Market modifiers get ESS support

Dan McKechnie

PLAYING DEFENCE Dustin Stewart, vice president (finance and operations) of the ESS explains the reasoning behind the organization’s support of market modifiers.

In an open letter to the provincial minister of Advanced Education & Technology, the Engineering Students' Society at the University of Alberta has supported the implementation of tuition market modifiers to solve the $60-million University deficit.

The letter is the first kind of public statement of this nature made by the ESS in at least three years according to its board of directors, who spoke about the controversial decision at a town hall forum on Tuesday where many students condemned the statement.

Several students in attendance went so far as to accuse the ESS of working against student interests by openly supporting increased costs.

"The faculty emailed the students saying they were going to hold an information session on market modifiers, it didn't say you were going to be making decisions on our behalf," said Steve Cecchini, an undergraduate engineer, referring to a previous engineering town hall meeting on January 13 to discuss the dean of Engineering's market modifier proposal.

The current proposal will see tuition rates climb anywhere from $500–$1,700 depending on the class.
"You can't sit here and say this is guaranteed to happen because it's not guaranteed to happen. You're giving that right to the government and guaranteeing that they will do this," Cecchini continued.

In response to the allegations of a lack of student consultation, the board cited student disinterest, and the need to formulate a position quickly.

"We held a forum on January 13 [...] We could have held another forum, but the fact was, we wanted to deal with this as quickly and efficiently as possible. My gauge from that was that there were 20 students in the room," said ESS Vice President (External) Claire Smith, who drafted the position letter.

"When no one shows up to something like that, I think no one cares. And I'm sorry, but that is what I felt."

The letter was drafted by the ESS board of directors executive, approved by the board and included in the dean's proposal. Students at the townhall also raised transparency issues with the letter's delivery, as minutes from the board's meetings dating from Fall 2009 were off the ESS website until February of this year. Also, board meeting times aren't currently posted online.

"This is not a conventional position for a students' association," said Students' Union Vice President (Academic) Leah Truebood.

"The ESS is one of the U of A's strongest and most effective university-level faculty associations. But it's the role of the Students' Union to represent all of the groups collectively, externally."

Trueblood, who was consulted by the ESS in the formulation of the document, distanced the SU from the decision.

"I feel that students have different opinions, but they're not divided. At the end of the day, students want education to be accessible, and at the end of the day, we're the ultimate authority on that, and we respectfully disagree with the Engineering Students' Society," she said.

The ESS denied functioning as a lobby group, insisting that the statement had been formulated as a position document, and was not intended to advocate in either direction of the debate.

"We just wrote a position letter. [The ESS is] not a lobby group; We're not going to go to Parliament," Smith said.

Dustin Stewart, ESS vice president (finance and operations) explained that the decision was made to preserve the integrity of program quality, and came with several clauses stipulating that market modifiers only be applied under certain conditions. The document insists that market modifiers be allocated only to courses with more than three hours of lecture time, funds be split 60 and 40 per cent between the faculty and administration, respectively, a grandfathering process to accommodate already-registered students, and a focus on the creation of merit-based scholarships.

Stewart also insisted that the ESS does not, and has not, advocated for tuition increases or the proposed Common Student Space, Sustainability and Security fee being debated as a solution to the University's budget deficit.

"The ESS does not support the CoSSS fee because it is not a sustainable or controllable solution to this deficit. The CoSSS fee proposal [has] no mandatory consultation period," he said.

"Market modifiers, what we're discussing, is in no way tied to the CoSSS fee. It is a proactive, long-term solution to ensure that the Faculty of Engineering is able to maintain its world class reputation."

Stewart explained that the increased cost of lab components for resource-intensive engineering labs combined with the application of market modifiers to a course's fee index units, students would see corresponding increases in the quality of their programs with a well-controlled and implemented market modifier scheme.

But the public declaration has still stirred conflict on campus, especially among those concerned with accessibility, explained Trueblood.

"Conventionally, student associations say access is foundational to quality. So quality is impossible if we're not making sure that every qualified applicant who can be here is here, regardless of means. One of the converses of that is, if we don't have quality education, why does it matter?"