As Vice President University Affairs, a student senator, and a student, I have the following requests for the Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Composition of Senate.
I owe some of these suggestions to Nicholas Dunn in 2017, Tre Mansdoerfer in 2018, and Madeleine Wilson in 2019. Dunn and Wilson requested early revisions of the Senate composition that were not granted.
1. Maintain a majority of elected academic staff
The 2014 review of Senate indicates that keeping over 50 per cent elected academic staff is integral to the identity of Senate. They wrote, “the Committee believes it is important to preserve this historical majority” (https://www.mcgill.ca/senate/files/senate/d13-66_ad_hoc_committee_to_review_the_composition_of_senate_report.pdf).
2. Add seats for union representatives
Workers are fundamental to fulfilling McGill’s academic mission. McGill prides itself on its rating as a top employer (https://reporter.mcgill.ca/mcgill-rated-one-of-montreals-top-employers/). As such, it should make efforts to incorporate workers into decisions that affect the entire McGill community. I propose the addition of a seat for an AGSEM, AMURE, AMUSE, MCLIU, MUNACA, and SEU representative.
3. Have unions elect representatives for their faculty
When faculties have unions, these unions should be responsible for electing representatives, in line with McGill’s committment to collegiality between administrators and professors. Specifically, AMPL should elect law representatives, AMPFA its arts representatives, and AMPE its education representatives.
4. Add seats for course lecturers
Course lecturers are vital to the quality of education that McGill students receive and should be included in Senate.
5. Add seats for SSMU members
At SSMU, we divide our 13 Senators in the following way:
President, VP University Affairs, 2 representatives from Arts, and 1 representative from Science, Arts and Science, Education, Management, Medicine, Law, Engineering, Music, and Nursing. Each undergraduate faculty association selects their representative. We are currently unable to offer student Senate seats to the Schools of Social Work & Physical and Occupational Therapy, as well as the Faculty of Dentistry, all of whom operate their own independent student associations. Additionally, because of an increase in the size of the department, the SUS (Science Undergraduate Society) is interested in having another representative.
6. Require that those elected from faculty not be Vice Deans, Associate Deans, or Associate Vice-Presidents
Out of the elected members, there are 8 who occupy administrative positions of Vice Deans, Associate Deans, or Associate Vice-Presidents. An election where some candidates are in positions of power over other candidates cannot be considered fair.
7. Move allocation from faculty restricted seats to at-large representation
There is often a discrepancy between seats allocated to a faculty and interest within that faculty. This can cause year-long vacancies in seats that could be eagerly filled by otherwise qualified academics. Senate has a preoccupation with representativeness that conflicts with the responsibility of fellows identified by the Secretary General in correspondance with SSMU in 2019: “when voting, each Senator is asked to bear in mind the University’s best interests and not just those of his or her constituency”.
8. Add a seat for MCGSS
Undergraduates from the Macdonald campus have a permanent seat on Senate, but graduate students from the Macdonald campus don’t. In a question submitted to Senate on May 15, 2017, Senators Dunn, Sobat, and Singh write “the academic needs of MCGSS members are often distinct from those of other PGSS members and deserve to be represented at Senate” (https://www.mcgill.ca/senate/files/senate/question_and_response_regarding_senate_composition.pdf).
9. Update the Religious Studies Faculty
The Statutes make reference to a Senate seat for a Faculty member from the School of Religious Studies, which is now part of the Faculty of Arts.
10. Incorporate Indigenous McGill Community Members
Call to Action 22 of the Final Report of the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education calls for increased Indigenous representation in University governance, particularly at the levels of Senate and the Board. As of when the section was last updated in November 2022, this item is listed as ‘Achieved’ because “There is discussion of a potential Senate seat”. To list this item as Achieved, and then to deny Indigenous stakeholders a seat, would be incredibly misleading (https://www.mcgill.ca/indigenous/calls-action/4-research-and-academic-complement/achievements/achievements).
11. Have people occupy only one seat at Senate
When a fellow is appointed Dean, their previous seat should be automatically declared vacant. Right now on the Senate website, for example, Tony Mittermaier has two seats on Senate, which lends itself to absurdities (e.g. does he have two votes)? The current composition also allows there to be two ex-officio seats that are held by one person, for example, if a Dean were also a Vice President. This is a harder issue to resolve. One solution would be to remove ex-officio seats for Deans. Another is to specify through which capacity someone sits on Senate, and leave the other ex-officio seat vacant.
12. Consider power structures within Senate roles.
Some Senators are the direct supervisor of other Senators. For example, the Deputy-Provost (Student Life and Learning) has the power to replace the Dean of Students. This could lead to the Dean of Students feeling political pressure at Senate. The two obvious ways to remedy this situation is remove the role of supervisor or the supervised.
An issue previously identified in the Senate composition was that the position of Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) wasn’t included. Now this position is obsolete. When McGill creates new positions, the composition of Senate should be immediately revised so that it is not out-of-date for years on end. Also, McGill should consider the longevity of its created positions. That a new position was created and abolished within one cycle of Senate review suggests that McGill governance is short-sighted in this respect.