Mount Allison's SAC (Students' Administrative Council)

SAC President-Elect Pat Joyce on what the SAC does at Mount Allison:




 If you were ever curious about what exactly happens to the $75.50 you give the SAC every semester see sac.mta.ca and the SAC Budget.

**Of note, the highest net expenses for the 2010-2011 school year are as follows:

1. Salaries $86,719
2. Allisonian (Yearbook) $51,500
3. Honouraria $46,150 (up $6,450 from last year)
4. Green Investment Fee $23,000
5. Insurance $13,300
6. Academic Enrichment $11,000
7. Clubs and Societies $10,500
8. WUSC Sponsor Student $9,200
10. Agenda/Handbook $8,900
11. NBSA $8,050
12. Employee benefits $7,857

The Top Three Reasons Why You Should Go to Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada for Your Undergraduate Degree

While many American schools admissions deadlines passed or are very quickly approaching, the deadline for admission to Mount Allison University, is months away (March 15 for Scholarship Consideration, April 1 for Preferential Consideration for September enrollment). For years, many Americans have been going up north for education that is both more affordable and of a similar quality of education to many American schools. As I am now seeing the impact my choice to come to Mount Allison has had on my future job and education prospects, I thought I should write about why you (the Canadian/American/other international high school senior) should consider going to Mount Allison along with other top schools in North America.

For background, here's an NBC story on why many Americans are going up north for college.

Mount Allison in Winter

In my previous post, I mentioned the new marketing campaign Mount Allison has recently begun...and I mentioned my hopes that future advertising would move beyond just its ranking.

For me it was personal recommendations and a visit to campus that more or less made the decision for me. The Macleans and other rankings simply confirmed everything that I had already heard about the school and eliminated any doubts I had about Mount Allison's national reputation (and more importantly if a Mount Allison degree would be respected back here in the United States. There are intangible aspects that may be hard to put into marketing material. It is knowing that you're going to be treated as an individual and not a number like students at larger Canadian universities commonly report. My three reasons at the time (which have been validated over three years of study) for going to Mount Allison University were:

1) You are able to feel comfortable from the first day.
2) You can be as active as you want to be in student groups.
You can develop a working relationship with your professors.

Quite possibly the first aspect of Mount Allison that made me want to come here was the sense of community I found even when visiting in the dead of winter. People seemed to enjoy being there and were genuinely friendly. This sense of community was confirmed during the first weeks here where I met some of the most interesting and caring people I've ever met. I'm still friends, if not close friends, with many of the people I met here during frosh week. Although it is difficult to accurately quantify a sense of comfort, it has been a major factor contributing to my success here. Even in times of anxiety I still have felt at home at Mount Allison.

Secondly, I saw that there was a vibrant student community with over a hundred active student groups. During my first semester at Mount Allison I joined different Students' Administrative Council Committees, became a blog writer for the school, and published an article about the US election in the Argosy, Mount Allison's independent student newspaper. I don't think there are many other schools of Mount Allison's calibre where a new student would be able to get so involved.

When I got back form the airport on the car ride back home I talked to my parents about the school year so far and they noted how my academic writing has improved over the years. I wrote earlier about how sometimes the intense stress of large assignments over a long period of time can make you refocus your priorities. It can make you a more efficient student and writer and after receiving my grades I'm even more convinced this is true.

This semester in four third-year courses I wrote in excess of 125 pages. Now a ten page assignment that seemed like a hassle in first year seems like very little after the gargantuan amount of work I completed this semester. I owe this success partially due to the Honors and AP courses I was able to take in high school that prepared me for university but it is the high expectations, excellent teaching, and advice from professors that forced and aided me in writing multiple 20+ page A-quality research papers. I firmly believe Mount Allison provides one of the most solid foundations anyone can have when applying directly for employment or to a graduate program.

Mount Allison Students' Administrative Council (SAC) Newsletter (Honorary Degree Process and Student Health Insurance)

If you haven't seen it yet Mount Allison's Students' Administrative Council (SAC) their first Quarterly Newsletter, the Union Quarterly. In in, SAC President Samuel Gregg-Wallace outlined some of the key issues and initiatives for the SAC this year.

These include: The awarding of the first ever SAC Excellence in Teaching Award to Geography Professor Dr. Michael Fox. He also mentions his role as the President of the New Brunswick Student Alliance wherein his priorities are "establishing a multi-year funding agreement with universities to ensure stable tuition prices, eliminating interest on student loans, and expand the Timely Completion Benefit."

The four page newsletter includes sections on the process of awarding honorary degrees. SAC Vice President Vice President Nathan Walker writes about the controversy and what the SAC has done improve the degree granting process.

Following the controversy surrounding the awarding of an honorary degree to Heather Reisman at May’s Convocation ceremony, the SAC recognized the need for a close reevaluation of the role honorary degrees play at our university and the procedure by which they are awarded. In this particular instance, Ms. Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books and Music, was honored with a degree in recognition of her corporate success. At issue with some of the university’s faculty and students were her ties to the Heseg Foundation, which provides financial support for Israel’s “lone soldiers” – members of the Israeli Defense Forces who have no family ties to the country but wish to settle there.

While the SAC did not take a stance on the awarding of Ms. Reisman’s degree, the need for a discussion of the current honorary degrees policy was apparent. Subsequently, the SAC Executive Committee, Academic Affairs Committee, and the Students’ Administrative Council as a whole have undertaken a review of the principles and procedures surrounding these degrees and made a series of recommendations to Dr. Robert Campbell, University President and Chair of Senate. 

After careful consideration, we felt that the current criteria and rationale for the awarding of honorary degrees are appropriate, provided they are followed. These criteria are best summarized by assertion that “when granting an honorary degree, we are projecting our values and vision to our community.” However, the current procedures seemed to lack transparency and do not facilitate informed, engaged decision making by members of senate, and therefore need to be addressed. To this end, the SAC President, Vice-President Academic, and Student Senators submitted a number of proposed procedural changes to the members of Senate, including a request that information on proposed honorary degree recipients be distributed to Senators with enough time to conduct research and contemplate the university values each candidate reflects. Additionally, we requested a list of candidates previously approved by senate but on whom a degree had not yet been conferred, to ensure that the candidate continued to embody the university’s ideals.

At the recent November 18th Senate meeting, Dr. Campbell announced that these proposed changes, in addition to others put forward in our letter, would be implemented in the upcoming deliberation of honorary degree candidates in December. We are gratified to be working towards an improved process and look forward to further engagement with the university community in the near future. For more information about honorary degrees or the SAC’s letter to Senate, please contact Nathan Walker, Vice-President Academic at sacacademic@mta.ca

This article still leaves many questions unanswered, particularly because, to date almost none of the details have been made public and all discussions, it seems, have been behind closed doors. It is unclear exactly how having a list of preapproved honorary degree candidates provided to the SAC can "ensure that the candidate continued to embody the university’s ideals." Is it supposed to imply that the SAC will have a say in who receives degrees. Will the SAC also be provided with names of future possible degree recipients. Will student opinion be taken into account besides the one student (out of eleven members) on the Honorary Degrees Committee? How is that student chosen? The webpage about Honorary Degrees is unclear about how the Committee functions and whether a majority vote is needed in order to provide the Senate with a select list of acceptable recipients. This makes it very unclear if the new recommendations will increase transparency as the SAC hopes.

However, in a situation like this it is quite possibly it is in the best interest of the University that the procedures and deliberations of the Committee and Senate are not made public and that transparency is not always necessary or appropriate. The ultimate recipients are important for the future of the University in terms of providing it with increased national recognition (Peter Mansbridge, 1999) and other positive benefits, and I believe that we ought to put enough faith in our representatives (or in case of students, representative) that they will make appropriate decisions on our behalf. However I, and undoubtedly those who opposed awarding Heather Reisman a degree hope that in fact the implementation of the new recommendations will allow for more informed decisions in the future.

Another piece of note is by Vice President Campus Life, noting that, what do you know, yes, a large majority of student 66.5% and 64.5%, respectively) do want mandatory, opt-out extended health and dental insurance. The plan is to have health and dental insurance for all students by September 2011.

Here is the newsletter (archived from the SAC website.

Mount Allison University Students' Administrative Council's Union Quarterly