Even the plush $1.6 million renovations to the Governing Council Chamber weren’t enough to render last Thursday’s Governing Council meeting a civilized affair. The meeting left some student governors concerned about what they see as an attack on the openness of U of T governance.
There were several moments of confrontation between administrators and student governors at U of T’s senior decision-making council.
This meeting marked the first time the GC disallowed the videotaping of its meetings. Former mayoral candidate Tooker Gomberg attempted to videotape the meeting but was told to stop only a few minutes into the proceedings.
Administrators said that the taping is against a University by-law that prohibits the recording of votes without governors’ permission.
Dr. Thomas Simpson, the chair of GC, explained, “We are looking at having videotaping by a governing council technician, who will point the video camera at [the chair] during votes.”
The recent renovation means that the room is equipped with the technology to webcast a video of the meeting. Thursday’s meeting was audiocast live on the GC website. However, Simpson said, “The cost of getting the technician to do the videotaping would mean that we would have to decide whether it is warranted for each meeting.”
Elan Ohayon, a graduate student governor, objected fiercely to the videotaping rule.
He presented the council with a photocopy of what he called “miscellaneous video frames” capturing past videotaping of meetings in which members did not seem to take issue with the taping.
Reflecting on the significance of this decision, Ohayon said, “They want to make this closed. They want to make this a backroom institution, which is exactly antithetical to what academia should be. It should be debate, it should be open, it should be recorded, it should be left for posterity…that’s what they’re trying to eliminate.”
Governing Council Meetings have a set agenda that is released prior to the meeting. Ohayon believes there are two significant opportunities for students, who are vastly outnumber on GC by administrators and appointees, to speak up: “Business arising from the report of the previous minutes” and “other business.”
Last week’s meeting saw the former opportunity curtailed and the latter eliminated.
Ohayon’s attempt to discuss an issue in “business arising” was called out of order by Simpson. Simpson justified his ruling by saying that “Business arising is not an opportunity to re-debate an issue that happens to appear in the minutes of a previous meeting.”
The meeting never tackled “other business.” At the beginning of the session, the council set the adjournment time for 6:30 to allow members to attend a reception.
But by 6:30, council was still discussing the report on Performance Indicators presented by professor Carolyn Tuohy. Council extended the meeting for five minutes to allow student governor Chris Ramsaroop to speak, but “other business” was left out.
Ohayon expressed disgust that the council felt they did not have time to continue. “Do they have time to discuss issues that students would report? Legitimate issues regarding accessibility, regarding funding, regarding open meetings, regarding the employment of a new Vice-Provost of Students. All of these questions were cut off.”
As governors filed out of the chamber, Association of Part Times Students President Emily Sadowski called out, “You call this a meeting?”
A grim-faced Ohayon warned the Chair that “backroom dealings” could not continue. Simpson shrugged off the student governor’s comments, saying he was pleased with the evening’s meeting.
Simpson called the meeting “very successful.” He said, “I can’t recall a meeting where so many governors spoke on so many issues of importance to the university. The meeting was very successful in getting governors to hear each other speak.”
