International Student Affairs Coordinator

On December 1st, 2019 the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) considered a motion to dissolve the position of the International Student Affairs Coordinator. After discussion of the motion, it was decided that the position was indeed necessary and to cut it would be inappropriate. Hence, the motion to dissolve failed. However, on January 13th, 2020 the motion was reintroduced to SAC based on the premises that there was inadequate information provided the first time, due to the absence of the President and the VPFO. The inadequate information (which was already presented in the first meeting) was that:

1.It was a part of a larger effort to restructure different parts of the MASU to eliminate some redundancies

     a)Trying to make the Students’ Union as efficient as possible

2.There was no capacity to manage the position with a limited number of Vice-Presidents

3.No other university or student’s union has both a Representative and a Coordinator

    a)Other universities of a similar size only have one of the two positions

4.The International Student Representative would inadvertently take on the role of the International Student Affairs Coordinator

5.It does not make sense that the only position that has a Coordinator position is the International Student Representative 

For contextual purposes, the International Student Coordinator position came about in 2012 and has only been vacant once since then. As the International Student population continues to grow at Mount Allison (55% from 2018-2019), we feel that the decision to remove representation for these students is a step in the wrong direction. Mount Allison currently has the highest increase in the number of International Students in NB. Hence, with this in mind, the following are our main reasons why Mount Allison and the MASU need to retain this position or one similar to its description:

1.The International Student population at Mount Allison is increasing rapidly

2. This decision was made without the consideration of what International Students at Mount Allison need and continue to request

3.The International Student Affairs Coordinator works for the MASU, which means that the position is paid through Honoraria, whereas the International Student Representative is an elected member of Council

4.We do not need to imitate the decisions of other universities. Instead, we should aim to set positive trends for them to follow, such as setting examples for why representation of minority groups is necessary

5.The leaders of SAC were unwilling to table the motion so that we could get feedback from the students it would affect the most, which shows blatant disrespect for the opinions of minority students

6.The relationship of these positions is similar to that of the Entertainment Director and the Deputy Entertainment Director, as well as the Chairperson and the Deputy Chairperson and so forth. If one person cannot do both of these jobs, why must we only have one person represent a highly varied minority group?

Sertara Wilkinson, Aminah Simmons    Contact the author of the petition