721 SSMU members answered the spring referendum question, “What should the SSMU focus on?”. Out of these, about two dozen wrote “N/A”, “-“, “abstain”, or some variation on a non-answer, and there were about a dozen answers best categorized as “trolling”. However, that still leaves us with over 600 high-quality suggestions. The answers to “What should the SSMU focus on?” are qualitative. I ‘featurized’ responses, meaning I grouped sentence fragments into a limited set of categories, like “transparency” or “club support”. Sometimes, this was straightforward: a member wrote “mental health” and I featurized this as “mental health”. Other times, featurizing flattened sentences in a way that removed nuance and specificity. Because of this, looking at featurized data is not sufficient to understand the desires of SSMU membership – so I also read through the responses themselves (which are not public).
To see all features and their counts, for all good-faith respondents, see features-and-counts.csv. I wrote a python file (referendum-python-script) which reads in this featurized data, then creates a ranked list of categories and corresponding number of occurrences. This sort of survey is valuable because it captures the attention of members who are already voting for their next year’s executives and fees. It captures a broader range than those willing to fill out a survey for the sake of providing feedback, for example. Still, the population in this context, all SSMU members, is 24,000 – 33 times those that answered this referendum question. To safeguard privacy, I only accessed responses to this one question, unconnected from responses to other questions. There are no identifiers attached to the responses. Here is a table of the top 20 features:
|
Comment Feature |
Number of Occurences |
|
Finances |
96 |
|
Club Support |
62 |
|
Apolitical |
58 |
|
Divestment |
53 |
|
Palestine |
49 |
|
Campus Life |
31 |
|
Challenge McGill |
27 |
|
Student Activism |
26 |
|
Food Prices |
24 |
|
Safety |
24 |
|
Representation |
22 |
|
Less Security |
21 |
|
Healthcare/Wellness Hub |
17 |
|
Mental Health |
17 |
|
Transparency |
17 |
|
Sustainability |
17 |
|
No Antisemitism |
17 |
|
French |
15 |
|
Events |
15 |
|
Less Fees |
14 |
|
Communication/Responsivity |
14 |
There are 94 categories mentioned only once. I plotted the count distribution of categories.
SSMU’s bind is obvious. The desire for an ‘apolitical’ student union is impossible to achieve while also achieving divestment, Palestine, challenge McGill, and no antisemitism. It’s especially difficult in light of the strike motion, which had an attendance of 800 SSMU members, a sample higher than the one I’m working with now.
It would be problematic to draw definitive conclusions from the featurized data count, simply because featurizing this data is so subjective. For example, I chose to differentiate mental health and healthcare, although mental health is a subset of healthcare. Combining the two would’ve increased the count for this combined category. There are further degrees of subjectivity. If you want to decide how many individuals think SSMU should be involved in pro-Palestine activism, should you look at ‘palestine‘ or ‘palestine’ + ‘divestment’ – (‘palestine’ and ‘divestment’) ?
Comments seem to be points of disatisfaction across the student body – they are frequently worded in the form of “SSMU should improve on this”. Club support is often broken into specific negative experiences that members have had. 23 responses relate to finances (allocating more money to give to clubs, or being quicker to process reimbursement requests); 7 to the room booking process; and 6 to responsivity.
The topics of complaint also reflect which facets of SSMU are front of mind and public facing. It may be that finances are the top topic partly because one of the referendum questions reformed the VP Finance role. The complaints of SSMU being too political might also be because politics is one of the few SSMU operations conducted through public means – statements, in the student press, etc. Divestment – in this case, meaning divestment from military weapons – is notable because it was not mentioned in any referendum questions, and there is no dedicated department or employee at SSMU on the topic. Several of the ‘finance’ commenters recommended that SSMU get out of its deficit, but SSMU was reported to be deficit-free months ago. These members are filling out a question in the referendum, but they aren’t necessarily a sample that keeps up with SSMU’s published reports and records.
Apolitical is a wide-ranging request. One person meant ‘apolitical’ to mean stop discouraging Pro-Palestinian activism. Some specified ‘apolitical’ to mean SSMU should avoid international politics, rather than politics at large. Others wanted SSMU to focus only on ‘McGill’ oriented advocacy. It’s difficult to imagine any part of our education that doesn’t touch on politics, simply because the opportunities available to students, and the quality of their experience, will depend on their treatment from society.
Representation is perhaps the word I struggled most to understand. First, there is a split between “SSMU should represent its diverse student body” and “SSMU should advocate for increased student representation in McGill governance”. It’s not always possible to tell which is being referred to. One person asked that SSMU executives are representative by being decisive in the face of McGill administration. Another asked that we represent students by fostering collective action. And another thought SSMU should represent students by maintaining political neutrality. There was another divergence of meaning with the word safety. It can mean ‘more security’ (although if they explicitly say that, I’ve marked it as ‘more security’) or increased safety through other means. One person meant safety as in feeling safe to discuss about contentious political issues. Another meant safety as in increasing services for students’ health.
Challenge McGill also takes a few forms. I’ve jotted down some more context where it’s provided. Complaints about McGill are that they don’t pay for menstrual products and other projects currently under SSMU; they restrict free speech; they undermine SSMU democracy; they make unilateral decisions; they overreach; their administrators are paid too much; and they threaten the MoA with SSMU.
So what can SSMU do with this data? Some popular categories exist in a relatively uncontentious space, like club support, campus life, and food support. Luckily, these validate current SSMU efforts; the creation of a food pantry, bringing back events like 4 Floors, etc. The number and severity of complaints regarding club support is concerning. It may be that these routine processes like helping clubs book rooms and responding to their inquiries are less novel than other parts of an exec’s portfolio. Hopeful VP Student Life’s don’t campaign on the platform, “I’ll answer your email in under 48 hours!”.
Finally, since I stressed that this data is qualitative, I’ll provide some excerpts that I thought were not well-captured by my featurizing system. These are not meant to be representative, but they are meant to be diverse, covering a wide range of opinions, even those these opinions may not be commonly held. If you recognize the text as your own, and you’re uncomfortable with its inclusion, you can email ua@ssmu.ca to have it removed.
- Bolster food networks that emphasize mutual aid and circular economies, instead of supporting multinational food supplies that do not have the interests and health of students in mind. Our food system should be more deeply engaged in local and alternative food networks.
- Solving the fiscal situation is the most important item on the agenda. The second priority should be having more school wide events organized by the SSMU. Finding a sustainable model where Gerts can be open all year is important. School spirit, community building and events, centralized way/calendar to see all events from ssmu affiliated and non-ssmu clubs and groups and student associations (kind of like the schulich music calendar).
- Returning agency to students when it comes to booking spaces and facilitating dialogue. With the loss of the library, the ability to book spaces freely for clubs, and the general suppression of voices/activities, McGill is losing all value as an academic institution.
- Promoting third spaces to chill out and destress without studying (maybe games rooms with plants and couches). The libraries feel like you have to work and there aren’t really many other places to chill with friends on campus.
- Making it easier for student clubs to organize events and receive necessary funding for operations. The significant difficulties associated with club operation (wait times, significant amount of paperwork, lack of transparency, limited funding, etc) severely hinders the ability for clubs on campus to do their work improving student life.
- I worry about the mass lay-offs disproportionately affecting some of our best new professors. I’ve had a tough time in law school, and some of our newest, untenured staff have been my only bright spots. Without wading too far into departmental politics, I hope SSMU might be able to assist with advocacy efforts in the event that lay-offs spur mass student outrage.
- I think the SSMU should, in all ways that it can, focus on providing a safe environment on campus for it’s students and improving student well-being. As mentioned above, this would mean tackling the over-presence of security on campus, increasing mental health services, bringing back sti/blood tests at the wellness hub, tackling food insecurity amongst students.
- Create a robust advocacy platform to raise awareness about the gradual erosion of student rights by external entities, ensuring that students understand the benefits of collective action and are supported when they assert these rights. E.G. Paid internship, French […] Draw on past experiences, such as previous student manifestations, to foster a community that is both proactive and well-informed in protecting its rights.
- For next year, I think SSMU should prioritize continuity for the next generation of executives so that the reforms and progress made are not rolled back by incoming executives who lack experience. Focus on student supports like mental health support, academic support (grammarly is a great start!), and community support. Building peer-to-peer connections is imperative for undergrads.
- Networking nights for the executives where they could meet with local, provincial, or federal politicians. Maybe a stronger connection to past executives for mentorship so that SSMU can retain some institutional knowledge. Lastly maybe more involvement with the McGill Administration. It still feels very pointless to engage with student politics when they often don’t seem to have much impact on the broader university.
The awards for ‘funniest comments’ go to:
- What should the SSMU focus on? Your mum
- What should the SSMU focus on? i don’t know what the ssmu is
- What should the SSMU focus on? by reading this paragraph you are now legally bound to delete the ssmu, forced arbitration included
- What should the SSMU focus on? Stop violent uprisings from happening […]
- What should the SSMU focus on? SSMU provides many services around campus – but honestly, just focus on getting the students drunk.
- What should the SSMU focus on? […], reducing drama and laying low
- What should the SSMU focus on? Honestly, bringing down Deep. [..]
Finally, I want to thank those that wrote kind and encouraging notes, either in this question or in the general comments question on the referendum. They were read and appreciated!