we think could have been improved upon is
the fact that many of these taskforces had no student representation on them,
and we believe that without this everyone suffers. Students are the primary
stakeholder of the University and thus we want to emphasize that we feel as
though not having some form of student representation and input on some of the
taskforces means that they will have suffered from not having that voice and
will lack important context that only a student could provide. Students will be
impacted greatly by many of these decisions and should have been included more
throughout the process and not just at the end for feedback. We want to state
that we hope any committees that arise out of this process will have some form
of student representation on them so that the student context and voice will be
considered and heard.
Regarding the actual COTW meetings, we feel as though for the most part these
meetings were handled well. However, there were certain times through the
process where discussion would end and be cut off rather abruptly in order to
move on to a new topic even when people may still have hands up. While we know
that eventually topics will need to be moved on from to begin others, we would
recommend that in the future this be handled slightly different. Especially in
the case where hands may still be up to comment it would be appropriate to
potentially call a vote to see if members wished to continue current
discussions rather than insist on cutting it off exactly when it was scheduled
to be moved on from, this would at least allow GFC membership to decide for
ourselves if we need to discuss a point further or if we are prepared to move
on and feel we have heard enough even without those last couple hands and
points to be made.
Our last bit of feedback comes in regards to this report itself, we feel as
though in the future more time would be incredibly helpful, deserved, and
appreciated especially for us as student leaders. We truly only had about four
business days to meet amongst ourselves and write a submission and considering
we already had other meetings and commitments scheduled, it made it difficult
to finish by the Monday deadline. We feel as though allowing for extra time in
the future would also benefit those that will read this submission as they
could be getting more detail and feedback provided if we were perhaps allowed
two weeks to submit this document.
Where could budget savings/revenue increases be achieved:
The overall sentiment that informed our opinions as student representatives
throughout this process is: students are the largest stakeholder of the
University. Therefore, we would like to recommend, where possible, that the
Budget Advisory Committee accept the largest amount of recommendations from the
taskforces with the lowest impact to students to achieve a balanced budget. We
are in favour of those task forces that recommend centralization and sharing of
resources, as we believe this to be a necessary step in finding efficiencies.
Further, these budget changes represent a great opportunity to become more
collaborative and efficient across the institution. We are in favour of
centralizing Indigenous units and governance, career services, conference
services, IT services, and the communications and marketing departments across
campus. We are also highly in favour of adopting the student services hub, as
we believe this will have a positive, long lasting and efficient result for
students and employees alike.
We would like to illustrate some of the crucial task force recommendations that
we urge the Budget Advisory Committee to stray away from until all other
options have been exhausted.
-
Faculty Structures
- One of our priorities as Students’ Union and Graduate students association
is to protect the freedom and agency of students to carve their own path
and discover their passions at our institution. We are extremely grateful
and happy to belong to an institution that makes this especially possible
through a liberal education philosophy. We are content with the diversity
of programs, and would like to protect that diversity, and protect the
agency of students to study and discover their passions. Therefore, we
would urge that faculty re-structuring only occurs if it is guaranteed to
maintain the diversity of our programs. We also urge that faculty
restructuring does not immediately absorb small programs, because all
programs are equally important to our campus.
-
Budget Model
- Similar to the thoughts we had about faculty restructuring, we also want to
ensure that changes to the budget model protect the diversity of our
programs and that resources are equitably allocated to all programs. We
would like to offer one final consideration that to guide budget
discussions, from the student perspective. We would like to encourage that
budget decisions be guided by the notion that our academic integrity is not
sacrificed in the process of finding revenue.
Finally, in the spirit of accepting the largely impactful decisions that must
be made, we would like to propose, for Budget Advisory Committee’s
consideration, some conditions that we would like to see accompany significant
restructuring.
Where centralizing and reorganization of governance structures are necessary,
we would like to strongly urge student representation to be upheld and brought
forward. We would like to especially highlight the importance of including
student representatives on the newly proposed Indigenous units governance
model. Further, we encourage student voices to be included in conversations and
decisions when opportunities from increases in funding, such as the Mastercard
foundation donation, arise.
We would like to raise a concern that seemed to permeate many of the task-force
recommendations over the course of the past few months, which has to do with
the proposition of student labour as a cost-saving opportunity. Jobs on campus
are great for many students, and we hear often that there are not enough
opportunities. In general, we are in favour of identifying meaningful job
opportunities for students on campus. However, we noted that those task forces
that recommended the usage of student labour as a cost-saving method were not
appropriately accompanied by plans, policies or tangible assurance that the
labour requested will be of value to the student. We therefore insist that
increases in student labour from any department cannot move forward without
guidelines for individual opportunities being approved by any applicable
governance system. One step further, would be to develop and provide a holistic
and over-arching template (approved by GFC) that has within it the established,
researched, and necessary considerations for any department looking to add
student labour to their workplace.
If a change to the budget model results in incentivization or performance
requirements, we would like to caution against the risk of small programs being
unable to meet the basic budget requirements to remain in existence. We
recommend that any performance metrics be clearly and transparently
communicated, and that every effort is made to give fair and equitable
resources so that all programs, no matter how big or small, are given the
resources to thrive. As students who belong to a liberal education institution,
we reject the notion that certain programs are “necessary” to an institution,
as this suggests others may not be, and we would like the budget model to
reflect the equal value of all programs. Furthermore, we would like to include
here our hope that programs do not disappear as a result of restructuring,
because the diversity of our programs is vital to enrolment and retention, and
students value the autonomy and freedom to choose and craft their path through
University.
Finally, where the changes that the Budget Advisory Committee put forward will
fundamentally change the institution as a whole, such as faculty restructuring,
students would like to see changes be accompanied by a long-term sustainability
plan that assures a return to the quantity of faculties and programs that we
currently offer. We ask for assurance that if improvements to the budget
situation come in the future, it will also result in the return of the
programs, faculties, and systems that are currently present.
While the circumstances by which University of Lethbridge restructuring came
about were not overwhelmingly positive, our groups view University
restructuring as a great opportunity. When we return to campus in the fall, we
hope that we will return to a University that recognizes students as its
largest stakeholder, and to a University that protects and recognizes the
importance of a diversity of programs. We wish you the best of luck in the
budget decision making process, and hope that this report was helpful in
guiding your discussions.
