SuppliedEach year, The Gateway publishes an evaluation of the Students’ Union Executive and the Board of Governors representative. It’s impossible to discuss every aspect of their tenures, so these reports are largely based on the major components of the platform each executive campaigned on, and the most significant responsibilities of their respective positions.
And if you’re short for time, check out our TLDR for a bite-sized breakdown.
Abner Monteiro: B+
The role of the vice-president (academic) is to advocate for all the academic aspects of students’ lives. In a time of online learning, that has meant a lot of advocacy about online learning for this role.
In the most recent online switch, things like speaking out against SEM monitoring, recording lectures, and in-person midterms for remote students have once again become a priority for the Students’ Union. Monteiro spearheaded the recent list of demands released to the university to improve the quality and conditions of online learning for students. The list includes the online learning concerns, in addition to things like getting rid of Exceptional Tuition Increase (ETI) proposals and increasing mental health supports.
Win for textbook costs made and exploration credits on the horizon
Monteiro told me the thing he was most proud of achieving this year was improving the relationship between faculty associations, Student Representative Associations (SRA), and the Students’ Union. One of the ways he said he did this was by fulfilling his platform promise of organizing a three day SRA summit. All 16 SRAs attended. He added that his part in fighting the exceptional tuition increases was meeting with all of the SRAs to hear their concerns.
However, Monteiro’s primary collaborative project this year has been advocating for exploration credits with Rowan Ley, Students’ Union president. This is essentially a long-term no credit/credit system that would allow students to explore a few different courses without stressing too much about their GPA. This means that students who are doing poorly in a course would be able to take a credit/no credit grade as opposed to a letter grade for a set number of courses. This idea is not new, and already is a successful program at the University of British Columbia.
Monteiro told me exploration credits can help encourage multidisciplinarity and more compassionate grading. Like Ley, Monteiro felt confident that it will get through a vote in General Faculties Council (GFC) in March, “which means that it’s going to get implemented in 2022-2023, which is very exciting and a very successful win for the Students’ Union.”
And he’s not wrong. If this goes through its a big deal; the Students’ Union has not had a long-term academic win like this since fall reading week. Hopefully Ley and Monteiro and right and they are able to follow through on this. If this doesn’t go through, I’m not sure Monteiro’s legacy will be very substantive.
The other major achievement for Monteiro was getting the Zero Textbook Cost Indicator Program to go through. Monteiro told me this program saved students $7 million but then two weeks later in council, they were reporting $9 million. Based on this initial discrepancy I was somewhat skeptical of these numbers, thinking they may be an exaggeration. They are calculated based on the Students’ Union’s “cost estimates for how much students spend on textbooks per semester.” However, this seems to assume that every student is paying an average of $115 per class on textbooks; this leaves out the fact that many students (myself included) buy their textbooks primarily used, or just don’t buy the textbook at all.
While I’m suspicious there may be some exaggeration here, this was certainly a great accomplishment nonetheless — especially for first year students who are often buying expensive textbooks new. This win also comes after many years of empty promises about tackling textbook costs, so it is nice to see some substantial traction.
Brain Pop and syllabus implementation of CSRR fall by the wayside
One of Monteiro’s platform points was to mandate the Charter of Student Rights and Responsibilities (CSRR) be included in syllabi. This however, has not gone through. Monteiro told me the university wants to change some of the formatting, “so it hasn’t been included there yet, but I’m continuing to advocate for it.”
Another platform point I’m not so sure will go through is Brain Pop; a convention to get undergraduates interested in research. This was first brought in by Joel Agarwal while he was in the vice-president (academic) role and it was consequently killed the next year by the pandemic. Monteiro wanted to bring it back, and says he is hoping it can happen in March in person, but that is looking unlikely to me. In fact, during the time of our interview Monteiro said that there haven’t been any plans set in motion yet.
“I haven’t had a chance to plan something of that nature because of the changes to being in person and being online,” said Monteiro.
March is by no means far away, and I have not seen any rumblings that would indicate this event will happen. Like with many of the executives, I find it a bit convenient that so many of their promises are definitely, maybe, probably scheduled for March — the last full month of the term.
I would have liked to see more outreach and communication with the student body from Monteiro, like many of the other executives. He said that his primary avenue for doing this was social media, and while there has been some good recent updates in his portfolio on the UASU Instagram, there could have been more throughout the year.
TLDR: Monteiro had some admirable success this year with his implementation of the Zero Textbook Cost Indicator Program and he made his mark by introducing a new SRA summit to strengthen the Student’ Union’s relationships. However, his greatest achievement still lies ahead; the introduction of exploration credits would be a huge victory for Monteiro and the Students’ Union as a whole — if they end up going through that is. A few of his other promises have fallen by the wayside and whether or not this one will follow through remains to be seen.
A-range: This person has fulfilled the promises they campaigned on and more, has created tangible change during their tenure, and has shown a commitment to improving the lives of students. Their GPA is top tier.
B-range: This person has done their job consistently well, but has not made any remarkable changes, or has fallen short on important goals they set out in their platforms. They’re doing fine, but it’s nothing to phone home about.
C-range: This person has done their job sufficiently, but has failed to make significant progress in the areas most relevant to their portfolio, or has essentially abandoned a major part of their platform. They’re still passing with a safe buffer though, and Cs get degrees!
D-range: This person has done a very lacklustre job, and has not sufficiently fulfilled their campaign promises or the responsibilities of their position.
F-range: This person has not done their job, has not represented students, and has not fulfilled their campaign promises whatsoever.
