By: Abi Sudharshan
On Feb 3 at 5 p.m, the McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly convened for the second time since the Ontario government announced major changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program and tuition framework.
In the first portion of the meeting, MSU president Ikram Farah took to the floor to address the issue. According to Farah, by the end of this week, the MSU and university administration expect to see the release of an exact breakdown of affected ancillary fees.
Farah says this expected announcement will guide the MSU’s response moving forward.
During the delegation, Farah highlighted the MSU’s current campaign to mobilize students through promoting an understanding of the effects that these changes will have on McMaster students.
Ikram encouraged the assembly disseminate information regarding the impact and importance of MSU-funded services.
Stephanie Bertolo, MSU vice president (Education) noted a modest victory thus far: initially removed, transit passes have been re-included in the list of mandatory fees under the Ontario government’s student choice initiative.
The SRA meeting also focused heavily on updates on the construction of the Student Activity Building, a four-story building that is projected to feature a grocery store, study spaces, a multi-faith prayer space and a nap room.
According to MSU vice president (Finance) Scott Robinson, the SAB has experienced a minor setback.
Quotes by companies regarding materials and services for the SAB came back much higher than the original 2016-17 projections.
The past four months have been spent negotiating to bring the project back within the parameters of the viable budget.
Initially, construction for the SAB was slated to begin in October.
Robinson reported that these decisions are to be solidified shortly and that the construction of this student space will begin construction in March 2019.
This will likely mean that the SAB is not in full operation by the fall of 2020 as promised.
Apart from these two primary items, much of the meeting was allotted to the opening and closing of seats on the MSU services, university affairs and elections committees.
Another message stressed the meeting was the importance of ensuring that the SRA maintains a respectful environment and allows all voices to flourish.
The next SRA meeting will held at 5 p.m. on Feb 24 in Room 111 of Gilmour Hall.
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By: Diane Doran
Imagine this. You decide to go to grad school. You save up so you can afford tuition, or maybe take out another loan. You juggle courses, TA work, and your own research. You work hard to meet everyone’s expectations. Sometimes you sacrifice your sleep, or your health, or your relationships. You live on a sub-standard wage. You lock yourself away for weeks to write your thesis; if you don’t submit it by the deadline, you’ll be charged for another semester of tuition. You break down at least twice, but you keep going, and one day, against all odds, that sucker looks just about finished. You prepare for your defense and spend the whole night before thinking about the questions you might be asked rather than sleeping. You pass! Only minor revisions. Almost there. You sign all the paperwork. You go back, you make the edits. You make sure you’ve formatted it just the way the university requires. So close. Now all you need to do is submit it to the School of Graduate Studies, but McMaster University has one last nasty surprise left for you: it’s going to cost you.
In order to graduate, you must submit an electronic copy of your thesis to SGS, and in order to do so you must pay exactly $40. Apparently, the thousands of dollars that I paid in tuition and student fees only cover my education — graduation not included.
No, unfortunately, this is not a Monty Python sketch, this is the perennial farce that is McMaster University administration. The mysterious “library and archiving fee,” of which no description can be found, is the final frontier between you and your degree, and it comes as a shock to most graduate students. It’s like buying an airline ticket, getting on the plane, and then being asked to pay a “descent and landing fee” while you’re cruising at 39,000 feet.
Now just to be clear, I am not kicking up such a gigantic fuss just because I now have 40 fewer dollars in my bank account. On vacation, I once spent $20 on a paper puppet in the shape of Spongebob Squarepants that the vendor convinced me would dance on its own when placed next to a stereo. It did not. And yet I’m not nearly as angry about that.
It’s the principle. If publishing your thesis on MacSphere were optional, you’d hear no complaints from this girl. I chose to pay tuition, because I decided I wanted an education. But I had no choice but to pay this fee, if I wanted anything to show for it.
The ransom on your diploma is set at $40, which most of us could probably begrudgingly afford; but not unlike the profits of criminal extortion, the use to which these funds will be put is not at all transparent. McMaster’s policy is for all theses to be uploaded to MacSphere on their library website, where they are searchable and can be accessed by a wider audience. Which is great, but I am profoundly confused as to what part of that is costing us each $40.
Am I paying for an administrative assistant to open my PDF file and drag and drop it onto the website? Am I paying for a tiny amount of space on a server until the end of time, which has been calculated to amount to exactly $40? Until SGS decides to respond to my recent tweet, we’ll never know. More likely, I’m helping to repay the overhead costs of McMaster deciding to invest in new software or platforms, and so are you, because they know, of course, that you’re not leaving without that diploma.
Now, I’m not a totally unreasonable person. If a gym invests in new equipment and a sauna, they have the right to start charging a bit more for membership. That’s how business works, and McMaster University is a business like any other. I understand that. But even if SGS manages to convince me that the “library and archiving fee” is legitimate, why on earth is the fee not included with tuition and student fees at the beginning of the year? Nobody starts a degree thinking “who knows, I might even graduate!” Why is that not part of the deal?
SGS, I believe I speak for disgruntled grads across this campus when I ask you please, don’t wait to trip us right before the finish line.
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The fee that undergraduate students pay to the MSU each year will not be going up next year.
The Student Representative Assembly voted, almost unanimously, to freeze the fee at its current level of $122.61 per student after MSU Vice-President (Finance) Jeffrey Doucet presented the freeze to the Assembly.
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Doucet felt that the current amount of money the MSU collects from each student is enough. The SRA agreed.
“I felt it would be inappropriate to ask students for more money than we need,” he said.
He continued, “Essentially, I made the recommendation to the assembly and they voted to pass it.”
The MSU has a substantial cash reserve which, of course, calls into question the student fees charged to every undergraduate. Despite the excess, Doucet said the freeze was still a better option than a cut.
“The freeze allows is to maintain current levels of services. If we were to look into cutting the fee, we would have to determine which services we felt were no longer providing adequate value to McMaster undergrads,” he said.
A new proposal from the Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities suggests the province is looking to reduce deferral fees, regulate ancillary fees more and put a threshold on flat-fee charges.
According to the Ministry’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, changes to tuition payment and ancillary fees across Ontario could be implemented starting in 2015.
The Ministry outlined a province-wide cap on late fees and reduction in deferral fees. Student advocates have been outspoken about deferral fees being an unnecessary penalty for students struggling financially and those who receive OSAP in two instalments.
While student groups including OUSA and CFS-Ontario acknowledged the Ministry’s work to address the issues, they continue to push for elimination of deferral fees and flat-fee tuition.
Currently at McMaster University, students opting into an OSAP “Flex Plan” are charged $35 per term in deferral fees.
Non-OSAP students unable to make a full payment by Sept. 1 are charged a one-time $35 late fee on top of monthly interest, which amounts to 14.4 per cent annually.
Spencer Graham, Vice-President (Education) of the McMaster Students Union, said deferral fees are unfair and should ideally be eliminated, not just reduced.
“We believe universities should have flexibility in their funds for students who will end up paying their tuition anyway,” Graham said.
The Ontario government also addressed ancillary fees in its proposal. According to OUSA, Ontario students pay some of the highest ancillary fees in the country. The Ministry proposed to clarify that institutions cannot charge extra fees for credential completion or graduation.
“We’re pretty happy the government is starting to talk to us more about technology,” Graham said. “A lot of programs use technology that charges students extra – if those things are made mandatory, that’s not allowed.”
Both the MSU and OUSA are recommending a 20 per cent off rebate for students who have to buy e-learning materials. Their estimate is that 20 per cent is roughly the evaluation component that should already be covered in students’ tuition.
The MSU’s “Stop, You’ve Paid Enough” campaign launched this fall encouraged students to report and take notice of “mandatory” course materials besides textbooks that they had to pay for out of pocket.
For example, software such as APLIA, CAPSIM and Mastering Chemistry should not be mandated by professors for evaluation purposes.
“To get around the Ministry’s rules, professors can make it an optional part of your grades. For organic chemistry, for example, it’s just not included in your course breakdown so you would be evaluated based on 90 per cent instead of 100,” Graham said.
“You may also have the option to have a percentage added to your final exam…But we don’t think students should have to opt out of assignments.”
Graham said he is currently following up on one student’s report of Top Hat Monocle’s interactive classroom software being mandated in a course.
While many students are required to buy iClickers, the technology does not fall with other e-learning materials that cannot be mandated, since students can still use their iClickers or sell them after they complete a course.
The Ministry’s proposal to put an 80 per cent threshold on flat fees would not apply to McMaster, which charges tuition per credit. However, nine universities in Ontario currently have flat-fee models. The University of Toronto, for example, charges students taking a 60 per cent course load the same tuition as students taking a full course load.
Come next fall, full-time students may not have to pay an extra fee if they switch to part-time status in the summer.
On Sept. 29, the Student Representative Assembly voted to nullify a 27-year agreement between the McMaster Students Union (MSU) and the McMaster Association of Part-Time Students (MAPS).
The end of the agreement suggests summer MAPS fees will no longer be collected from students who have already paid fees to the MSU. The decision would be imposed in 2014/15, barring any disagreement from the University’s board of governors.
MAPS would have its budget of roughly $500,000, funded entirely by student fees, slashed by about 50 per cent.
Prior to the SRA vote, full-time students who took a part-time course load during the summer had to pay $7 per unit to MAPS despite paying an MSU fee covering a full 12 months. MSU president David Campbell told the SRA at the Sept. 29 meeting that they had a “moral obligation to act” to end the duplication of fees.
At the end of the discussion period, the SRA voted to end the agreement 26-0 with three abstentions.
“The MSU did not like one provision in an agreement so it threw the baby out with the bathwater. Frankly we don’t know what they want now,” said interim MAPS director Kyle Johansen.
Johansen was hired in July to pick up the pieces of the MAPS spending scandal that had former director Sam Minniti fired.
Regardless of the outcome, Johansen said, "MAPS has no intention of abandoning part-time students. We will continue to advocate for all part-time students."
At the SRA meeting, the atmosphere was tense as Johansen hurriedly read off a statement on why the agreement should not be dissolved. Johansen wanted the matter to be discussed in November rather than be decided last night.
“A year ago, a unilateral decision to end this agreement might have been acceptable to the university community. I don’t think that’s the case today,” Johansen said. He said the new MAPS board was more willing and capable to discuss the issue but needed more time.
In response, MSU president David Campbell said the MSU board was frustrated with MAPS’ unwillingness to negotiate or meet until Aug. 8 despite repeated attempts over eight months.
“When we met with [Johansen] on Aug. 8, he told us in no uncertain terms that he did not consider what we were discussing a priority. He had bigger things that he was hired to address,”Campbell said, after the SRA meeting.
“Our only option was to unilaterally decide that the agreement was null and void,”Campbell said. He added that he did not see how putting off a decision would change the situation.
Campbell said the motion to end the duplication of student fees was in the works in June 2012, before the MAPS spending scandal was exposed in January. Ending the agreement was also part of Campbell’s presidential platform earlier this year.
After the vote, MAPS issued a statement condemning the MSU’s decision to walk away from the contract.
“Unlike the MSU Board who are full-time paid employees, all members of the MAPS Board are volunteers. They have been working practically non-stop to save this organization for seven months,” the statement reads.
MAPS questioned whether or not students could still transfer between the two student associations under a 2007 agreement amending the initial contract.
Campbell dismissed the claims made in MAPS’ statement.
Campbell said the MSU “fully intends to uphold the transferability mechanism.”
“We have an agreement here that is extremely unusual – there is no exit clause except if both parties come together,”Campbell said, of the 1986 agreement. “We’ve done everything we could to negotiate in good faith. This was our only option.”
“In our bylaws, if you’re a member in September, you’re covered for 12 months,” Campbell said.
MAPS stated that their board will meet this week “to review the options are available to us, but our primary focus is to finish the task at hand and present revised by-laws and policies to the Provost for his comments.”
The provincial government announced a new tuition framework last Thursday that allows Ontario universities to increase tuition fees by an average of 3 per cent starting this year.
Though the number is down from the previous framework’s 5 per cent allowance, groups including OUSA, CFS-Ontario and the MSU aren’t satisfied with any increases above inflation.
“It is disappointing that the provincial government has not tied tuition to a more fundamentally fair rate of inflation,” said Huzaifa Saeed, VP (education) of the MSU in a release.
“However, I respect the fact that the old framework was not continued, despite pressure from academic institutions to do just that.”
The new tuition framework will be in place for four years, and the 3 per cent limit on tuition increases applies to most full-time arts and science and college programs. The increase is above Ontario’s average rate of inflation, which is 2 per cent over 10 years.
Tuition for professional and graduate university programs and high-demand college programs are allowed to increase by up to 5 per cent, down from 8 per cent.
According to Saeed, the MSU will now divert its efforts to lobbying for more government investment in the financial aid system. Specifically, the MSU will advocate for eligibility expansion for the 30 off tuition grant and a lower debt cap on the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant.
In a statement responding to the Province’s announcement, OUSA says the new framework “makes progress” toward a more affordable system but has not adopted key recommendations made by students.
OUSA recommended last fall that the government freeze tuition for at least a year and increase per-student funding at the rate of inflation.
CFS-Ontario recommended this past February that tuition fees be reduced by 30 per cent over the next three years.
McMaster is known to have the cheapest but sparsest student health insurance plan in the province.
But at Sunday’s SRA meeting, a motion was passed to allow for a referendum to ask students if they want an extended health plan that would include vision care, oral contraceptives and paramedical care.
Extending coverage to all three categories would result in a $47 increase in student fees.
The referendum, which would be attached to the 2013-14 Presidential Ballot, would offer students the choice for no increase, a $15 increase for vision care, a $19 increase for oral contraceptives or a $47 increase for the vision, oral contraceptives and paramedical care package.
Paramedical care includes vaccines, physiotherapy, massage therapy, chiropractic and naturopathic care, psychiatric care and speech therapy. In some cases, there is only partial coverage of these services.
Simon Granat, SRA Social Sciences, who introduced the motions and was part of the Health Care Task Force, noted that McMaster has one of the few student unions that doesn’t provide more comprehensive care.
The Assembly was especially concerned with how a change to the healthcare plan would impact the MSU’s current opt out policy. Currently, students can choose to opt out of the health plan, the dental plan or both. However, students who choose to do this must prove to the MSU that you have equal or comparable coverage.
Jeff Wyngaarden, MSU VP Finance, explained that under a new plan, “equal and comparable” coverage would need to be re-defined.
Under the new policy, students would most likely not be able to opt out of specific segments while choosing to use others. Oral contraceptives was specifically mentioned as an example of coverage that some students may want to opt out of.
Granat identified oral contraceptives as a core part of the coverage, ensuring equitable coverage for all those who may face financial barriers. He also reiterated the importance for men to “step up” to this.
However, Wyngaarden stated that a change to the plan represented a fundamental shift from solely emergency care to a more supplementary plan that provided services that were “tangential” in nature.
This prompted a noticeable response from several representatives who argued that these services were in fact essential to student life and members should not be debating about particulars of services that should ultimately be decided by students in a referendum.
Granat explained that by putting the referendum on next year’s Presidential ballot it gave the Healthcare Taskforce and the MSU ample time to hash out details and would guarantee quorum on the vote.
A student survey is also planned to gauge students’ interest on an extended healthcare plan and to understand the impact of increased fees on students.
“The survey is ready but we just held it off because there have been a lot of surveys recently and there could be survey fatigue,” explained Granat. “[But] I think there is a hunger for this and I think a survey won’t hurt us by seeking feedback.”
Wyngaarden explained how he would be interested to understand why students would vote against the referendum, especially if they found the costs to be prohibitive on top of their tuition or the services inapplicable.
Granat argued that part of the plan’s intent should be to provide equitable coverage to all students, mimicking the vision of the greater Canadian healthcare system.
“Students would be paying slightly over $100 per year, which is still $12.43 less than the provincial average, and possibly getting a better plan than they get from their parents. I think this is a risk we [the MSU] should be willing to take.
The board of the McMaster Association of Part-time Students will meet with its members on Feb. 5 for an annual general meeting. And at this year’s gathering, they’ll have a little more to answer for.
McMaster University launched a probe of MAPS last summer following allegations of irresponsible spending. It has been withholding a portion of part-time student fees collected for the organization while the investigation is ongoing.
The University made the decision “in light of significant concerns that were raised regarding MAPS’ business practices,” it said in a December public statement.
The 2011 earnings of MAPS executive director Sam Minniti appeared on Ontario’s 2012 public salary disclosure list at $126,152. It was the first time since he became executive director in 2005 that his salary has shown up on the ‘sunshine’ list, which discloses the salaries of all employees on public sector payroll making more than $100,000 annually.
UPDATE: The Hamilton Spectator reported this week that Minniti was also given $101,116 in retroactive pay in 2011.
Although MAPS is not a public organization, Minniti’s earnings were listed because McMaster University processes MAPS’ payroll.
The retroactive pay, though, was not processed through McMaster.
“Any salary that comes in [through McMaster], anything that’s issued on a T4, shows up on a ‘sunshine’ list,” said Andrea Farquhar, McMaster’s assistant vice-president of public and government relations, to the Silhouette.
Minniti and MAPS president Jeanette Hunter have declined interviews with the Silhouette on multiple occasions.
MAPS represents all McMaster students taking fewer than 18 units in an academic session, as well as continuing education students. Although it is incorporated separately from McMaster, the University charges fees on the Association’s behalf.
“McMaster took this extraordinary measure to protect the interests of part-time students,” read a December statement from the University.
MAPS currently charges part-time students membership fees of $7 per unit. The Association requested an increase to $10 per unit last year, but was denied by McMaster’s Board of Governors at an April meeting. The Board pointed out that the fee had risen from $5 per unit three years prior, and felt that there was insufficient evidence presented for the need of this second increase.
“That’s not usual,” said Farquhar of the denied fee increase. “There are some times, certainly, when requests for fee increases are sent back; it’s not that it never happens. But it doesn’t tend to be the norm. I think that probably began with some people starting to ask questions.”
MAPS bylaws last approved in 2008, which are absent from the Association’s website but were obtained by the Silhouette, say that MAPS must present finan- cial statements to its members at an annual general meeting each February.
“Several months ago con- cerns were raised about some of MAPS’ spending practices over a period of time including, salaries, expenses and reimbursements, travel and office costs,” read a Dec. 21 statement from MAPS.
“The Board reviewed these significant and serious concerns, identified means to ensure it adheres to best business prac- tices and committed itself to an enhanced governance structure for consideration by the member- ship at its next [annual general meeting].”
When contacted in late No- vember 2012, Minniti and Hunter declined to share financial statements with The Silhouette. The MAPS bylaws also say that a new board of directors must be elected at the general meeting.
The board, it adds, must be made up of “not less than 10 and not more than 16 directors.” The board currently has five members.
The Hamilton Spectator spoke with former MAPS presi- dent Elaine Marion earlier this month about allegations that she used part-time student fees for a trip to Italy.
“This was not a vacation; this was a course and I was a student,” Marion told the Spectator.
She explained that a bursary allowed her to take art theory classes in Italy.
“The board was looking for ways to support [the program] ... this was an investment in art his- tory at McMaster,” she added.
There is not yet a definitive timeline for when the Univer- sity’s investigation of MAPS will conclude.
SRA passes motion to allow club to ask for a levy of $0.90 per student
Three years ago, Joshua Patenaude attended the very first general meeting of the McMaster Marching Band.
It was small then. It had just received ratification as an MSU club, and was finding its feet with meager funding and only a few members.
But now that the Band has grown in size and in reputation, Patenaude, who is now group’s president, feels that it’s time to move forward.
“We’ve been doing a lot of it on our own,” he said, “but it’s gotten to the point where we need funding to continue on.”
When the student body votes for the McMaster Students Union’s next president in January, a referendum question will appear on the ballot. It will ask whether students are willing to pay $0.90 each annually (indexed to CPI) to support McMaster’s marching band.
If passed, the fee would provide the band with close to $19,000 next year.
The money would go to costs like buying and repairing instruments, renting practicing space, investing in new uniforms, paying instructors and covering fees charged to play at certain events.
“We think this [money] will go a long way to sustain the band and to keep it open to the McMaster community,” said Patenaude.
Western University has had a marching band since 1938. The Queen’s Bands have been around since 1905.
Students wishing to join the marching band will continue to pay a membership fee, likely in the $65-$75 range, said Patenaude. The added money will, though, make the band more accessible in other ways. Members will not have to provide their own instruments, and the size of the band could expand to upwards of 70 people.
“If you have a passion about music, if you have a passion about committing to the spirit of McMaster, we want to make that a reality for you. We don’t want obstacles in the way,” said Patenaude.
The referendum was approved by the SRA at its Nov. 25 meeting.
In order to get a referendum on the presidential election ballot, a student must either collect the signatures of three per cent of the full-time undergraduate student body (roughly 600 signatures) or get approval from the SRA.
As they put together a proposal for the latter, the Marching Band was also collecting signatures. By the meeting, they had collected 391.
The Marching Band had initially asked the SRA to approve a proposal for a $1 fee per student. According to their budgeting, that number would cover operating expenses while leaving a little wiggle room for growth or unanticipated capital purchases. The Assembly chose to instead approve $0.90, which would only cover the expected operating costs.
Balloting for the MSU presidential election, and for the referendum, will take place from Jan. 29 to 31.
