SU sets faculty association policy

By Kate Jacobson, January 15 2015 —

The faculty of science will soon have a new academic faculty club (AFC) to represent all of its departments.

AFCs are faculty-specific clubs made up of members from departments in each faculty.

The SU’s clubs committee was recently given responsibility to set policy for AFCs. The Club Sanction and Renewal procedure set several requirements for AFCs. They must have department or program representatives, approval from the dean of their respective faculty and an SU faculty representative sit on their executive.

The University of Calgary doesn’t currently have any AFCs, but the Engineering Students’ Society (ESS) has served as a model for new Students’ Union policy surrounding them.

Students’ Union science representative Keean Bexte hopes to start an AFC in the faculty of science by April.

The closest thing the faculty of science currently has to a faculty association is the Science Students’ Society. Their membership includes representatives appointed based on their year of study rather than which department they’re in. Bexte hopes to change this.

“We’re trying to change the constitution so that it reflects the ESS in that it has an elected representative from across the departments,” Bexte said.

He said that getting support from department clubs had been “a bit slow,” but he expects the SU to approve the AFC once they finalize their policy.

SU vice-president external Levi Nilson said the SU is currently working out policy on how AFCs should look.

Nilson said the ESS is an example of a functioning faculty club.

“They’re the model of what we would like to see, the outcomes we would like to see and the benefit that it would bring to students,” Nilson said.