Master of Business Administration (MBA) students at Smith are leaving the AMS for the SGPS.
A motion kickstarting the referendum process which would allow MBA students to join the SGPS passed unanimously at its general meeting on May 16.
The SGPS represents graduate, law, consecutive education, and undergraduate medical students at Queen’s, while the AMS represents Queen’s undergraduate students. The SGPS and AMS create programs and engage in advocacy work geared towards their respective student demographics.
Full-time MBA students must now hold a referendum to accept SGPS membership. If the vote passes, a motion to accept the referendum results must pass at the next SGPS Annual General meeting to finalize the MBA program’s membership.
If passed, the 2024 MBA students will become SGPS constituents and have access to SGPS membership benefits.
Presenting to the SGPS Council, MBA student representatives, Lucas D’Erman and Jessica Deluce, explained their AMS break-up.
“Our needs are aligning more on what graduate students are needing, versus what undergraduate students are needing. That’s why we feel like we belong better with SGPS,” D’Erman said at the meeting.
“[The full-time MBA] was originally a program that you would go into directly from your undergrad,” Deluce said at the meeting. “We weren’t really classified as your typical graduate program, because the rollover was so frequent and immediate […] so the AMS took us under their wing.”
According to Deluce and D’Erman, the nature of the MBA program has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. Prospective Queen’s MBA students are now required to have work experience.
Smith reported the average age for the 2024 MBA class as 28 years-old with students having an average of four years of previous work experience before entering the program. According to D’Erman, many MBA students have kids and families.
“As Queen’s MBA became more competitive, the firm requirements [have changed]. We need a few years of work experience, the minimum is two,” D’Erman said.
The meeting was not attended by 25 ordinary members, which is required to pass motions. Given there are no by-laws on how to operate without quorum, the SGPS Council agreed to proceed with voting, and provide the membership the option to contest the outcomes of votes.
SGPS President Devin Fowlie supported the MBA program’s budding relationship with the SGPS. At the meeting, he told Council MBA students had been part of the AMS for too long.
“It makes more sense for them to be consolidated as part of the SGPS,” Fowlie said. “This only recently came to our collective attention so that’s why the change is coming now.”
Tags
AMS, MBA, SGPS, Smith School of Business
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