{"id":18396,"date":"2019-10-23T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18396"},"modified":"2019-10-24T09:18:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T16:18:02","slug":"camosun-college-student-society-raises-concerns-over-proposed-camosun-board-of-governors-student-suspension-appeal-process-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/10\/23\/camosun-college-student-society-raises-concerns-over-proposed-camosun-board-of-governors-student-suspension-appeal-process-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College Student Society raises concerns over proposed Camosun board of governors student suspension appeal process changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) has raised concerns over a proposed revision to the Camosun College Board Executive Committee Terms of Reference that concerns how student suspension appeals are heard and processed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The college executive committee is made up of appointed members from Camosun\u2019s board of governors. The board of governors consists of members appointed by the government, faculty-elected faculty representation, support-staff-elected support-staff representation, and two student-elected students.<\/p>\n

When a student is suspended from Camosun, they may file an appeal. Historically, this appeal is heard by the college board, including the student representatives, and the executive committee\u2019s role is to provide recommendations. Under the revised policy, appeals would be heard exclusively by the executive committee, which is not required to have student representatives on it.<\/p>\n

The CCSS has sent a letter outlining their concerns to the Camosun board.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned about the proposed policy change, because we think it would lead to a reduction in fairness for our members who may find themselves suspended by the president,\u201d says CCSS executive director Michel Turcotte. \u201cEmpowering the executive committee to hear appeals is disadvantageous to students because it does not allow for any of the internal representation that is mandated by the College and Institute Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Camosun College Student Society has filed a letter outlining its concerns to the Camosun board of governors (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Turcotte says that he doesn\u2019t believe this change was proposed with the intent to exclude students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t believe that was necessarily the intended consequence of the proposed policy change,\u201d he says. \u201cWe believe [they] were trying to clean up the wording of the executive committee bylaw, initially, because it is a bit convoluted in some respects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun board of governors chair Laylee Rohani was unavailable for comment. A college representative confirmed to Nexus<\/i> that the board members will be receiving the CCSS\u2019 letter prior to their November 4 meeting and won\u2019t be making any decisions before their December 2 meeting.<\/p>\n

The CCSS student board approved paying for legal advice regarding college concerns that student involvement in appeals may result in a conflict of interest. The lawyers the CCSS went to, Arvay Finlay LLP, said they feel there would be no conflict in allowing students to be involved in the process. They also found that other institutions allow students to be involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have close to 10,000 members, in terms of the student society,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cMaybe [there would be a conflict] if you were the person\u2019s brother or sister, or some other reason, but you\u2019re not in any conflict of interest purely by being a student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turcotte also says that there shouldn\u2019t be concerns about students feeling uncomfortable if placed in a position to sustain or repeal the suspension of a peer.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents who run for election on the board of governors, I don\u2019t think are the type to feel uncomfortable with having to make decisions that come with being in those government bodies,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you look at most post-secondary institutions, appeal processes of various kinds have students involved, and in my experience, I actually find that students are harder on their peers than non-students, in the processes I\u2019ve witnessed, because they actually have a better contextual understanding, and so sometimes that does not work in the benefit of the appellant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turcotte says that while it may seem unusual for the student society to invest time and money into this issue when suspension appeals are so rare, it\u2019s crucial to uphold the principles of student rights that the CCSS fights for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important for the reading public to know that the student society\u2014and all student societies, generally\u2014this is one of the reasons [they] exist, to help ensure that students are treated fairly in all aspects of their college relationship,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so, for us, even though suspension appeals are very rare at Camosun, this issue is one of those bread-and-butter issues, because we can\u2019t just stand by and watch representation models change in a manner that disadvantages our members.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) has raised concerns over a proposed revision to the Camosun College Board Executive Committee Terms of Reference that concerns how student suspension appeals are heard and processed.\u00a0 The college executive committee is made up of appointed members from Camosun\u2019s board of governors. The board of governors consists of members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october-23-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18398,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18396\/revisions\/18398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}