July 9 SLC debates asking for independent review of May 9 events for the General Faculties Council caucus
By Andreea Timis and Kimberly Taylor, July 16 2024—
An SLC meeting took place on July 9, focused on the special General Faculties Council (GFC) caucus. This meeting was set to happen on July 10 between the Students’ Union (SU) and the GFC board to discuss the incident that occurred on May 9, 2024 – where encampment protestors were confronted by Calgary police.
According to their website – the GFC board is generally responsible for academic quality, research plans, curriculum, academic standards, programming and academic policies and awards. The GFC also advises the U of C on institutional priorities, plans and policies.
Per Section 7.1(b) of the GFC bylaws, the SU required signatures from at least one-quarter of GFC members in order to call the special meeting for an independent review of the situation on May 9. A proposal for the GFC to call for an independent review was passed at the July 10 GFC meeting.
SU President Ermia Rezaei-Afsah characterized the administration’s refusal of an independent investigation as excuses and further insisted that the third-party review the administration is planning to conduct is not an independent investigation. Rezaei-Afsah also claimed that a third party review is insufficient.
“[Third-party reviews firms] are going to come back with certain recommendations, but they’re not going to come back with a measure of accountability,” Rezaei-Afsah said. “That’s what our position in bringing this forward is. If [the motion] passes, it’ll go to the Board of Governors (BOG) and [they] will actually have to contend with doing an investigation.”
In a later interview with the Gauntlet Rezaei-Afsah clarified what he means by accountability – as akin to a process of asking questions and improving processes and decision making.
“You need transparency for accountability. Transparency specifically in this instance is looking at what the University’s decision making that day looked like. Why they made the decisions they made. Being able to know what kind of processes they engaged with,” said Rezaei-Afsah.
“Accountability specifically means that when you have those answers you ask the questions: did they do right by these processes? Are these processes flawed? What needs to change? Where did they fail? How could they do better, and How could this be prevented? That’s what accountability means. Asking questions that would help us move forward,” Rezaei-Afsah continued.
Rezaei-Afsah stated that these allegations are the impetus for the SU’s proposal to the GFC council caucus to call for an independent review rather than the administration’s planned third party review.
The University of Calgary administration provided the following statement in response.
“After every crisis or major event we perform a review of decision making. This occurred, for example, with the 2013 floods, the Brentwood tragedy and Covid-19. MNP Calgary performed our Covid-19 review.
Consistent with this, a third party is being selected to perform a review related to decision making around the May 9 encampment on campus. The request for proposal for that review closed July 9. The work begins August 1.
The results are provided to the Board of Governors EH&S committee and then the full board, who then determine if future steps are needed.”
One argument raised by Rezaei-Afsah was that the University of Alberta was already doing what the SU is asking for from the University of Calgary. The University of Alberta – who had their own encampment incident on the same day between students and the Edmonton police service – have started an independent investigation and are at this time collecting evidence from community members and drawing up a report of what occurred.
“That’s what we’re asking for,” said Rezaei-Afsah. “And if [the] U of A can do it, why can’t we?”
According to the University of Alberta’s website, the review authorized by their administration is characterized as both a third party investigation and an independent review.
For agendas, minutes and upcoming SLC meetings, visit the SU website.