After more than a month of pointed questions from its constituents about a party held Dec. 22, the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) will bring its party planner to a board meeting to provide answers about the party’s planning and promotion.
The party, held Dec. 22 at the Guvernment nightclub, provoked calls for the resignation of SAC’s president, Rocco Kusi-Achampong. The event cost students $15,000. In addition, a party planner was hired to oversee the event and others at the Erindale and Scarborough campuses. The parties are being held as part of the “SAC 101” celebrations, commemorating SAC’s 101st year.
Alexandra Artful-Dodger, SAC’s external commissioner, is especially critical of the party. In a press release calling for Kusi-Achampong’s resignation, she said the event was planned “without the approval of the executive or board of the council.”
Artful-Dodger blasted Kusi-Achampong for failing to promote the event properly: “not a single member of the council had seen a flyer or knew about the December 22nd party,” she said.
She added the party “occurred well into the winter break, after the university had been closed, and the campus was empty.”
Artful-Dodger also accused the president of hiring the party planner “without any hiring input from his fellow executives or members of the council.” She called the expense of money a “flagrant violation of SAC’s by-laws,” saying “no record of the decisions to spend such monies was presented to the board.”
Mohammed Hashim, SAC’s university affairs commissioner, said many of his constituents had questions about the party. “Everywhere I go, students are asking how we can get the money back,” Hashim said.
But SAC’s vice-president operations denied the accusations. John Lea said SAC hired the party planner to co-ordinate events across all three campuses.
He also said the party was advertised adequately. “There were some requirements in the contract that it was promoted.”
Lea was critical of Artful-Dodger’s claim that the party was poorly attended: “That’s a lie. There were over 1,900 students.” Lea said he periodically checked in with Guvernment door staff to see how many U of T students attended the event. Students had to present U of T identification to enter for free. Door staff “had one of those counter things. At the end of the night, there were 1,952 students there,” Lea said. He added that the controversy was the result of “P.R.”
Lea said SAC had known about the party, since the SAC 101 programme of events had been planned since the summer.“The SAC board of directors is acting oddly,” he added.
Lea said the party had to be compared to other SAC social events in previous years.
“Think about it in the context of SAC parties in the past. In the last two years, we had two Optic parties that cost $40,000 each. Both those parties had 500, 600 students each. We managed to get almost 2,000 students. It was wildly successful.
“I was there… There were lineups out on to the Lakeshore. The point is, it was huge…. I didn’t have a hallucination.”
SAC will discuss the party at an upcoming Board of Directors meeting, scheduled for late February, Lea said.
