KSA takes CFS-BC feud to B.C. Supreme Court

One-and-a-half years of bad blood between the Kwantlen Student Association and the Canadian Federation of Students, B.C. Component are about to culminate in a court battle set for Oct. 29 – 30.

The KSA filed a court petition with B.C. Supreme Court in June to settle a dispute over the CFS-BC’s refusal to ratify Kwantlen’s elected CFS-BC representative in May 2008.

“Now we find ourselves going to court, but I’m not sure why,” said Shamus Reid, chairperson for the CFS-BC.

The CFS-BC did not ratify the nomination to appoint Derek Robertson, Kwantlen’s elected director of external affairs and ex-officio representative for the CFS-BC, to the executive committee because of “actions that he took to deliberately undermine the CFS-BC,” said Reid.

“That individual was unfit as a director. The executive committee felt he couldn’t uphold his responsibilities as a director.”

The CFS-BC suggested, prior to court proceedings, that the KSA nominate a different individual to the executive committee. “The KSA has always had the opportunity to appoint another representative to the CFS,” said Reid.

Robertson said the KSA appealed to the courts for acknowledgement that the CFS-BC has no authority to disallow a member student body’s elected representative from joining the executive committee. Doing so would set a precedent avoiding future ratification disputes and would place Robertson on the committee.

“I’m not always just another CFS voice,” he said. “At times I have been very critical of the organization, and I feel that the organization could be doing a much better job.”

Robertson was a member of the CFS-BC executive committee until he resigned in February 2008 prior to a Kwantlen referendum on CFS membership. “I did not feel that I could be faithful to both organizations so I did the right thing and resigned,” he said.

After resigning, Robertson campaigned to convince students to vote against continued CFS membership. Reid said Robertson “was not forthright about his participation in a campaign to undermine the federation.” Documents that show Robertson joining anti-CFS Facebook groups before his resignation are under consideration by the B.C. Supreme Court. Following the referendum, which reaffirmed Kwantlen’s CFS membership, Robertson was re-elected and re-nominated as the CFS representative according to procedures guided by CFS bylaws but was not ratified by the executive committee, which is made up mostly by representatives from other B.C. post-secondary institutions.

The nomination and ratification processes are guided by provisions in the Societies Act and in CFS bylaws, which are being pitted against each other in the court case. While the Societies Act states that a director must act honestly and in a fitting manner, Desmond Rodenbour, general manager of the KSA, said this does not permit an organization to disqualify a person from a board of directors position if they believe someone does not have those qualities. A CFS bylaw states that the provincial executive representative shall be determined in a manner consistent with the bylaws of the local student association.

“The problem is that the CFS is somewhat secretive and chooses not to publicly post many of their internal documents,” said Rodenbour, a sentiment that Robertson shares.

“Frankly, it’s absurd for the CFS to climb in and say, ‘Well yes, there’s a process, but there’s also another process which we’re not gonna tell you about,’” said Robertson.

Rodenbour doesn’t want to elect another person to the position, calling it an issue of principle. “If they honestly believe they’ll work best only with people that they’ll agree with, they’re missing the point of democracy… If you only want one viewpoint, you can do that with one person.”

The court petition, filed during the university’s summer session, has not been revealed to students through public announcements from either organization. But Kwantlen students will be paying legal fees for both sides of the battle.

Rodenbour said legal fees could range from $10,000 to $25,000, “a very reasonable cost to have the petition resolved” when compared to the $150,000 turned over to the CFS every year.

Robertson agreed, saying, “The funny thing about this case is that Kwantlen students are being charged twice, because they’re getting charged once for legal fees with the KSA and they’re also being charged through membership dues to the CFS, which are going to this case.”

CFS membership benefits during the period without representation are questionable, according to Rodenbour, who likened the fight to the United States’ taxation without representation battle cry.

The CFS-BC is a liaison between B.C. post-secondary institutions and the government and lobbies for benefits including the reduction of tuition fees and student debt. “The CFS continues to work on issues that Kwantlen has identified as priorities,” said Reid. “Kwantlen students have given very clear direction that they want to work with other student unions all across Canada… I’m fairly mystified as to why the board of the KSA chose to [petition the court].”

Meanwhile, signatures are being collected at Kwantlen campuses to call for another referendum giving students the option to defederate from the CFS this April, when the required two-year period following CFS membership referendums has ended.

Kwantlen’s Olympic partnership trades parking for student benefits

Kwantlen’s newest Olympic partnership with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games is more than just business.

As the Olympic committee gains extra parking space at all Kwantlen campuses during the Olympics, Kwantlen students will be reaping the benefits as they are exposed to a variety of opportunities.

Mary Jane Stenberg, executive director of external affairs at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has been working on the project with staff for several years, and is excited to get students involved with the Olympics. Working closely with VANOC, Stenberg has seen her Olympic project grow vastly since sponsorship was first suggested.

Details of how the partnership began remain foggy, as the project passed through the hands of Kwantlen’s former vice-president David Ross several years ago.

“The initial [suggestion] was made from VANOC to Kwantlen,” said Stenberg.

As part of the Kwantlen-VANOC sponsorship students will gain direct access to the Vancouver Olympic Games through volunteer positions.

“We have already had recruitments for any kind of volunteer opportunity you can imagine,” said Stenberg. “These have been available to all students at all campuses”.

Volunteer opportunities range from venue-managing to media relations as well as participating in opening and closing ceremonies.

“They are still looking for volunteers,” said Stenberg. “What we ask them [students] to do is go through the VANOC website”

Aside from volunteer opportunities, Kwantlen students will also have the possibility to purchase hard-to-find Olympic event tickets.

As a sponsor for the 2010 Games Kwantlen was allowed to purchase a limited amount of Olympic tickets to sell to their students. Within the next month, students will be able to access a website specially designed for the purchase of tickets. Their names will then be entered in a lottery.

“Student will have five days to come in and purchase the tickets,” said Stenberg, “or we will go to the next name on the list.”

As part of the Olympic Contributor agreement, Kwantlen was also allowed to pick a person to be the torchbearer on the Langley leg of the Olympic torch run.

After students and staff entered an online questionnaire early last year, Kwantlen has announced Suzanne ten Haaf, a business student, will be representing Kwantlen on Feb. 8, on the 102nd day of the Olympic Torch Relay Route.

Kwantlen’s journalism program on the move to social sciences

As of Oct. 9, Kwantlen’s Journalism program will become part of the faculty of social sciences, leaving its long-time home in the faculty of design and communications.

“It’s really an administrative change at this point,” said Beverley Sinclair, coordinator of the journalism program. Students can expect to feel the impact of the change in the fall of 2011, when all the journalism courses will likely be moved on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus.

“The faculty of Design and Communications, which is where we have been, has been fine up until now,” said Sinclair. “We are clearly more suited to be with and aligned with [the faculty of social sciences], it’s just a way better fit.”

Sinclair said the idea to switch faculties was first discussed about a year ago.

The hope is that moving from Richmond to Surrey campus will improve access for journalism students to social science courses and vice versa. The areas of study featured in social sciences are anthropology, Asian studies, criminology, geography, history, political science, psychology and sociology.

“We want to make our third- and fourth-year courses, the academic ones, more widely available to students who can benefit from them,” said Sinclair.

Robert Adamoski, chair of the criminology department, sent an email welcoming the journalism department into his faculty. He echoed Sinclair’s hope that the shift will make programs more accessible for students in both faculties and cited the benefit of different perspectives being shared between students.

“It’s clear to me that this is a dynamic period for journalism as a profession and an academic discipline,” wrote Adamoski in the email. “[The] Kwantlen faculty have a good sense of the opportunities that a carefully considered, leading-edge BA program will offer.”

Sinclair said that changes will be made to the program in order for it to keep up with what’s happening in the journalism profession. More emphasis will be placed on what’s been called new media and on-line publishing, which doesn’t mean that print or photography will be neglected.

“Being able to write and do great photography and images, that will always be the mainstay of the program,” said Sinclair. “How it’s delivered is changing and so we just continue to change in the program as well.”

The program will also continue to develop strong academic journalism and mass communications studies.

Kwantlen instructor fights to open the end-of-life dialogue

He knows about the intimate details better than most people, and that’s why he isn’t going to lie about it.

“ If I had to characterize the relationship, I’d say it’s a very uncomfortable one,” Russel Ogden said about the common ground between suicide and education.

A professor in the department of sociology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University since 2006, Ogden’s academic research and lectures focus on euthanasia and assisted death.

His third-year course, Aspects of Dying and Death, and a fourth-year course, Sociolegal Aspects of Assisted Suicide, both invite students to examine the issues surrounding suicide and assisted death in society.

“We’re all very uncomfortable with these topics,” Ogden said with a deep sigh, “and I think that an education system needs to spend time with the uncomfortable topics. That’s how we get change. It’s only by addressing these uncomfortable topics that can we can improve and advance society. “

Recently, Ogden has had plenty of opportunity to discuss the complex moral and social issues.

On Sept. 22, Metro Vancouver reported that Paul Whitney, chief librarian of the Vancouver Public Library, had banned Exit International, an Australian suicide education and advocacy group, from holding public workshops at the library’s central branch in downtown Vancouver.

According to its website, Exit International is the leading voluntary euthanasia and end of life education and advocacy organization. Dr. Philip Nitschke, author of The Peaceful Pill, a guidebook on methods for ending life if elderly or terminally ill, heads the group.

Whitney told Metro that after police and legal experts informed him that holding the workshops in the library the workshops would violate the Criminal Code, he decided to bar the group’s presentations.

Facing media pressure, Whitney and the library board heard from B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby at their board meeting Sept. 24.

Eby described the library board as an ally to the cause of free expression, but he reprimanded the board for their hesitation, reminding them of their duty.

“ Because there is significant public demand and significant need for it, and this is a discussion rather than a promotion or an encouragement, we would suggest that the library consider its obligation to the Charter of Free Expression and let this discussion go ahead,” Eby told the executives. “We don’t think that there is any coincidence that the library has in its mandate the mission towards intellectual freedom and the ability to discuss even controversial ideas.”

On the following Monday, Sept. 28, Ogden had a letter to the editor published in the Vancouver Sun that echoed Eby’s opinion.

“Libraries and universities are built on values that promote education, freedom of thought and freedom of speech. When trusted institutions censor talk about suicide, not only do they undermine the core values on which they are built, they diminish our humanity,” he wrote.

Ogden insists that while assisted might be illegal in B.C., there is nothing illegal about Nitchke’s workshops and the advice that it offers to those considering end-of-life options. Furthermore, he said that the library already stocks books similar to literature that Exit International provides, and that providing a social opportunity for people to discuss suicide might change someone’s views.

“I think that they would be doing a much bigger service to people if they let them talk about it in a group,” said Ogden. “Because, if in that context, if you have someone who is anxious or perhaps suicidal, impulsively so, other people in the crowd will recognize that. They might say ‘Are you O.K? Do you want to talk? Feel like going for a coffee afterwards?’ They might make a friend. That might turn them around.”

In the first part of his letter to the editor, Ogden made mention of another Canadian news item, one that hit closer to home for him than a dispute at his public library.

On Sept. 15, the CBC reported that 19-year-old student Michel Gariepy, a student at the University of Ottawa, had jumped to his death from the 15th floor balcony of his residence on the evening of Sept. 12. The news report noted that Gariepy was well liked by those who knew him and regarded as intelligent and “forward thinking.” Ogden’s daughter might have felt the same way, but she never got the chance to meet Gariepy, even though she is in her first year at Ottawa and she lives in the residence once inhabited by Gariepy.

“She’s just left home, she’s gone to Ottawa and she’s 17 years old,” Ogden said of his daughter’s situation, “ and some guy jumps from the 15th floor in her building. Welcome to university, right?”

Frustrated, Ogden describes the events that followed as typical of a post-suicide crisis situation. Police and firefighter units came to assess the scene; the pavement was hosed down; a memorial is erected; and the victim is remembered, by some.

He said that most people, such as his daughter, didn’t know the victim or anything about the circumstances surrounding the death and have no safe place to voice their concern over what has happened or their thoughts about suicide, even in a post –secondary educational setting.

Ogden believes that this lack of opportunity for discussion at a time of crisis is a symptom of a greater ill. He thinks that if there was a more open attitude to discussing suicidal thoughts and mental illness, people would be less likely to reach the point of feeling to take their own live.

“If we really are troubled by suicide, the way that we should address that trouble is by making it a social issue that is worthy of discussion,” Ogden said.

“Suicide is something that is after-the-fact, but when people are contemplating it, we need to be more open to having that discussion. People often think about suicide, but they don’t engage in any self-harming or even suicide attempts, let alone actual suicide. We should be able to talk about how we have these thoughts in a safer place, where we can be confident that expressing these thoughts isn’t going to result in an intervention that is embarrassing, shameful and excessive.”

Ogden said that the “professional” response to suicide deters people from talking about their suicidal thoughts. According Ogden, in the majority of cases, people are hospitalized, scrutinized and viewed as safety risks rather than people in sensitive states of mental health. Knowing this, people choose not to tell their loved ones or community supports.

Though he acknowledges that public education and community services can go a long way towards promoting awareness and discussion of suicide and mental health issues, Ogden thinks that the first step towards changing our attitudes is something simpler.

“It starts with some basic common sense…that is, if we see something that is upsetting us about someone’s behavior, we talk to them about it. That if we’re having difficult thoughts, our own thoughts about self-harm or suicide, that we can express it. You can create all the programs that you want, whether they be courses, institutions, suicide prevention, resources all of that. But really, my call would be…let’s use some common sense and be decent to one another.”

Kwantlen counts heads, expects record enrolment

Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s classes are more crowded this year than ever before, according to a Kwantlen press release.

The 28-year-old institution’s previous record of 17,000 students is about to be shattered, with 14,677 students enroled in courses beginning on or before Sept. 18. Trades programs starting in October, November and December are expected to put the number of students well over the previous record.

Enrolment in university studies, which do not include qualifying studies, trades or technology programs, is 10 per cent higher than last year. All program areas have seen an enrolment increase of five to 10 per cent. There are 11 per cent more course enrolments from students new to Kwantlen than there were last year. The largest growth is in the arts and business programs.

The press release attributed the growth to Kwantlen’s new university status, a new Bachelor of Arts with a Major in English and Bachelor of Science in Integrated Pest Management programs, and changes to the registration system.

Ron Maggiore, Kwantlen’s executive director of strategic enrolment management, said university status creates “greater interest, more applications and more excitement. University status adds value to a Kwantlen diploma or degree without question.”

The increase could only mean good things, he said. More students produces more revenue for the school, and “more tuition allows for the creativity to do more things.”

Maggiore said he isn’t surprised by the enrolment increase, referring to a relationship between post-secondary education attendance and the economy. When the economy is strong, enrolment tends to drop; when it sours, enrolment climbs.

The enrolment increase is not limited to Kwantlen, though the institution has the highest recorded enrolment increase of all schools in B.C.

A recent announcement from Simon Fraser Institute declared a record enrolment of 28,275 students this year, a seven per cent increase from last year.

Most of SFU’s increase is in international students, up 33 per cent from last year, transfer students and a doubling of students in faculty of health and environment.

“There seems to be a trend and increase of post-secondary students,” said Mehran Kiai, SFU’s director of enrolment services. “It’s too early to say if it’s because of the economy or other reasons.”

Kiai believes an improved admissions process and growing reputation are contributing factors to the record enrolment.

Craig MacBride, public affairs officer for the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development, was unable to confirm whether there is a trend in post-secondary education enrolment increases but suggested that one may become apparent when final data is collected this November.

“Historically, anytime it’s a recession [enrolment] goes up in universities. I suspect there is a trend,” said MacBride.

Kwantlen prepared for new trans fat rules

British Columbia’s new trans fat regulations, the first of their kind in Canada, went into affect Sept. 30. The new restrictions promise to reduce people’s risk of exposure to industrially produced trans fat in situations where they have limited ability to know what’s in their food.

These new regulations may greatly change the way many eating establishments around the province do business, but not here at Kwantlen. “It’s been campus policy for a long time now,” said Belinda Kaplan, Director of Food Services for the Surrey campus. “We switched our products over well before the regulations came into affect.”

Consumption of saturated or trans fat has been linked to numerous health issues including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Trans fat is responsible for an estimated 3,000 heart disease-related deaths in Canada each year according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC.

There are two kinds of trans fat, which occurs naturally in some meats like beef and lamb and in many dairy products. It’s also industrially produced, formed during hydrogenation, a process used to harden and stabilize liquid vegetable oils. It’s these industrially produced trans fats that the regulations announced by the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport in B.C. are targeting.

For the past three years, food services on campus at Kwantlen have been ahead of the trans fat curve, using reduced fat margarine, trans fat free muffin mix and trans fat free oils in all of the deep fryers.

B.C.’s new restrictions require all soft spreadable margarine and oil to be two per cent trans fat or less of the total fat content.

All foods stored, prepared, served and sold at food service establishments, including restaurants, cafeterias, educational and health care institutions, schools and delis, will be under scrutiny.

The new regulations will be monitored and enforced by environmental health officers as part of their routine food safety inspections.

According to Kaplan, Kwantlen will have no trouble meeting or exceeding the new requirements since preparations were already made prior to the B.C. government’s announcement of changes.

Scholarship helps student concentrate on designing the end

The award was generous.

The recognition for his leadership and volunteering? Even more so.

However, Lucas Nightingale is most enthusiastic about what receiving a Millennium Excellence Award scholarship will do for Vancouver communities in the future.

“With one less thing to worry about, then you can focus on what you’re really in school to focus on, which is your work,” said Nightingale, “developing ideas and experimenting and trying something new.”

A student in his third year of an Interior Design BA at Kwantlen’s Richmond campus, Nightingale was awarded the $10, 250 scholarship early in September in honor of his leadership on campus, ambitious involvement in Vancouver’s interior design industry and progressive volunteer work.

Since beginning at Kwantlen. Nightingale has co-founded the Emerging Green Builders Group, an organization that advocates for sustainable design practices. Additionally, he contributes to the Interior Design Association of B.C. as the Kwantlen student liaison. In the little spare time he has left, he has managed to find time to volunteer with the Friends for Life Society, an organization based out of Vancouver’s West End that provides social and personal services for people requiring palliative care, or support through the process of death.

While spending time with clients in sterile hospital rooms or impersonal nursing home settings, Nightingale witnessed the unnecessary suffering that people endure in a sensitive stage of life. He aid that these types of care environments are often detrimental to the healing or dying of a person dealing with a terminal illness.

With a holistic perspective on design and how it affects the spaces in our lives, Nightingale is formulating ideas on how dying can be made more natural and comfortable for people in their own homes.

“To die well is really important,” said Nightingale. “Most often, if you’re dying in your own home, that’s where people are most comfortable. If that option is open, nine times out of 10, people would choose their homes over a hospital, for sure. The practicality of it is that if they need medication or nursing support, how can interior design provide that?”

Nightingale thinks that architects and designers need to consider the full life cycle when building or modifying homes, so that the spaces of a home will be accessible and pleasant for people in the early stages of life as well as old age. In his view, healthy living is important, but so is healthy dying, or “a good death”.

For now, Nightingale is busy with the school work that will help get his design ideas off the ground. This semester, he will be closely studying the relationship between end-of-life care and interior design. He hopes that this work will yield some bigger ideas for his fourth-year thesis and ultimately, change the way society experiences an inevitable part of life.

“For me, it’s about welfare and quality of life in those final days and a hospital setting just isn’t…I think that we can do better than that. It’s a huge topic and it’s not something that interior design can solve on it’s own, but it’s something that interiors are a part of.”

East meets west in new degree

A new bachelors degree program at Kwantlen could have students looking distinctly eastward for inspiration.

History professor Frank Abbott attended the most recent Kwantlen senate meeting to speak about the creation of a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies program.

“We started discussing it five years ago,” said Abbott, one of the developers for the new degree.

He and his associates felt that this degree was an obvious one to create, given the demographics of Kwantlen students, and the rise of status of countries such as India and China.

The program combines a number of existing courses in several different faculties, including history, psychology and sociology.

“The courses have been here for years. Why not put it together so you can give students a coherent package?” he asked.

In the program, students will be able to gain an understanding of how Asian culture has developed and works, both outside and inside Canada.

Because the degree is less academically driven, unlike its counterparts at UBC or SFU, Abbott believes the courses will also be beneficial to those outside the program.

Business students, he mentioned, could benefit from gaining a sense of Asian culture, allowing them to be more effective in overseas transactions.

Their goal is to “overcome the cultural ignorance that afflicts many North Americans, by giving our students an insight into these cultures.”

And Abbott and his associates are trying to spread the influence as far as possible.

He hopes that, once it becomes a full-fledged program, opportunities and funding for sending students abroad will be available.

The developer team is also fighting a policy that states all the third- and fourth-year courses would be taught at the Surrey campus.

With the new Skytrain running past it, it would be a bad idea to exclude Richmond campus from the higher-level courses, he said.

By offering couress at both locations, Abbott thinks that Kwantlen can capture those students who make look to other institutions for their education.

While the new degree was passed without opposition at Monday’s Senate meeting, Abbott still has a long way to go to get his program approved.

They’ll need to submit their full proposal, with course outlines and potential teachers, to the senate for approval, which they hope to do at the November meeting.

“We hope it could be ready by next fall,” he said.

In Abbott’s favour is the powerful support it has garnered, as Dave Atkinson, president of Kwantlen and chair of the senate supports the creation of the program.

“When you look at the demographic of Kwantlen campuses, this is a program that is long, long overdue,” he said.

Familiar feud lies within student fee referendum

Old issues between the Kwantlen Student Association and the Canadian Federation of Students have been brought back to the forefront in this week’s fee referendum.

The referendum, which runs from Sept. 21 to 24, concerns a number of proposed new fees to be paid each semester.

The KSA is supporting most of them, writing in its pamphlets, “This is your chance to build Kwantlen’s future.”

Some of the fees are aimed at improving existing services offered by the association, such as a 65-cent-a-credit fee to provide funds for student clubs and KSA-hosted events.

Other programs suggested are 13 cents a credit for the creation of a volunteer-run online radio, Radio Free Kwantlen and a $2.50 fee per credit to aid in the creation of new student union spaces.

“We want to help the university make the transition from a university-college, to a university,” said Richmond campus director for the KSA, Reena Bali.

“A lot of the questions that are proposed, we don’t have the funding to do it without increasing the fees.”

But the KSA is certain that these programs would be worth the added cost.

“The event [proposal] is really good because it gives us a chance to work with the school, and throw correlated events,” said Bali. “If students come in and say, ‘We want this type of event,’ we have the funding to do so.”

Bali also supports the Students Taking an Active Role Together, or START, program, which offers volunteer opportunities to students, as well as free or discounted job-related training, such as first aid or Food Safe.

However, one question on the referendum, question 11, doesn’t deal with new programs, but rather an increase in the membership fee to belong to the Canadian Federation of Students.

The $1.78 increase doesn’t sit well with the KSA, which says that it has been directed to up the cost by the CFS’s “three separate legal entities.”

The issue is over why the increase is needed, and what it will be used for.

“I’ve gone to two CFS meetings and they’ve never discussed it publicly in the meetings. When you do try to question them in budget, they do not answer your questions, or they say you do not have speaking rights,” said Bali.

Instead of approving the increase without student consultation, the KSA has decided to put it to vote.

“We believe students should decide whether it’s worth it to pay the Canadian Federation of Students more money than we do already,” said Bali.

Dave Molenhuis, the treasurer for the CFS, has a few criticisms of the referendum question.

“In the past, students at Kwantlen voted and have voted since on continued membership to belong to the Canadian Federation of Students, and at that time voted on the basis that there would be a membership fee,” he said.

The membership fee is set at a national general meeting of all CFS members, including the KSA.

“The premise of the question that’s being asked is that the CFS has directed the KSA to do ‘X,’ when in fact the student unions resolved to do this at a federation meeting.”

The 2009/2010 fee is $3.99 for CFS membership and services, as well as a $3.99 fee at the provincial level. This is then adjusted for inflation using the Canadian consumer price index.

Molenhuis said that this year’s fee is equal to last year’s, and the adjustment for inflation doesn’t equal $1.78.

He doesn’t see where the KSA’s increase is coming from.

As to the stonewalling of KSA delegates looking for information on what the fees are used for, Molehuis is also skeptical.

“I haven’t been asked by the director at the Richmond campus for any information. All the documents, by-laws, constitutions, are housed in the offices of the student associations,” he said.

He also explained how the money is used.

“The fees are spent on anything from campaigns to the preparation and production of research, to travel for students to participate in lobbying sessions,” he said.

The animosity between the two organizations is not new. In 2008, the KSA held a referendum asking students if they wanted to leave the CFS: 56 per cent of Kwantlen students voted to stay.

These referendum questions could be foreshadowing another showdown.

“Last time it was pretty close,” said Bali. “We do have a petition asking students if they want to defederate.”

Regardless of association politics, Bali and the KSA hope that Kwantlen students take the time to cast their ballot.

“I would hope that all students would vote. The only way we can operate properly as a society is to come out and vote,” said Bali.

Province quietly cuts nursing student aid, other programs

When she considered attending Kwantlen, Merrilee Foster thought about her two kids, six-year-old Karsten and 12-year-old Kayla. She thought about her two jobs. She thought about the burden of paying back student loans. She knew there would be sacrifices – but she knew she had the ability to help people.

The 39-year-old single mom took the plunge and applied for Kwantlen’s home support resident care attendant program.

She chose that program because, four-and-a-half years ago, Foster learned that her mother had cancer and took care of her at home.

“I didn’t have any training, but, of course, it’s your parent and that’s what you do,” she said.

When her mother passed away years later, a doctor took her aside and said what she did was amazing: not many people could emotionally and physically do what she had done. “I thought there’s gotta be more to my life than what I [was] doing. There’s gotta be a positive. So I decided this was the route that I was gonna take.”

As she made plans to attend Kwantlen, Foster knew student aid “was everything.” She told the financial aid office that she thought she was crazy. But the financial aid staff told her “there’s so much out there you’re eligible for. Just jump in and do it.”

Foster called a government official in Victoria for help completing an application for a health care bursary. “She walked me through it and reassured me, so I could sleep at night,” recalled Foster.

Weeks later, she received a letter in the mail saying that funding had been eliminated.

The B.C. government eliminated $16 million in student aid this summer. There was no official announcement and word only reached the public on July 22, when a leaked document listed the programs that were to be immediately and quietly cut. They were the Permanent Disabilities Benefits Program, the Debt Reduction in Repayment Program, the B.C. Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Worker Program, the Health Care Bursary and the Premier’s Excellence Award Program. Funding for the Nurses Education Bursary was reduced.

Ashley Fehr, the KSA’s chairperson and director of academic affairs, said, “It just makes me sick. It’s disgusting.”

Fehr said 25 per cent of full-time Kwantlen students depend on some form of student aid. Because Kwantlen has a large nursing program, the university will be hit harder by the cuts than most schools. Fehr is already seeing the impact at the KSA office in Surrey, where students are telling her they don’t know when they’ll have time to complete homework because of the need to work. She expects to see more stressed-out students than usual this year because of financial hardship.

The decision to make the cuts, said Fehr, is “short-sighted because education is necessary for economic recovery . . . We’re going to have a lower-educated society.”

“Any cuts right now are just a wrong, wrong decision.”

Dr. Claudette Kelly, Kwantlen’s dean of community and health studies, said the cuts are “unconscionable in a time when there’s such a demand for health care workers.”

Foster, who still has to account for groceries, her mortgage and the usual mom-related expenses, decided she would tighten her belt and manage, because she wants badly enough to do the course. She refuses to worry about finances because “If I start worrying about it now, I’ll be consumed by it.” But she’s worried about the future of B.C. health care.

Foster said B.C. residents will continue to need health care, but there may not be enough workers, or the workers won’t be as qualified.

“I don’t think that’s gonna be the only cut to bursaries and grants.”

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