SU Elections 2022 Q&A: Education Students’ Association Faculty Association Membership Fee

In addition to electing new student representatives, the Students’ Union 2022 election will give full-time faculty of education students the opportunity to vote on the Education Students’ Association’s (ESA’s) faculty association membership fee (FAMF).

The fee put forward by the ESA would be $8.00 per Fall semester, per student in the faculty of education. The money collected would provide education students with specialized professional development events, volunteer opportunities, and on-campus services such as snacks available for students.

Representing the ESA in this Q&A is Edward Tiet, third year education student and current ESA vice-president (finance).

The following interview has been condensed and simplified for clarity.

What is this referendum trying to accomplish?

Edward Tiet: With this referendum, we are trying to establish the FAMF again. FAMF, for those don’t know, is our Faculty Association Membership Fee, where every year students pay $8.00 out of the tuition and that goes into the ESA’s operating budget. With that budget, we create professional development events; we have volunteer opportunities. We also have free food in our office so students can come to the ESA office and get free snacks if they want.

For students who don’t know, what is ESA?

Tiet: The ESA is the Education Students’ Association for the faculty of education. We are also a student local — number one for the Alberta Teachers Association. We represent the undergraduate students’ association for the faculty.

If this plebiscite passes, how much will students be paying and how was that cost determined?

Tiet: $8.00 per year, it will be only taken during the Fall term. If the referendum gets passed, it will be valid from 2022, which has to then be renewed in 2025. The cost is determined by the last FAMF, which was also $8.00. We didn’t want to encounter inflation since tuition is already arising and we wanted to keep it the same so students have the same benefits that they had before without paying any more than they have to.

Will all students be paying this fee?

Tiet: Yes — all undergraduate students in the faculty [of education] would be paying this fee.

Why do you think students should care about the work being done by the ESA?

Tiet: Students should care because we are the number one student local for the Alberta Teachers Association. We do a lot of professional development events; all of those can be very critical and useful to us as a teacher, as well as the resources and knowledge that you gain from everything that we help out with in the faculty.

–With files from Jin He