AMS holds another four-hour-long session during their October Assembly.
The AMS held their second Assembly of the year on Oct. 21 in Robert Sutherland Hall with a focus on the ratification of upcoming elections and fees.
Assembly began with the Director of the Queen’s University Alumni Association and President of the Queen’s Queer Alumni Chapter, Stacy Kelly, ArtSci ’93, speaking on queer history on-campus, in Kingston, and in Canada. Kelly highlighted the importance of resistance during queer history in Canada that needs to continue in our present day.
“As always, it was about resisting […] the absolute insanity across the boards is the policing of our bodies. The policing of the queer and trans bodies is ongoing and horrific,” Kelly said during Assembly.
Following Kelly’s speech, AMS executives and other student leaders presented their monthly reports. In AMS President Owen Rocchi’s report, he highlighted his advocacy efforts regarding the postponement of cuts to the Queen’s Graduate Award, which has been reinstated for another academic year.
READ MORE: BREAKING: Graduate students score victory as the University halts cuts
In her report, Vice-President (University Affairs) Ruth Osunde highlighted campus harm reduction efforts during Homecoming and plans to fundraise for the Sexual Assault Centre Kingston and Kingston Interval House in collaboration with the AMS Media Centre to produce posters to be printed and sold over the upcoming year with proceeds added to the funds raised during consent week.
READ MORE: Consent Awareness Week takes place this week
Vice-President (Operations) Ayan Chowdhury reported a smooth start to the fall term, with a hit new menu at Common Ground and Tricolour Outlet Homecoming merchandise being popular among students.
Following reports, several club representatives presented their cases before AMS Assembly, explaining why they should receive new or increased fees. Assembly subsequently ratified over 10 opt-out and mandatory fee increases for student services and clubs such as Queen’s Rocket Engineering Team and Queen’s University Blood Team.
Sylvie Garabedian, AMS Secretariat told Assembly five candidates expressed interest in running for the Undergraduate Trustee position, the student representative on the Board of Trustees. Of those, only three candidates secured enough signatures to qualify for the election.
Candidates were invited to the Assembly to introduce themselves and their platforms: Seham Kettaneh, ArtSci ’28, running on increased ArtSci funding, EJ Kelvin, ConEd ’29, focusing on transparency and community, and Zain Al Sudani, CompSci ’28, advocating for greater club funding. All were unanimously ratified, marking the start of the campaign period ahead of the election on Oct. 30 and 31.
The voting for the ratification of the first candidate, Al Sudani, occurred with the student still in the room. Rector Niki Boytchuk-Hale noted in ratifications from prior years, candidates were required to leave the room during deliberations. AMS executives didn’t follow this practice, allowing all candidates to stay in the room while Assembly made its decisions.
Later, the AMS introduced a motion to join the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA). Osunde advocated for the AMS to have an observer membership to the CASA, a lobbying group of student unions representing over 350,000 students across Canada. Queen’s participation in the observer membership, which is a free membership, was passed with an amendment made by Rocchi which will last two years and will allow the AMS to observe CASA to decide if they would like a full membership and connect with other student unions.
Both McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario were previously observer members of CASA, but it was pointed out by Arts and Science Undergraduate Society President Cole Olidis other Ontario Universities haven’t opted to join. Osunde responded Western was unable to pass a fee allowing them to join CASA full time and Queen’s would simply be using their observer membership to see if a full membership would be worth the cost.
The key reasons for joining CASA are to advocate for Queen’s students, amplify Indigenous voices, and provide the AMS with access to federal policymakers, Osunde explained. She noted engaging with policymakers on international student policies would help elevate the voices of the international students at Queen’s.
“I found, in recent years, a lot of our conversations have kind of used international students as I’m not going to say cash-cows, but sometimes we have had conversations around our funding reducing because we don’t have as many international students, but that is not what they are here for. They’re here to be part of the Queen’s University experience,” Osunde said.
In response, Engineering Society President Jack Walker expressed concerns about students being unclear on where their money would be directed and what they would be committing to. However, Osunde clarified no additional funds would be required for the initiative, as they would use already allocated resources. Osunde also mentioned if the AMS decides to become a full member, more comprehensive plans will be developed.
Rocchi amended the motion to address these concerns, allowing the issue to be put to a referendum with the budget scheduled to be presented to Assembly at a later date.
Corrections
A prior version of this story said Assembly ratified Queen’s American Sign Language club. In fact, the club wasn’t ratified due to not being present.
The Journal regrets the error
Tags
AMS, AMS Assembly, CASA, Queer, ratification
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