Student Representation at Conestoga College
Conestoga Students Inc. (CSI), the student association that represents students at Conestoga College, has a very interesting governance structure, to say the least. In accordance with their bylaws, the Board of Directors of the organization consists of 13 members, of which only seven are directly elected by the members themselves! The remaining six members are: the President and the Vice-President (who are appointed by the preceding Board), the General Manager of the association, the Past-President, and representatives of the Alumni Association and of the College administration (the "College Liaison").
Furthermore, this association has adopted the 'Policy Governance' system of governance (also known as the Carver System). It's policies consist of 'Governance Process', 'Board-Staff Relationship', 'Executive Limitations', and 'Ends' policies. And, as is all too frequently the case with Carver System organisations, CSI has tried to sneak in 'Means Policies' into its Executive Limitations through double-negatives. For example:
Conestoga Students Inc. (CSI), the student association that represents students at Conestoga College, has a very interesting governance structure, to say the least. In accordance with their bylaws, the Board of Directors of the organization consists of 13 members, of which only seven are directly elected by the members themselves! The remaining six members are: the President and the Vice-President (who are appointed by the preceding Board), the General Manager of the association, the Past-President, and representatives of the Alumni Association and of the College administration (the "College Liaison").
Furthermore, this association has adopted the 'Policy Governance' system of governance (also known as the Carver System). It's policies consist of 'Governance Process', 'Board-Staff Relationship', 'Executive Limitations', and 'Ends' policies. And, as is all too frequently the case with Carver System organisations, CSI has tried to sneak in 'Means Policies' into its Executive Limitations through double-negatives. For example:
"The CEO shall not fail to improve client service. Therefore, the GM shall not be without a focus group on services and activities. The majority of the committee members will be students-at-large as they are the actual clients of the corporation."
Labels: conestoga
11 Comments:
It is worth pointing out that the president, vice-president and past-president are past directors - meaning that at a previous point in time they were all elected by students to serve.
Lets not forget that it is the responsibility of the members (stakeholders/students) to elect directors and it is the responsibility of the directors to select officers. The P, VP and PP are all officers of the corporation who are selected in one way, shape or form by elected directors of the corporation.
The policy represents values of the owners.
Well its always good to see that someone is paying attention to us at Conestoga. Feels kind of good.
You are correct in saying that the board consists of 13 members which only 7 are elected at large. The President and Vice-President are selected from the outgoing board and are voted into their positions before the board cycle ends. This works very well for us as it provides for continuity in our organization and has allowed us to transform into one of the most advanced student associations in the country. I would also like to make it very clear that the President and Vice-President were in fact elected to the board as directors for a minimum of one year before they are allowed to see the position of President and Vice-President. Also to be clear the General Manager at CSI does not hold a vote on our board, they are only there to provide information as needed.
The Alumni Rep is selected yearly by the alumni board at Conestoga and holds a one year term on our board. CSI is very proud of the relationship we have with the alumni at Conestoga and have been able to achieve much together. It is also nice for new student leaders to have someone who is more senior on the board to look for is they need guidance. I have often used my Alumni Rep as a mentor in situations where I didn’t know where else to look.
Although the Carver Model of Policy Governance Model may look different to you and a change from the normal operations of a student association I challenge you to gain a better understanding of how the system works before you slam it publicly. The model allows for our student leaders to set the direction for CSI and have it executed by out full time staff allowing us to achieve major goals. The student directors still play a major role in our organization as they are the ones who set the ends for our association and also sit on may committees which direct our general manager. Our executive limitations set limits of which our GM can work in allowing the board to still be in complete control.
I would gladly have you or anyone else come visit Conestoga and give a session on how the Carver Model actually works and the benefits it has for us at CSI. While you are here I would love to take you for a tour of our newly constructed $15 million student center which has been made possible through the organizational structure at CSI.
Sincerely
Matt Jackson
President, Conestoga Students Inc.
The model may work for the corporation but does it truly work for students?
My option is that it does not.
Why should students not directly elect their President?
What if students want something that the current Directors do not?
The students are powerless to really do anything about it because they could they would have to elect 7 people the following year that believed as they did and considering that there is a good chance that 1 of the seats would go to someone who held the same beliefs as the Directors, it makes it near impossible for student opinion that differs from the Directors to be heard and represented.
It system has it strengths and weaknesses. A student union is more than a corporation.
Lastly, if students do not directly elect their leaders, how can the leaders be called "student leaders".
Joey, you have made a mistake to presume that the president has a greater voice than anyone else at the board table.
I would argue that the model does work for students - instead of picking which items go in the frosh kit, directors are solely tasked with the important responsibility to be a link between the board (acting as one) and its ownership.
We don't elect managers, we elect leaders. Therefore, we do have student leaders.
Don't let the historic rationale of past practice giveway to intentional decisions of focused responsibility and accountability for student leaders.
The President does have a greater voice than the members that students get to elect.
Who is the person that primarily represents the student voice off campus?
Why do Students not get to elect their voice?
I am not looking for a micro-manager, just for students to be able to elect 'student leaders'.
Also, I would hope the President is taking an interest in and being a part of the development of frosh kits as it is effectively the first introduction to their Students Union .
"Also to be clear the General Manager at CSI does not hold a vote on our board, they are only there to provide information as needed."
Not according to your bylaws! Section 3.1.1 of your Bylaws is quite clear that the General Manager has the same right to vote as everyone else - as does the administration-appointed College Liaison for that matter. (Hint: 'ex-officio' does *not* mean 'non-voting'.) Of course, if your GM has decided not to exercise her voting rights in the interests of great democracy, that's awesome - but she still has that power.
I have actually studied the Carver model of governance quite a bit, and I'm not saying that it's not working for CSI. However, you may want to look here for other perspectives on governance:
http://www.iog.ca/about_us.asp?pageID=24
Also, you may want to check out page 10 of this document, which describes 7 different models of governance, of which the Carver model is one of them:
http://www.iog.ca/publications/nonprofit-gov.PDF
Why is it that so many sutdents feel it's more important to be the person who picks the colour of the streamers at the party, rather than to be the person who decides to have the party in the first place, sets the budget for the party, and outlines the goals that the party is to acheive? If students, CFS, CASA or otherwise, would focus more on setting direction and policy, rather than micro-managing the colour of the banner on the back of the stage at the frosh week party, maybe more student associations would actually be respectable and get things done.
And don't retort with all of the great things that student unions have accomplished - of which there are many. But most often those things are accomplished by folks with a long term vision and the ability to see the horizon beyond the current academic year. I don't need to vote for a balloon picker, or pay them tens of thousands of dollars per year as a VP.
Secondly, it seems to me that CSI's president is as directly elected by students as the CFS Chair, who is elected by delegates at a meeting. Does this mean you'd accept nothing short of every student at every CFS Local being permitted to cast a vote for the National Chair?
The Carver system can work well in a body that knows how to use it. The fact they're using double negatives in the executive limitations policies indicates that they know how to use it.
When it comes right down to it, all of the power is at the top, and it gets delegated down. Carver allows for those sorts of double negatives as a way of respecting that the authority comes from the top, and the line between governance and administrative decision-making is going to be a negotiation between the governors and the administration.
It is a very large mistake to look at a structure alone and assume it is in any way failing students. The structure is only the tool. If Tiger Woods and I switch sets of clubs, he's still going to kick my ass, and I'll probably do much worse.
More than half of the battle is understanding how to use the system you have, which this group obviously does. They don't deserve any criticism for that.
And for the person who keeps arguing about the right to elect your voice, I would ask this: Why is it that students MUST directly elect their President, but Canadians need not directly elect their Prime Minister?
There are different sizes involved.
At the local level, yes all students MUST be able to vote for their President and VPs.
In terms of CFS, I prefer the delegate model of NUS in Britain.
Most people do vote for their Prime Minister, very few people vote for the local candidate.
First of all, we need to get clear on one thing. CSI is not a member of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).
If you are going to make ANY critisisms you kmust make sure that you know ALL of the facts.
CSI is a non profit corporation. It's not technicly a government body. CSI exists to help students. Yes I realise that for everything they do there will always be some students who do not benefit. This is life people... in a school with over 5000 students there is no single thing you can reasonably (key word is REASONALBY) do that will make EVERYONE happy. Everyone is different and this is part of what Makes conestoga so great is it's diversity.
Like I said it is actually a corporation, not a governing body. Like every corporation is has a board of directors, elected by the sharholders( in this case the students).
Like every corporation the board elects a president to be there link the the shareholders... The president tells the members what the board tells him/her to do, essentially he/shje is a messenger.
Collectively the board holds all the power. Individually nobody int the corportation holds none. The only group more powerful then the board is the members (the students.) Always remember this. If the students feel that something is wrong it is their right and responsibility to bring it to the attention of the people they elected to run the corporation.
I spent 5 years as a student at conectoga college. Of which I spent my last year on the board or directors of CSI. The more you learn about what is REALLY happening the more it makes sense.
In my first 2 years I had no respect for CSI, but as I learned aobut they way they worked the more I reaslised that a lot of what most students think they know is just rumor.
The board has no real say over day to day opperations or events. They may occasionaly say "we should have an event like this..." but for the most part the CSI staff does all of that.
The baord makes descisions like "We should build a students center". The staff will then go and make plans. the board will aprove the final plans.
in the CSI board model the GM has no voting power unless the board tells her she does. The GM is a direct employee of the board... they hired her.
I did not say they were a part of CFS. I was speaking in general about Student Governance.
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