By Lilian Obeng
On Oct. 1, 2018 the McMaster Students Union released its annual University Budget Submission. The point of the document is to demonstrate that students pay attention to the university’s spending, and by extension, priorities. As per the university’s budget for the 2018-2019 academic year, our student contributions via our tuition fees account for approximately 47 per cent of the McMaster University’s available funds.
The stated purpose of the submission document is to provide university administration an outline on how to reallocate existing funds to support student interests.
Highlighted in the document are recommendations to increase funding for the MSU Emergency First Response Team and the Equity and Inclusion Office, hire an additional counsellor, release exam schedules earlier, provide more open educational resources, discontinue the outdated Pebblepad feature and request more environmentally sustainable practices at the university level. Also guiding the direction of the document were the budgets and purported spending of similar institutions across Ontario.
The spirit and purpose of the submission is sound, but what is frustrating is the lack of teeth contained within the document. It fails to address how the university actively spends money to the detriment of student life both on and off campus.
The best and most visible example of this is the exclusion of Security Services’ hiring of Hamilton’s ACTION squad to patrol student areas. McMaster spends student-provided funds to increase the policing of students. This not only presents a threat to marginalized students given the ACTION squad’s history of racial profiling, it means that students are being used as a quick cash grab by the city for minor, undisruptive bylaw offences.
Combined with the massive, ineffective and at times violent enforcement projects that take place during special occasions like Homecoming and St. Patrick’s Day, a considerable amount of money is not being disclosed to students by the university, and thus is excluded from the MSU’s advocacy efforts.
The submission is also decidedly limited in its recommendations to the university regarding financial accessibility. As with the MSU’s educational campaign, financial accessibility is only addressed through OERs and lowered textbook costs.
By all means, learning materials are increasingly expensive and certainly a place to look when attempting to reduce costs, but efforts should not stop there. To exclude topics such as tuition, and more concretely, scholarships and bursaries, is to fail to meaningfully address the sources of the financial burden placed on students.
Another area of concern are the institutions the submission document cites as inspiration like the University of Toronto. It must be stated that the university is a business, and some universities take that identity to the extreme detriment of students. Schools like University of Toronto are intent on privatization and intend to make that happen soon.
McMaster is a publicly funded school and will be for the foreseeable future; we as students should be wary of the unintended outcomes of ignoring the broader political context we inhabit, and inadvertently advocating for changes that harm future students.
The practice of developing documentation such as the university budget submission should continue. It provides professional development opportunities to students working within the MSU, allows students to participate in the creation of policy and demonstrates our organizing capacity and legitimacy to university stakeholders. We should take special care, however, to ensure that students are being properly communicated with, and that our advocacy is meaningful and concrete.
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By: Alex Bak
McMaster University boasts one of the highest-ranking school food services with Centro at Commons claiming fourth place in the Huffington Post’s 2015 list.
It is also home to various food choices that services all kinds of tastes as well as cultural and dietary restrictions with vegetarian options at Bridge’s Café and gluten-free options for certain dishes.
Though this is true in some respects, it neglects the financial concerns and burdens that students face in order for this to be true.
An aspect of this rather idealistic market of eateries that shrouds a disregard for student finances is the Mac Express Meal Plan that is mandatory for first-year students living in residence.
This program is meant to be easy and convenient for students, but does not accounting for the ease and convenience of the students to fund such an exorbitant amount of money.
As an upper-year student who has lived in off-campus student housing and prepped meals instead of purchasing food on campus, I ended up spending around $50 a week to eat healthy, nutritious meals while still eating out on occasion.
With the minimum meal plan for non-apartment or suite-style students being $3,955, a mass equaling half of most programs’ tuition, it is a program that can devastatingly pressure the students’ financial burden.
To make things worse, McMaster Hospitality Services implemented an additional policy that 50 per cent of your meal plan money is set aside as “pre-paid overhead costs” for operating residence dining halls.
This will be deducted from the start offset with the 50 per cent discount on campus food, with any leftover funds being carried over becoming non-discountable for students after the year is over.
Unlike the printing accounts that students have to print at McMaster libraries, the meal plan does not guarantee your leftover money back the way PrintSmart does, which further contributes to the financial concerns of the McMaster meal plan.
This policy puts yet another load on students to finish their already unaccommodating meal plans to not be stricken with this penalty.
These implementations that are incognizant of possible burden almost act punitive in nature. These deter certain individuals from enrolling into residence and forces them to opt for off-campus housing for their first-year possibly missing out of a once-in-a-lifetime experience and social environment of residences.
The real issue is that those who work to promote the meal plan to students hide behind the slogan of “a plan to fit all needs”.
This slogan is untrue and needs to be reconsidered on the grounds of nutrition and convenience as well as the financial burden that it brings to students.
In addition to obliging students to eat on campus, the meal plan does not encourage students to discover the Hamilton community and experience new places.
It also does not allow students to attain the valuable skills to budget time and money, which is an important skill that first-year residence students and students in general should learn.
University is meant to teach students the importance of budgeting responsibilities with basic everyday routines like making time to eat, but the meal plan counters this experience for first year student on residence.
A policy that is ignorant of the ranging financial situation of the students is one that needs to be revisited.
This is not an argument against abolishing the program, as it has irrefutable perks such saving a lot of time to put towards academics, rather an awareness to unsuitable and ill-fitting standards for mandatory financial obligations for students.
It is important that incoming students as well as hospitality services understand the concerns that come with the student meal plan and work towards improving the experience and service for future students.
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By: Sophie Gettros
In August, I received the following Facebook message from a high school classmate:
“My little sister is starting at Mac in September. She’s terrified, and none of us have any advice to give her.”
The new McMaster student was disabled, so I helped her figure out how to access academic accommodations. She was LGBTQ+ identified, so I showed her where the QSCC was. She was a first generation student, and I had no idea how to help her.
Numerous studies have shown that first generation students have distinct needs from their peers. They are more likely to be part-time or non-traditional students, more likely to live off campus, more likely to work, more likely to receive OSAP, more likely to be student parents and more likely to access food support such as the Mac Bread Bin during their time at McMaster. In colleges and universities across North America, there have been concerted efforts to provide the support these students need to meet their unique challenges.
McMaster, on the other hand, can’t even tell you how many first-generation students are currently attending the school.
Although the Student Success Centre has recently revived their First Gen programming, including peer mentors and access to career counseling, there are many areas of university life where the needs of first-gen students are simply not taken into account. Accessibility is a buzzword that is thrown around a lot in student government circles, and last year’s presidential and VP elections included references to every possible kind of accessibility and every possible kind of barrier — except for financial accessibility.
While the subject occasionally comes up when there is yet another debate about adding an extra dollar to the MSU student fee, it almost never comes up when discussing the length of SRA meetings, the remuneration for PTMs and other MSU employees, or the ratio of volunteer-to-paid positions available in the MSU. In my time at McMaster, I have seen otherwise eloquent and progressive members of the SRA hit a mental wall when they are asked about first generation students: all of the first generation student programming offered at McMaster comes through the Student Success Centre and the university itself, rather than the MSU.
This programming is not a substitute for student-run initiatives, just as the existence of the Equity and Inclusion Office is not a substitute for MSU Diversity Services. On seemingly every other axis of oppression, we understand that peer support and community programming is most effective when it comes from students who share an identity. We are able to understand that academia is a system built on the systemic exclusion of women, disabled people and racialized people, but somehow forget that it is also built on the exclusion of the working class. The MSU not only fails to alleviate this exclusion, it actively contributes to it.
Student government is by and large financially inaccessible to first generation students: 10 hour SRA meetings do not neatly fit alongside multiple part time jobs and family commitments. There are few paid positions within the MSU, and very few are paid a living wage. For every paid position that is posted on the MSU website, there are half a dozen volunteer positions. And if you are unable to commit many hours of free
labour to the MSU via volunteer positions, you are unlikely to even be considered for one of the paid roles.
Failing to address equity on campus has real world consequences. Studies have shown that first-generation students with degrees fare worse on every socioeconomic measure than their middle class peers — even if those peers did not attend or complete university.
It’s time for the MSU to recognize first-generation students as an equity-seeking group with unique needs, and it is long past time for our needs to be considered on the same level as any other marginalized group. There is nothing progressive about politics that leaves people behind.
