UBC’s Vancouver Senate committee meetings are not easily accessible to the public, but the Senate Office said it’s not opposed to pursuing change to increase transparency.
Even before the pandemic, the public could not simply walk into a Senate committee meeting. Rule 37 of the Senate Rules and Procedures stipulates that for most committee meetings, general members of the public must inform the secretary of the committee that they wish to attend 24 hours in advance.
Rule 37 also gives committees power to limit attendance to members only. The Appeals on Academic Standing and the Student Appeals on Academic Discipline committees do not allow public attendance in any circumstance.
In contrast, most Board of Governors committees have at least part of their meeting in open session, do not require notice of attendance and livestreams the proceedings on their website — which the Senate doesn't do.'
The Student Senate Caucus said the lack of easy public access to committee meetings is made worse by the time it takes for the Senate to publish meeting minutes — which is often months.
Minutes for Senate meetings and Senate committee meetings have to be approved at the next meeting before they’re released. Since most committees meet on a monthly basis, there is a large gap between when they occur and when the meeting minutes are posted on the Vancouver Senate website.
According to Christopher Eaton, the clerk for the Senate and associate registrar for academic governance, this process is “a general practice.”
Eaton said Senate committee meetings are recorded, but only to “aid with producing formal minutes.” After the meeting minutes are approved by senators, the video of the committee meeting is deleted.
However, he said if committee meeting videos were posted on the Senate website, they could serve as temporary substitutes for the meeting minutes and put less pressure on the Senate Office to post minutes on the website “so early.”
Members of the Student Senate Caucus said the Senate Office` also struggles to write and distribute committee minutes to senators before their next meeting in a timely manner.
Student Senator-At-Large Dante Agosti-Moro, who serves as co-chair of the Student Senate Caucus, said there are frequent delays in “getting the minutes written up and having them sent [to the senators].”
Arts Senator Emmanuel Cantiller told The Ubyssey he can sometimes only “skim” committee meeting minutes since they are sent so close to the next meeting.
“I fear that this is a very harsh reality of how the Senate is,” Cantiller said. “You receive Senate materials at such a late notice.”
Eaton said that though the Senate has taken strides to increase meeting transparency and accessibility in years past, there is always room for improvement.
“For its first 70 years, the Senate met in a room and that was a closed session,” he said. “We’re at a stage now where we need to consider what else we can do. Are there different ways of working with people, of communicating things? I think it’s worthwhile to consider those.”