North of 49: There’s no such thing as the unknown

I swear it was only last week I was talking about the lost art of silliness in SUs.

Mary Jane Hutchinson wouldn’t have agreed. Writing in the daily (!) student newspaper at McGill University in Montreal in 1992, the leader of the “Committee Against the Shatnerization of the Union Building” had this to say:

University can be a silly place. Fun and pranks, jokes and silliness – it helps to pass the time. Now call me a kill-joy but the news of the impending referendum on the issue of changing the name of the University Centre didn’t strike me as particularly funny. I know, lots of people are saying that it will be a good laugh to have McGill students publicly affirm that their most honoured graduate was the Captain of the Star Ship Enterprise.

You get the impression that she really didn’t like the main ringleader:

A certain Alex Usher has been working vigorously in front of cameras as well as behind the scenes, to pull off this particular farce. He knows he’s running out of time – graduation is fast approaching – if he wishes to leave his mark on McGill, he has to work fast. Well granted, doing something stupid is always easier than proving yourself by accomplishing something constructive, so I guess if you are pressed for time….

And so her position on the vote to rename the SU’s building after the Star Trek star was as po-faced as it gets:

As responsible students we have to ask ourselves some questions, like: How much will it cost to change all of the mast-head for the University Centre? How much will it cost to alter the name engraved on the front of the building? How much will it cost to change the name in all of McGill’s publications? What is wrong with the old name? Who is going to pay for it? And why is one egomaniac so keen to change things?

Usher had the last laugh. The proposal was approved on the slimmest of margins – 51 per cent in favour, 42 per cent against, and 7 per cent no opinion – on what at the time was a record turnout.

He’d come home late from the Library one night in late January 1992 to a couple of roommates accosting him with ideas for a joke “slate” for that year’s SU elections, and on the table was something to do with giving away a lot of free food (good) and turning the student pub into a Hyundai dealership to pay for it.

But one of their other ideas was to rename the SU’s Building (actually the “University Centre” but nobody ever called it that) after McGill alumnus and Star Trek star William Shatner.

The reasoning went as follows. The SU couldn’t force the university to rename a building. But it could, via referendum, force itself to refer to its own building by whatever name it wanted. And because the SU was the only organization that ever referred to the building in practice, that would be the building’s name, whatever the university thought about it.

And just in case rules killjoys started to worry about copyright and stuff, he even phoned up (from a payphone) Shatner’s people to ask permission. Eventually a fax came through:

Who am I to deny 700 intelligent McGill students?

The university’s principal objection was that offering a building name for free lowered the value of naming rights at the university generally. In time, it tried to play along – even hosting him on campus for an episode of public service broadcaster CBC’s Life and Times in the late 1990s, and giving him an honorary degree in 2011.

He even managed to help out with activism. When he came for the TV gig, Shatner – by then in a wheelchair – was shown some plans for the building, which had to be renovated to improve safety and accessibility. It had no lifts – rendering it impossible to navigate in a wheelchair.

Shatner smiled and said simply:

The magic words are: how can I help?

As a student, Shatner recalled, he excelled more on stage than in the classroom:

I have many fond memories of McGill, most of them being centred not so much around academic life, but from getting involved in all kinds of student activities. Academic knowledge stays for a while, but the student life is what I will always cherish.

These days Alex Usher is a prominent and respected commentator on Canadian HE – and runs Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA), whose conference me and Wonkhe’s Debbie McVitty are speaking at this week.

Winds of change

It wasn’t all building stunts. Usher also played a key role in the development of the national student movement.

Back in the early 1990s, a series of conferences called “Winds of Change” – initiated by the University of Alberta Students’ Union – were convening SUs that wanted something different from the Canadian Federation of Students.

The preference was for a narrower, federally-focused model built around education policy and government relations rather than the broader movement-style organising and wider social justice portfolio associated with CFS.

When the federal government announced in 1993 that social programmes were under review, participants at the 1994 conference concluded that a new national body was needed to defend students’ interests in Ottawa – and began building what would become the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), established in 1995.

Usher went on to become CASA’s first National Director – the person who turned the conference talk into a standing organisation with day-to-day lobbying and policy functions. For a British audience, the closest analogy isn’t a direct equivalent of NUS, but rather a post-split “federally targeted” advocacy body with a deliberately tighter remit, operating alongside (and often in tension with) a more campaign-oriented national federation.

Both CASA and CFS still exist today – Canada never settled on a single national union model – and Usher’s fingerprints are all over the professional, research-driven, government relations approach that CASA still champions.

Lobbying works

It’s had a string of successes. There have been a series of federal student finance wins over three decades – the past 10 years of shared concern between CASA and the federal government has led to massive extensions in funding for education of students from low-income families, as well as measures such as interest-free status on federal student loans.

Recent victories include the extension of Canada Student Grants from $3000 to $4200, interest-free Canada Student Loans, and eligibility improvements to the Canada Learning Bond. And after seven years of consistent lobbying, CASA also secured approval for international students to work more than 20 hours a week.

The model – research-driven, Ottawa-focused, non-partisan government relations – has given CASA a seat at the table that persists across changes of government. CASA is highly regarded for its research capabilities, and is often called upon by government to lend its expertise – its annual Advocacy Week is recognised as one of the largest advocacy efforts in Ottawa.

Its policy papers are excellent – and influential. The New Abnormal: Student Mental Health Two Years Into COVID-19 was a 2022 report commissioned by CASA in partnership with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

It found that three-quarters of student respondents reported their mental health had been negatively impacted by the pandemic, that 1 in 3 students said mental health services at post-secondary institutions did not meet their diverse needs, and that top barriers to access included wait times, ignorance of how to access services, and quality of services.

It directly informed federal policy on mental health funding – CASA secured a dedicated student mental health fund.

On international students, CASA published Value Beyond the Dollars and Cents: International Students’ Contributions to Canada and Their Need for Supports – a paper arguing that international students are invaluable members of post-secondary communities who directly contribute billions of dollars to the Canadian economy, and as highly skilled and educated individuals many go on to become contributing members of the Canadian workforce.

The paper covers the benefits of international students studying in Canada, the challenges they face, policies on investing in the quality of the international student experience, removing barriers to work, and pathways to citizenship. It notes that while Canadian colleges and universities are actively recruiting and adding international students, numbers alone do not tell the whole story – essentially calling for support to match the recruitment.

Other policy papers have covered “Educational Materials Beyond Textbooks: Learning in the 21st Century” and the Canada Summer Jobs programme. The format is consistent – commission research (often polling from Abacus Data), establish the problem with hard numbers, then present pragmatic policy recommendations targeted at federal decision-makers.

What does my SU think about things?

Regular readers will know that one of the things I find endlessly puzzling about UK SUs is that for all of the resource, research and staff expertise that we have, it’s genuinely hard to find policy positions or long-term student interests statements on SU websites. We have a model that seems to assume that “what the SU thinks” is “what the officers think on a particular day” – but proper policy work can outlast a year in office.

At McGill, for example, the Students’ Society (the UG SU) has a comprehensive set of policy papers that guide its advocacy priorities regardless of which officers happen to be in post (or indeed in the office).

The Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy emerged from the 2017 resignations of two executives amid sexual assault allegations – SSMU hired a dedicated coordinator and advisors, conducted extensive consultations with survivors and support services, and adopted a policy that now funds Anti-Violence Coordinators, mandates training, and establishes formal disciplinary procedures.

The Harm Reduction Policy was unanimously adopted in 2021 after McGill shifted to what students characterised as an “abstinence-only approach” in residences – it commits SSMU to evidence-based approaches and advocacy to the university administration. The Mental Health Policy and Plan funds a commissioner, two coordinators, and a mental health fund for student-led initiatives.

The full set of policies is published on the SSMU website alongside a separate “Positions Book” that consolidates advocacy stances on everything from affordable housing to research ethics to family care. There’s also a Food Security Policy mandating support for student-run food initiatives and advocacy on cafeteria prices, a Black Student Advancement and Inclusion Policy that institutionalises the Black Affairs Commissioner role created after the 2020 mobilisation against anti-Black racism, and a Consultation Policy establishing standards for how the SU engages its membership before taking positions.

The format is consistent – articulate the problem, establish values and principles, create implementation mechanisms, and build in sunset clauses that force periodic review. It’s not that Canadian SUs have cracked some impossible code – it’s that they’ve built durable policy infrastructure that outlasts the turnover of sabbatical officers and gives incoming teams something to implement (and something to say) rather than invent from scratch.

Associations matter

But it’s not just at SU level that policy is having an impact. Up the road at the University of Montreal, the Fédération des associations étudiantes du campus de l’Université de Montréal (FAÉCUM) operates something closer to a confederation despite the name – individual students don’t join FAÉCUM directly, but instead hold membership in one of around 85 departmental or faculty-level associations, which in turn affiliate to the federation while retaining substantial autonomy.

Those associations do things that would be recognisable to anyone who’s run a UK academic society, albeit with bigger budgets and dedicated spaces – weekly happy hours (the “5 à 7”), Halloween parties, quiz nights, the werewolf card game Loups-Garous, and orientation week activities. Many run annual balls and graduation galas. And there’s a winter carnival – Carnaval FAÉCUM – where associations compete against each other.

But they also do things that wouldn’t look familiar at all. Many run cafés étudiants offering affordable food on campus, coordinated through a coalition called COALICAF – the anthropology café, the law café (Acquis de droit), the psychology café (Le Psychic), the education faculty café (La Retenue), the planning faculty café (L’Établi).

Several publish academic journals and magazines – the history students produce Les Cahiers d’histoire, the law students have Le Pigeon dissident, the physics students have their own research publication, the sociology students have published Parenthèse and Quoi de n’oeuf, the veterinary students produce L’Articulation.

Graduate associations organise colloques – student research conferences where members present work to peers and faculty. The sociology graduate students run monthly “AMIR” sessions for intellectual discussion, as part of the broader ecosystem of ways students can get involved with their associations.

The associations hold formal seats on departmental and faculty governance bodies – not as observers, but as voting members. The music students’ association has three seats on Faculty Council and four representatives on the comité des études (curriculum committee).

The law associations’ executives sit on Faculty Council and other faculty committees. The sociology graduate students sit on the assemblée départementale and the comité d’études supérieures. Then when supervision relationships break down or exam regulations need challenging, it’s the local association that intervenes on behalf of individual members – and they do so as of right, not by invitation.

Crucially, they also maintain their own formal policy infrastructure – cahiers de positions that mirror the federation’s model, creating institutional memory that outlasts any individual executive committee.

The wellbeing of the population

The informatics and operations research students’ association (AÉDIROUM) has positions organised into external and internal affairs. On external matters – opposition to tuition fee increases “in a perspective of free education,” support for reduced public transport fares for students, opposition to all forms of discrimination based on sex, gender or sexual orientation, support for democratisation of educational institutions “in a perspective of self-management,” demands for election of the university’s board and rector by the university community, opposition to private sector interference in public education governance, and condemnation of “any form of globalisation that enshrines the predominance of profit over the wellbeing of the population.”

It also has policy papers on mandatory mid-session feedback in all courses, opposition to homework assignments during exam periods, a requirement that all courses and learning materials be available in French at undergraduate level, defence of students’ choice of language for dissertations at graduate level, recognition of members’ declared gender identity regardless of legal or administrative status, and a position that students should be able to use their preferred name on coursework and exams.

The anthropology students (AÉAUM) have an even more extensive set, organised into nine categories – university administration, student federation affiliations, colonialism and racism, environment, feminism and gender identity, internal functioning, tuition and education, freedom of expression and protest, and neoliberalism.

Positions are traced back to 2007 – including opposition to tuition deregulation, support for accessible childcare in post-secondary institutions, and opposition to “any form of post-university tax” including contribution schemes proposed by the federation itself.

The 2012 Quebec student strike generated a particularly dense cluster of formal resolutions – denouncing the provincial government’s “sordid political strategies designed to delay negotiations while blaming students,” recognising the strike as “a class struggle,” demanding that national coalitions revendicate “the return to 2007 tuition levels and a freeze in the perspective of free education,” refusing the government’s “discount offer,” and specifying in granular detail what any acceptable settlement would need to include (majority representation of the university community on funding councils, exclusion of business representatives, full access to university account books).

A 2021 position commits the association to participating in a multi-year cross-institutional campaign on education access, decolonisation of institutions and knowledge, and recognition of internship work – with a budget contribution of $1 per member and detailed terms for inter-association governance of the campaign. The full cahier de positions et de décisions includes dedicated sections on tuition fees and education.

The library and information sciences students (AEEEBSI) have positions specific to their sector’s placement conditions. Because archives, libraries and information centres often lack budgets for paid interns, the association’s position is that “government should finance placements in the information sciences sector” – rather than leaving students to work unpaid or forcing cash-strapped placement providers to choose between taking students and paying them.

Other positions cover academic freedom (supporting teaching staff in its defence), solidarity with striking workers at the Renaud-Bray bookshop chain (including budget for coffee and pizza at picket line visits), condemnation of security guard presence on campus during strikes as “a form of intimidation,” and detailed positions on what an ideal student federation should look like.

The comparative literature students’ 2012-era positions include detailed criticisms of FAÉCUM’s budget allocations (objecting to $30,000 spent on electoral get-out-the-vote campaigns and “vote caravans”), demands for the rector’s resignation, denunciation of court injunctions against striking students, and calls for états généraux on higher education with two-thirds representation from students and faculty. The demography students’ association describes its core function as defending “academic, political and socioeconomic interests” and contributing to federation positions “in democratic collaboration with all member associations.”

Meso-level

I’ve said before here that associative activity – where a group, or committee, or club, or society, or collective is the key mode of organising rather than the “rep” or the “convenor” – has all sorts of benefits. One is the way in which welcome activity, events, projects and services can be tailored – school play not broadway musical style – that builds belonging and encourages students to get involved. They can be narkier, and more oppositional – saying things out loud that need to be said that central SUs often can’t.

They build pride in subject discipline and offer students a way to manifest an academic identity as well one based on their identity or interests. Another is that what might seem like “niche” student interests to a central SU get discussed and reflected back. Another is the way in which associations give students power and agency that lone reps can’t deliver – they can both have, and set, an agenda. And they feel like they belong to their members, because they’re small enough. It’s meso-level scaffolding – and it works if you take the time to build it. If you’re wondering how to get started, try this.

It also generates interesting priorities for central SUs. Experiential learning, for example, has become a central plank of Canadian SU policy, encompassing work-integrated learning (co-ops, internships, practicums), community-engaged learning, career-integrated learning, and study abroad programmes.

The agenda is driven by employability concerns – as the Western USC’s 2021 policy paper notes, Statistics Canada data shows bachelor’s graduates with co-op experience (ie work placements) earn more, have higher employment rates, and are more likely to have paid off debt two years after graduation.

The national goal, articulated by both the Business/Higher Education Roundtable and student organisations, is for 100 per cent of students to have access to meaningful WIL before graduation. CASA’s 2025 pre-budget submission calls for $207.6 million annually in the federal Student Work Placement Program to expand opportunities, while a 2018 joint publication from seven student organisations representing 570,000 students argued government must play a role in making WIL “available to 100% of students in this country”.

The equality dimensions are partly what make this an SU issue rather than simply a careers service concern. Western USC’s policy paper identifies that experiential learning opportunities are concentrated in STEM programmes, leaving arts and humanities students at a disadvantage – and that unpaid placements create barriers for low-income students who cannot afford to work for free.

The paper calls for all WIL partners to compensate students for their labour, and for targeted programming for BIPOC and international students who face additional barriers including hiring discrimination and lack of familiarity with Canadian workplace norms. International students are currently excluded from federal programmes like the Student Work Placement Program and the Career Ready Fund, despite paying tuition roughly four times higher than domestic students.

For SUs, the experiential learning agenda connects their traditional concerns about affordability and access to the increasingly urgent question of what a degree is actually for – and who gets to benefit from the employment advantages that come with meaningful work experience.

Beyond formal work placements, SUs have also championed the recognition of volunteering, student representation, and leadership activities through co-curricular records (CCRs). Pioneered by Wilfrid Laurier University and now adopted by dozens of Canadian institutions including Toronto, Dalhousie, and Concordia, these official university documents validate and credential student involvement outside the classroom – from student government participation and peer mentoring to community service and club leadership.

Critically, SUs have often been the driving force behind implementation – at the University of Calgary, the Students’ Union contributed over $233,000 to develop the CCR web platform and promote uptake among students.

The rationale is that employer focus groups consistently report that co-curricular records reveal more about a candidate’s capabilities than academic transcripts alone. For SUs, the stakes are also institutional – the CCR provides formal recognition that the skills developed through student governance, advocacy, and voluntary service are genuinely valuable, not merely extracurricular diversions from “real” academic work.

Most programmes require students to complete reflective statements articulating what competencies they gained, embedding the kind of career-readiness pedagogy that WIL advocates call for – but applied to the often unpaid, student-led activities that SUs themselves provide or facilitate.

Temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood

Back at the Shatner, while there is now a set of lifts, it’s a building that feels old and full of history – and in need of a refurb. But it’s also a great bit of scaffolding.

The basement level contains Gerts Bar and Café (a non-profit student bar), the offices of The McGill Daily and Le Délit student newspapers, the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students’ Society, the McGill Student Emergency Response Team, and student television station TVM.

The ground floor provides a student lounge with informal seating, while upper floors accommodate meeting rooms, the Union for Gender Empowerment, and various club and service offices. The Menstrual Health Project stocks over 160 campus bathrooms with free pads and tampons and distributes reusable products at monthly pick-ups, funded by a $2.40 per semester fee established in 2017, the Peer Support Centre offers free confidential listening sessions and the Legal Information Clinic at McGill helps students navigate tenancy law and university policies.

MiniCourses delivers inexpensive non-credit evening and weekend classes in everything from language learning to bartending, and a free vegan lunch programme operates from the building’s first floor during weekday lunchtimes, addressing food insecurity following the closure of the Midnight Kitchen collective in late 2024.

It’s a good reminder that while space can’t fix students’ time poverty, it can provide a base for students to plan, organise, think, natter, store things and spitball their ideas.

As Captain Kirk (the Star Trek character played by William Shatner) once said: