[GSA Council] Complaint about council decision: Board of governors

[Houda MADNOUNE]

I would like to draw attention to the actions of Board of governors
representative Firas Al Hammoud over the past four months and ask for your
guidance, because his harassment is making me very uncomfortable during the
last 3 council meeting,

Up until the October  Council meeting, although your resolution remains
unclear to me, it was my duty to report back to Council about the Board of
Governors. When I approached Firas for a report in September he admitted he
did not attend the first meeting. We also asked for his resignation from
Council at this point in time due to non-attendance. Upon further
conversations with Me. Danielle Tessier I also found out that he did not
even send his regrets or a reason for his absence. In this era of
austerity, it is important that we have clear communications with our
representative to the Board of Governors, for when cuts happen it is this
body that will ultimately decide. Firas has indicated that he will not
divulge confidential information, which is his right, although it should be
noted that during a much more sensitive time in 2012 our previous
representative was forthcoming with all board actions and decisions, even
those taken behind closed doors. Granted, I do not have firsthand knowledge
of this, but by all indications information was shared much more freely. He
continues to state that he will not share information with the Council. On
a personal level, I have found Firas' approach this to border upon
threatening to me personally, as was witnessed by several members at the
October 23 General Assembly when he repeatedly waved his papers in my face
in spite of my pleading with him that I had to attend to other obvious
pressing matters.

I understand that he was upset at me personally for what he perceived to be
a personal attack, but the decision to approach Council about his actions
was taken by the entire Executive Team in place at that time. It is also
plainly clear that regardless of what occurred afterwards he failed to
represent our interests at the first Board meeting. For the sake of my own
mental health I would like to put this matter to rest. I would ask that
Council mandate that Firas provide monthly reports in two formats, one that
is held confidentially within Council and only distributed via hard copy
that must be returned at the end of Council and a second for our members to
be placed in the public domain if the Council deems this necessary. Again,
in this era of enforced austerity, with what appears to be weak leadership
from within the University Administration given that they are accepting the
cuts without even a murmur of dissent it is imperative that student voices
be heard. This responsibility is too large to place in the hands of any one
individual. As such I believe it is vital that Firas take his cues for
action based upon his own moral code, but also with the full knowledge and
input of Council. I am of course open to other solutions, but I do wish to
find a way to move past this conflict so that we can best protect the
interests of Concordia graduate students on a go-forward basis.
-- 
*Houda MADNOUNE*
President

Graduate Students Association
Concordia University
2030 Mackay · Montreal · QC · H3N 1J1
tel  514.848.2424.x7900  ·   fax  514.848.7904

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