The AMS is aiming to make this the year for the governance review that they’ve been putting off for the last two decades.
“For an organization of this size, it’s a good idea to do some navel gazing … usually [every] five or six years, but with the way things go it’s been delayed,” said current AMS President Aaron Bailey.
The last governance review completed by the Society was in 1994.
Former AMS President Tanner Bokor argues that the organization has grown a great deal since then and has “become so fragmented without a holistic approach” to serve students.
However, Bailey says that the AMS doesn’t have any major internal problems.
“Obviously, there are hiccups here and there -- but for the most part, everything’s functioning well, specifically in comparison to other Canadian student societies,” said Bailey. “For us it’s more about, how do we look at the systems that are in place now, identify the areas that are a little bit problematic or might be problematic in the future … and address them before they become problems?”
When asked why the governance review has not taken place sooner, Bailey said the reason is twofold -- a governance review doesn’t fall under the portfolio of a particular executive and it is the first thing to get pushed to the wayside when a crisis hits.
“Caroline [Wong] had the chants, Tanner [Bokor] had BDS,” said Bailey, pointing out that each of these issues arose without warning and took up a great deal of that president’s attention. This meant that the governance review was not high on the priority list.
“Luckily in the last five years, there’s been enough groundwork built up for this that literally all I had to do was budget for it, take the proposal that was already a skeleton in place from last year, flesh it out and then get the ball rolling,” said Bailey.
Although he will still maintain a leadership role on the review, Bailey says he will hand over most of the day-to-day running of the committee that is in charge of the report to a staff member.
“So if there is something dramatic that pops up that I have to turn my attention to, I know that things will progress throughout the year ... the goal is by the end of this year I just want a report with implementation steps compiled that I hand over to the next person to do with it what they want.”
According to Bailey, the main outcomes of the governance review will be to overhaul the committee system, ensure that all students are properly represented on Council, and realign the portfolios of each of the executives to ensure a more even and effective distribution of duties. This latter task would include looking into potentially transitioning the VP Administration role into VP Student Life, while having the VP of Finance take on a more robust role in dealing with administrative duties within the organization.
For his part, Bokor hopes that the governance review will ultimately allow students to get more engaged with their AMS.
“It would be great to see students taking an interest in shaping their student society and this is really the best way, in my opinion, that students could have to do so,” he said.