Nearly a third of DSU councillors fail to submit monthly report

First trial of new transparency initiative largely ignored

All DSU councillors were supposed to provide an end-of-month report for November after a motion was passed at the council meeting of Nov. 5 saying monthly reports are required. Only 13 out of 33 eligible councillors submitted reports. The submitted reports may be found at DSU.ca, though this has not been advertised by the DSU.

Each councillor was provided with a standardized survey form that poses questions and leaves room for any additional comments the councillor may have.

The form asks councillors to update their constituents and the rest of council with what activities their representative group has been involved in and what they have planned for the upcoming month.

The reports that did come in were brief – the mean average length of all 12 reports submitted is 144 words, meaning most university students could read one report per minute. Reports ranged from 31 to 351 words in length. The motion that was passed to make these reports mandatory did not specify a required minimum length for reports.

(The Vice President and DSU Rep of the Dalhousie Science Society both have a unique seat on council but co-wrote a report, meaning there were 12 reports for 13 council positions.)

The councillors who submitted reports are:

• Mackenzie Arnold, Management Rep
• Ali Calladine, Senate Rep
• Charlotte Dickie and Thomas Steeves, who interchangeably are the Dentistry Rep
• Tiana Dumarovsky, Residence Rep
• Rebecca Haworth, Board of Governors Rep
• Dylan Letendre, Senate Rep
• Kaitlynne Lowe, DASSS President
• Amelia Mackenzie and Brogan Carruthers, Dalhousie Science Society Vice President and Rep
• Yazan Matarieh, Member at Large
• Hima Merdan, Commerce Rep
• Taylor Quinn, Senate Rep
• Emily Whelan, Medicine Rep

It is possible that 13, not 12, councillors submitted reports – Christine Rankin, DASSS Vice President (Internal), has a link next to her name on the page of DSU.ca that links to the reports, but the link currently leads to the report by councillors Amelia Mackenzie and Brogan Carruthers.

The Gazette asked Christofi last night by email whether Rankin submitted a report and if it will be posted online. We will update this story when we know more.

Nearly a third of all councillors – 21 – did not submit any report at all.

These councillors are:

• Bassemah Al Hulaimi, Member at Large (Graduate)
• Aaron Beale, Member at Large
• Raphael Bronman-Nada, Computer Science Rep
• Andrew Bucci, Graduate Senate Rep
• Brogran Carruthers, Dalhousie Science Society Rep
• Michael Davies-Cole, Black Students Rep
• Amr ElKhashab, International Students Rep
• John Hutton, Board of Governors Rep
• Alexandra Killham, Women’s Community Rep
• Hannah Klug, Dalhousie Undergraduate Engineering Society President
• Sydney Miller, Engineering Diploma Rep
• Vishwa Patel, Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students Rep
• Jasmine Proulx, Health Professions Rep
• Scott Rairdon, Residence Rep
• Derek Rodgers, DalOUT Rep
• Sara Swasson, Aboriginal Students Rep
• Aaron Szeto and Uytae Lee, who are interchangeably the Architecture Rep
• Fuad Tushar, International Students Rep
• Jomel Varghese, Sexton Campus Director
• Leah Staples, Law Rep
• Naznin Sultana, Dalhousie Association of Graduate Students President