This month, as the university community undergoes another student election period for the institution’s Governing Council — U of T’s highest governing body — many students are rightfully questioning the representative nature of the council’s membership.
International student Yelize Beygo’s story, which was featured in the January 19 issue of The Varsity, remains at the forefront of a movement to reevaluate the university’s now 44-year-old governance structure — a movement that is gaining momentum among students during the election campaign.
While her domestic student counterparts begin campaigning for seats on the council over social media, Beygo, a vice-president of U of T’s International Students’ Association (iNSA) and a legal citizen of both Turkey and Switzerland, must sit idly by. Her nomination for a seat on Governing Council was disqualified due to her international student status.
It is a discouraging fact that, despite bringing enormous revenue to the university through their comparably high tuition fees, U of T’s 11,894 foreign undergraduates remain absent in the boardrooms of the institution’s highest decision-making body. the University of Toronto Act, which includes Canadian citizenship as an eligibility requirement for student governors, was established in 1971, a time of great nationalism in Canada. Said act is hardly an adequate response to such a significant constituency’s continued disenfranchisement — especially considering that U of T is looking to increase its number of international students in the coming years.
U of T remains one of five post-secondary institutions in the province whose policies prevent international students from seeking representative positions on their university’s governing bodies. Along with Western, Ryerson, Laurier, and McMaster, U of T — through ineffectual lobbying of the province to change its governing policies — continues to see its international members primarily as revenue generators, rather than equal and active participants in the university community.
The lack of international student representation on Governing Council is not a new injustice. Nonetheless, perhaps it is currently the best tool the student body has at its disposal to leverage the university to pursue overarching changes to the council as a whole.
While their colleagues and friends from abroad may not be able to influence important policy, those seeking election to the council this month should consider just how small their influence will be.
The 16 candidates vying to fill four remaining seats in two constituencies cannot forget that, if they are successful, they will be joining a group of university stakeholders who are able to shout down their contributions all too easily. Of the 50 seats on the council, students from every conceivable demographic — internationals excepted — are entitled to fill only eight seats, while the remaining representatives come from the university’s administration, teaching staff, alumni, and provincial government appointees.
This is not to say that the eventual winners of the election will be walking into an oppositional situation, but just that in terms of sheer numbers, they will always be at a disadvantage when trying to represent their constituencies directly.
So, then, is it not time to apply collective pressure to reevaluate the outdated structure U of T uses to make its important decisions about spending, research objectives, and the quality of our lives as students?
Many other universities in Ontario, including the University of Guelph, have alternatively structured high-level decision-making bodies. Besides allowing international students to run in elections, Guelph has prioritized student input by opting for a proportionally representative Senate model that draws elected representatives based on the size of their respective faculty or program. By splitting the university’s academic community into greater branches, Guelph has provided more opportunities to include students in conversations of consequence.
Students are right to be frustrated by the council’s current make-up, because it disadvantages international students, pits the few student representatives it has against an overwhelming majority, and continues to operate with relative opacity. Assurances, such as the one Governing Council secretary Louis Charpentier offered The Varsity last month, that the council is sensitive to issues like international student representation and is working with the government to explore changing policy, are woefully insufficient. We appreciate that these developments take time, but more is needed than vague promises to address our concerns.
