Both student and financial reports take center stage at May’s Board of Trustees meeting.
The Board of Trustees met on May 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Richardson Hall. The meeting lasted about 2 hours and began with conversations about the state of post-secondary education in both the United States and Canada.
Board Chair, David Court, Comm ’79, spoke about the threats to universities in the United States, explaining it’s hard to watch the realities that they face. These sentiments were also echoed by Principal Patrick Deane, and he drew attention to what he sees as an important time in Canada’s post-secondary scene, following the provincial and federal elections.
Deane added that it’s still too early to tell what ramifications these elections will have on education in Canada and Ontario more broadly but that Queens’ internal struggles with the budget is largely due to the “chronic underfunding at the governmental level.”
AMS and SGPS student fees for the 2025-26 school year were approved without discussion along with the adoption of the agenda.
Student Reports
In Rector Niki Boytchuk-Hale’s report, she referenced the PSAC 901 strike, which saw Teaching Assistants, Research Assistants, and Teaching Fellows walk off the job for six weeks before reaching an agreement in April.
READ MORE: Grad student strike officially over as University and union seal deal
Boytchuck-Hale explained how the strike has damaged trust within the university community and led to new tensions, but that now exists an opportunity for a fresh start.
“I’d like to highlight a Mi’kmaw word ‘opitsu’, which in English, represents forgiveness, but more thoroughly translated in a great book called The Gatherings, it means ‘we return to the original place and let’s try again’,” Boytchuck-Hale said.
Also delivering a speech was AMS President Jana Amer, addressing the Board of the Trustees for the first time since her term began on May 1.
In her report, she touched on multiple student issues, including her claim that many students are spending 80 per cent of their money on food and rent, working one or two jobs, while living in poor conditions. Amer later claimed that the construction at Queen’s is making the campus inaccessible and stressed the importance of prioritizing the needs of those who they aim to serve, adding that “our progress [should] never come at the cost of presence.”
Also assuming his role on May 1 and making an address to the Trustees was President of the SGPS, Dawood Tullah.
Tullah echoed themes mentioned by Amer and Boytchuck-Hale, including referencing unaffordability issues facing students in relation to food and rent, as well as the erosion of trust between the University and its students.
“This moment calls not for defensiveness, but for listening and resolute action. Rebuilding institution trust must be one of our shared priorities, and I call on your support and collaboration on it,” Tullah said.
2025-26 Operating Budget
The Board of Trustees also approved the final operating budget for the 2025-26 school year. The budget projects a deficit of $26.4 million.
Provost and Vice Principal (Academic) Matthew Evans spoke to the budget. He explained the deficit is largely attributable to the Faculty of Arts and Science deficit, which was projected at $16.1 million for 2025-26 in January.
Following Evan’s presentation, Boytchuck-Hale asked him what message he’d like to send about the budget, rephrasing by asking how he would summarize the budget in a headline for The Queen’s Journal.
While not offering a specific headline, Evans pointed out the position that Queen’s was in a few years ago compared to now, explaining the budget projected a $63 million deficit two years ago, compared to the current $26.4 million deficit, adding that’s what he’d like to see represented.
The motion to pass the budget passed unanimously. The Journal has run a separate story on the 2025-26 operating budget.
The meeting concluded after about an hour and a half, and trustees will meet again on September 26.
Tags
Board of Trustees, Richardson Hall, Student Reports
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.