Disclaimer: The following report will not contain a TL;DR. It is a report of an overview of my experience working as a member of the Student Union’s Advocacy Team during the period surrounding the 2023 labour strike and dispute between the UPEIFA and UPEI Administration, along with my personal commentary. It is, however, divided into sections, so if there is a specific day or event you are curious about, it is likely covered somewhere in the pages below. This report is being shared in the interest of transparency to the students of UPEI, as I am fed up with the lack of concrete behind-the-scenes information being shared across the UPEISU, UPEIFA and UPEI Administration. Additionally, I can only speak to my experience. These are the events that unfolded as I viewed them. If I am incorrect about any information here, please let me know and I will have it removed or corrected as soon as possible. I have no desire to say anything false about anyone, and this is not intended as a hit piece. If I would be happy to take any questions speaking about my experience at noahmannholland@gmail.com. I will not speak for anyone else. Dear Students of UPEI, My name is Noah Mannholland, and for those of you who don’t know me, I am, for another two days. the Policy and Research Coordinator of the UPEI Student Union. In light of all that’s happened in the before, during, and now aftermath of the labour dispute between the UPEIFA and the UPEI Administration, I feel an explanation is owed to you. I know many of you are unhappy with the current state of affairs, and I do not blame you. I am unhappy myself, especially regarding the complete lack of transparency from both the UPEISU and the parties in dispute. This situation was an absolute mess. I wish it could have been avoided, but, if I’m being honest with myself, I believe it was inevitable. All that being said, I have done much reflection throughout the course of the strike and the immediate events afterward. My thoughts, alongside an explanation for why the SU made the decisions it did and took the actions it had taken, are in the following paragraphs. I understand completely why many of you feel we failed you. All I ask is that you hear me out through the words of this document regardless of your personal thoughts on me, the strike, and the SU’s role in it. I will attempt to speak as objectively as possible and provide explanations without excuse, but know I am human, so my biases will be present in this report. I would like to start out with bringing a couple matters to light. Preamble First, some background about me. I apologize if this comes off as self-indulgent, but I believe it is important for you to have a general idea of the person you are reading from. I am an engineering student in third-year standing who has at times also been a major of English (I’m weird). I joined the SU in June of 2022 because I needed a job and I wanted to do something meaningful. My last job was assisting first-year students at the University of Waterloo, the university I started with before coming to UPEI. Before that, I was a computer salesman at Staples. Upon returning home from Waterloo I decided I could no longer go back to a retail position, because my brain could not take it. I wanted to do some good in the world, and the job of PRC was open. I had no idea what to expect, and I think it is safe to say I got more than I bargained for, but I am grateful for the opportunities it has provided me all the same. I was responsible for the writing of our policy document, assisting with drafting our statements, and planning and interpreting most of the SU surveys. Second, these words as I type them are not intended to be a message from the UPEISU. These are my thoughts, and my thoughts alone. This is not a sanitized statement that has been run through a committee for approval; these are the ramblings of an engineering student who has put a lot of thinking into the way things are done. I speak not as the PRC in this document, but as me. As stated previously, I am a person with inherent biases and points-of-view that may not be shared with other members of the SU or the students we represent. I believe wholeheartedly in the SU’s mission statement that students need a voice, and I believe it is necessary for students to have representation on an institutional level. But, I am not blind to the issues the SU has with the way it conducts itself as an organization and its inherent shortcomings because of it. I think the SU has a long way to go before we are the organization students deserve, and I will detail what I think needs to change at the conclusion of my report. Third, as you may notice by reading more than a page of writing without getting to the point, I am quite long-winded. I would like to apologize for that now. I have ADHD, and it certainly comes out in my scripture. Due to this being largely off-the-cuff and informal, it is going to be long and may jump around from paragraph to paragraph. I hope you will be able to bear with me. Fourth, as these thoughts are my own and this testimony has not been proofread or otherwise approved by any other SU members, I will be omitting decisions and names of other members of the SU in this write-up. I do not know what these people thought on any given issue unless it was discussed during meetings of our Strike Committee or in another manner. I can only speak to my experience, and so that is what I will do. My hope is to give you the facts, and then give my interpretation of what this means for the SU. The Strike Committee Forms and March 16th Meeting I was asked to be on the Student Union’s Strike Committee by President Adam Mackenzie roughly two months before the strike began. To the best of my knowledge, this group was formed because Adam did not want to act without oversight. The members were selected because of their ability to reach students for opinions and their knowledge of student wants and desires. The group consisted of a mixture of student representatives, students-at-large, and UPEISU full-time and part-time staff, myself being among the part-timers. It is not my place to say the names of the members of this committee, not for the SU’s sake, but for the individual members’. I believe it is possible to request the minutes of the meeting in which the committee was formed, but that is not something I can confirm. I can say in total, there were to my estimation eleven official members and two unofficial members, including Adam and myself. The Strike Committee met many times throughout the dispute’s four-week duration. I could not honestly give you a concrete number of meetings, but I can tell you we met to discuss the March 16th, March 31st, April 5th, April 6th, and April 11th statements made on our Instagram site. The statements themselves were drafted by Adam and myself, and brought to the Committee for review, amendment, and approval. Strong discussion was had throughout all these meetings, and votes were held when a consensus could not be reached. I will go first to the meeting before the March 16th statement on the strike. Adam and I drafted the statement after learning of the likely (though not yet completely certain) strike date of March 20th. The statement was drafted in the afternoon of the 15th, and the Strike Committee was called around 5:00 to agree to it. In that meeting, we talked about who we believed the SU should support, and came to the conclusion we should remain neutral. The three main factors in our reasoning for this will be outlined in bullet points. Why we Were Neutral and Passive in the Beginning - Neither side was deemed to be completely for or against students. The UPEI Administration was acting in defense of the SOTs (Student Opinion of Teaching surveys), surveys to give feedback to professors that are used in determining which Faculty members receive tenure-track positions. Currently, these surveys are the only way students can give input on whom they would like to be taught by, and we deemed it imperative they not be removed. Meanwhile, the UPEIFA was in favour of smaller class sizes, an expansion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization training, and an improvement and modernization of teaching and lab spaces, particularly the situation regarding air filtration in Main Building. Contrarily, the FA opposed SOTs being considered for tenured positions, while the Administration essentially told us we would have an increase in tuition fees should the FA get their deal as it was written. - Students were divided on the issue as well. The Student Union received many emails and comments from students arguing for one side or the other, and it seemed a consensus had not been reached, at least in the early days. I believe it is worth noting that a vocal contingent of students rallied in support of the FA, possibly even the majority of students at the time. However, many of those same students were staunchly against a tuition increase should they be successful in their efforts. Given supporting the FA meant supporting a tuition increase, the SU opted for neutrality as a way to maintain those students’ rights to advocate on behalf of their professors, without pushing to condemn them to a frankly incredibly high tuition increase. - Picking a side means inherently isolating a group of students. To come out in support of either group would have meant that we were no longer accurately representing students who supported the opposite group. That, to to the members of the Committee, was completely unacceptable. I cannot tell you the personal beliefs of the other members of the SU, but I can tell you that I am and will always will be in favour of the collective bargaining process. I support the UPEIFA’s autonomy to advocate for a better deal for sessional instructors, who truly get the shit end of the stick at UPEI. I do not like everything the UPEIFA did and the somewhat unprofessional attitude they adopted on Twitter, but I stand by their right to strike. - Absolute confusion on what the Hell was going on. Our information was found the same way yours was; Twitter and emails. We had no idea which side was truly in the right, and we did not want to spread misinformation or lead students to supporting something that would be bad in the long term. Thus, we wanted to merely present what concrete facts we did know, so you could make your own decision based on the limited information we as a student body had. We didn’t know when this would end either. - Neutrality means keeping neutral relations with both sides. Despite a lot of belief to the contrary, the SU is a separate entity from UPEI itself. We do not take marching orders from UPEI and we are fiscally and legally independent organizations. In addition, the UPEISU is an advocacy group first and foremost. We have no legal power to force either the UPEI Administration or the UPEIFA to do absolutely anything. All we can do is use research and facts to support initiatives and policies that are beneficial to students. To that end, the SU largely relies on keeping a collaborative relationship with the FA and the Administration on the whole. To come out in blatant support of one side or the other will sour our relations with the side we did not pick. This inherently makes advocacy substantially more difficult in the future, which could have consequences immediately following the resolution of the dispute. For instance, if we supported the FA, we would now need to deal with a tuition increase set upon us by an Administration we came out against. If we supported the Administration, we would now be returning to class with a Faculty who had four weeks of us denouncing their rights as unimportant in the face of our problems. This was a no-win scenario for us. All these reasons combined made the Committee decide unanimously that neutrality was our best course of action. We needed to represent every student who attends UPEI, and we needed to make sure there would still be positive bargaining relations when this whole thing resolved. Picking a side accomplished neither of those things. Did we make the right choice? I am unsure. But regardless, the SU officially became neutral as of March 16, 2023. The Next Two Weeks (March 20th-31st) For the next two weeks, the SU would receive little direct communication with the UPEIFA and the UPEI Administration. A contingent I was not a part of went to informal and irregular meetings with both associations, but for the most part we were relying on the same information any student was; namely, the UPEIFA Twitter account and UPEI community bulletins sent out by the Administration. While we are based at UPEI, we were not privy to any special briefings or decryption of information. If you want to know where the bulk of our information was coming from, it was from this laptop I’m using to write this report. I would check the social media and emails from both sides and attempt to piece together what was happening. I quickly came to the conclusion that both sides were attempting to paint the other in the most negative possible light without disclosing any real information about proceedings, deals attempted, or even the clear policies of either side (I know, duh). I would get many messages from students asking me what to believe and what parts of either side were accurate, and the only answer I could give was “I have no idea”. This remains true to this day, because despite extensive research on my part, I could not tell heads or tails of the bulletins or the FA statements. Quite frankly, this left us in an information void. We were totally in the dark in terms of negotiations and where the leadership of either side stood, beyond each claiming the nebulous goals of putting students first and attempting to reach a deal as quickly as possible. During this period, we opted not to make any statements, as we really had no idea what we would speak about or whether it was true, and we at the time would rather have gone radio silent than spread false information. In retrospect, I believe this was our second mistake of many, many errors made along the way. The Disastrous Survey This brings me to the survey put out on March 31st. I was tasked with writing the survey by the Strike Committee so we could get a good idea of what students wanted when we did receive actionable information and a tangible end to the strike. This survey ultimately asked students to choose between pass/fail courses, a tuition refund, an extended semester, and an option to simply argue for normalcy. Given the dicey nature of pass/fail when it comes to master’s programs and doctoral research, an additional link was provided in an attempt to give clarity to the risks involved. This survey was, in my opinion, a colossal failing on my part, and mine alone. I did not include nearly enough information about each option, the link to the pass/fail explanation did not work, and everything was overly simplified and not in the least understandable just by reading the options as presented. Furthermore, some students reached out to me to ask for clarification, and while I did make some edits to the survey, I did not respond to all those students answering their questions in a timely manner. This was a second failing on my part, and to those students, I am sorry I did not respond properly. To all participants of the survey who took the time to even look at it, I am sorry I did not provide you all the necessary information to make your voice heard in an informed way. However, the survey luckily had a separate box for general comments, and we received 836 responses from individual students. My next step was to read each and every one of these comments, which I did, and to bring the findings to the Strike Committee as a whole. After reading through them all, these are the messages I received. Survey Results - Students wanted a refund for lost time. This ordeal had gone on long enough to pose a serious disruption to student life and studies (a serious understatement), and almost everyone understandably wanted compensation for the time spent away from class and their studies. Financial restitution was far and away the most popular option, with 54% of respondents desiring a return of their investment if they weren’t getting their money’s worth. - Students wanted credit for their courses. Students were anxious about what the future held in terms of getting the merit they deserved for the hard work they put in. We received many comments from students looking to graduate this year telling us they were terrified they would be forced to repeat the term, or would be pushed out of grad school were they to not receive their credits. We also got many undergraduate students not in fourth year saying they simply did not want a fight between two unrelated parties to result in a year of their life being wasted. In any case, it was obvious credits were very much on the forefront of student minds. And, in my opinion as a person who is finally passing calculus on the first try, rightfully so. - Students did not want a semester extension. Many, many comments were from students both domestic and international, saying in no uncertain terms a semester extension was not an option. For international students, this was mostly a concern with flights booked to return to their families living abroad. Flights that were nonrefundable, were booked months in advance, and, quite frankly, these students should be entitled to get on after going so long without seeing their loved ones. For domestic students, the concerns were mostly about starting summer jobs, having plans lined up for May, and being concerned about starting summer courses on time. While all these reasons are completely valid, I would like to take a second to say that not wanting the term to be extended for mental health, tiredness, or even no reason at all is an equally valid stance. - An amount of students did not want to return to class at all. There were number of students who didn’t want to go back, though at the time it was not as prolific as it is today. However, students were divided on how this should be done. Some wanted to take their current mark and have it be given as a final grade. Some wanted to be given a chance to make up lost midterms with assignments. Some just wanted a blanket ‘pass’ for every student in every course. The way this was to be implemented was up in the air, but there were quite a lot of students asking the SU to lobby for an immediate termination of term. April 5th Statement and Testimonial Compilation A statement was drafted from the survey data and brought to the Strike Committee on April 5th, and decisions were made based on that information. It was in the end decided the statement would broadcast that the SU was for a tuition refund (the number one request from students in the survey and in the comments) and was against a term extension (universally looked down upon by the students surveyed). We did not mention credits in this statement, and knowing what I know now, I believe that was a mistake. The reasoning for this was because we didn’t really ever believe there would be a chance students would not receive their credits, as never in the history of Canadian universities has there been a term with a strike when students have not gotten credit for their courses. We believed for UPEI to withhold credits for students would be, if I may be crass, the equivalent of committing economic suicide. It would be the first time in Canadian history, and no university wants that on its record. I am still a firm believer I was correct. However, regardless of that; we needed to say something about credits at that point, and we did not. For that, I am sorry. The decision was not mine alone and was more of an absence of a decision (I don’t even believe credits were mentioned once as it was agreed upon that it would be crazy for UPEI to deny them) but I would still like to take accountability for my part in making it. We also did not advocate for the termination of term in that statement. This is because the amount of students asking for an end of term were in the minority. At the time, more students wanted a continuation of their learning, as the earlier years were concerned about going into upper-year courses unprepared, and the later years were concerned with getting their last bit of knowledge to be successful. A desire to end the term immediately was only upheld by 153 students, representing only 18.3% of student voices. There was also additional concern that ending the term on April 6th would be detrimental to students who were counting on additional assessment to bring up their mark to pass their courses. We did not want to give the university any excuse to fail these students. It was also at this point we asked for the submission and compilation of student testimonials. This was because it was obvious our efforts speaking with both group had largely been inconclusive. It was our hope we could acquire sufficient student support to perhaps tug on the heartstrings of the FA and the Administration. I would also like to take this opportunity to personally thank every student who submitted a testimonial. I read through every one and responded to most, though I failed to respond to them all. The Events of April 6th The very next day, April 6th, a number of things happened. I believe it is easier if I record the events of April 6th as they unfolded. I received a phone call from Adam asking me to come into the office at roughly 11:30am on April 6th, saying he would explain more when I got there. I arrived at the office at roughly 1:00pm, at which point I was informed the UPEIFA was having a meeting with their members at 6:00pm and we needed a statement up. The purpose of the statement was to urge the UPEIFA to agree to enter into government-sponsored mediation. The newly elected King government had offered to pay a qualified mediator (the same mediator that had attempted to assist both parties in mediation before the strike) to help the admin and the Faculty come to an agreement. Adam believed this was our chance to put pressure on the FA to enter mediation. While it is true both sides were claiming they wanted to resolve the strike as soon as possible, this was the first time he truly believed they would be willing to meet under the same medium (at the time, I believe the admin sent out email proposals, while the FA were waiting in a hotel conference room for negotiators to show up). The Strike Committee had originally been asked to meet that day to review our statement, but before we could even begin to draft it, we were informed the UPEIFA meeting had been moved up to 4:00pm, the very time we were set to meet. Adam sent out hurried emails at 1:30pm asking the Committee to gather at 2:30pm. This was an emerging situation and we needed to act fast. I, in the meantime, set to work on a statement urging the FA to return to the table under mediator Michelle Flaherty. I was not halfway through the construction of that statement when Adam told me there had been a development; the FA had agreed to mediation independently. The Strike Committee meeting then became about how we should respond to this information. Obviously, this was considered a major step toward the path to success, and it was the first time I believed we had a way to end the strike. While this obviously didn’t pan out, I was incredibly hopeful going into that meeting. I do not remember much of the actual content of the April 6th discussion, just that our statement was approved unanimously. Breaking Neutrality and Arguing for Interest Arbitration Easter weekend passed relatively uneventfully, and we returned to work on Tuesday, April 11th to the terrible news that mediation between the parties had failed. The strike would continue. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. And I was not alone. At this point, the Committee was pretty frustrated as well, and what I consider to be drastic action was proposed. After much debate, the Committee voted on whether we wanted to advocate for interest arbitration, something the mediator, Michelle Flaherty, had said she would be recommending as well. I will not reveal the individual votes or the score, but I will say I was the only member of the Committee to abstain. I do not know if it will be relevant to give my reasoning for my abstention, but I will do so anyway. Feel free to skip the next paragraph if my personal beliefs do not interest you. This sounds sarcastic as I write it, but I will not be offended. The reason for my abstention was because I now found myself to be at an impasse ; on the one hand, I will die on the hill that the systems in which we live and proscribe to “legal protest” are, speaking plainly, bullshit. The first labour strikes were done without any laws supporting the workers, and historically the greatest changes have arisen from groups of individuals standing together despite the consequences. While I do not personally fault the members of the Administration for taking the stance they did on these issues, as most every university in Canada operates in a similar way, I believe we do require institutional change for students and sessional instructors. Many of these professors give their all to their students every year, and they are paid on the low end of 6000-9000 CAD per course for their efforts. I did not want to stand in the way of any progress made by these professors and the FA as a whole of improving their living and working conditions. On the other hand, I had a job to do, and that job was to work in the interest of students. What students wanted was the end of the strike, and it looked at the time like interest arbitration was the fastest way to do it. Ere go, it seemed the logical choice to push for it to happen as soon as possible. It is my job to act impartially except for the interests of students, but I think if I voted in favour of government legislating a deal in place of collective action, I would be incredibly disappointed in myself (to put it lightly). I could not find a way to reconcile these two ideas. Therefore, I abstained. In any case, the vote passed, and the statement went out arguing for interest arbitration. A few testimonials were also included in this statement as part of what was supposed to be the beginning of a campaign designed to share the frustration of students with the general public as well as both parties in their entirety. To the best of my knowledge, some testimonials were also shown in part or in their entirety to members of both groups (anonymously, of course), but these were the only ones to be released to the general public. The End of the Strike Morale was quite low for the next couple days, and they all passed by in a blur. I myself stayed home from the office on Wednesday, as I was dealing with a rather urgent personal matter that could not wait. My day Thursday was spent (finally) responding to the students who had submitted their testimonials to us. I attempted to have a real response to each, as I absolutely detest getting a company boilerplate answer from anyone. To those students who received a response, I hope at the very least it was apparent I’d actually read your testimonial, because I promise you I read each and every one. I am sorry I could not do more for your individual situations, but thank you once again for your bravery and willingness to help us out in our efforts. It was on this day the UPEIFA tweeted they had sent an offer to President Keefe that was to be at last the end of the strike. Adam got word on Thursday, April 13th that there would be an emergency Senate hearing, the sole topic of which was to agree to the propositions put forth by the UPEIFA to end the strike. The voting members of the SU were gathered and went to Senate. At Adam’s request, I attended as a non-voting member, essentially a spectator. I was not permitted to speak, nor did I have any say in the proceedings. The Senate Meeting on April 14th I will now take a brief moment to explain how the Senate works. The Senate is one of two governing bodies of UPEI, essentially their version of the Senate in Canada and the US. The Senate presides over the academic side of UPEI, including policy. The Senate consists of 44 members, and only six student members; Adam, Iyobosa the UPEISU’s Vice-President Academic & External (my direct boss), and three members of Council, including three Senate representatives and a Graduate Senate representative. The other 38 members are split between Faculty and Administration. What happens at the Senate is someone makes a motion (proposes a plan) and then that motion is debated, changed in any way the majority wants it to be, and then voted on. Motions that pass a majority vote are then put into place as policy. The Senate meeting lasted approximately one hour and ten minutes. There were four topics to be debated about the ratification of the UPEIFA’s agreement with the Administration. The first was the Pass/Fail option that ended up being offered to the students. There was much discussion about how it would be offered, what courses it could be used and not used for, the implications to graduate students, and the deadline students would have to make a decision to convert their mark to a Pass. This conversation lasted approximately sixty minutes. It was during this time Adam brought up the idea of stopping the term without a return to class. It was made clear to the Senate that a large number of students did not want to go back to lectures and were not going to be prepared for any kind of an exam season. This notion was dismissed by the majority of Senate members with very little discussion. The other three issues were treated as a group, those issues being the treatment and scheduling of AVC and nursing students so they could meet any kind of necessary testing and practical requirements for getting their degree or certification. These issues took about ten minutes to discuss. The meeting was then adjourned. During the adjournment process, a member of Faculty seated in the Senate asked for a note to be made regarding the emails sent out by the Administration during the time of the strike. This person wanted the community bulletins signed by the administrative staff who had a hand in writing them. The meeting was then adjourned, and people went their separate ways. The Inappropriate Response of Both Other Parties Anecdotally, while I am only able to speak toward the UPEISU side of things, I believe this entire ordeal was handled improperly by both the Administration and UPEIFA. I think a number of unprofessional statements were made from two groups of people who attempted to use the students as a weapon to be used against their opponent and colleagues. I believe the memes employed by the FA were unnecessary and often childish and in poor taste (especially in the latter two weeks of the strike, where it was obvious students were anxious about their futures), and I believe the Administration was not as forthcoming in their community bulletins and what information they released to the students. I would have applauded absolute transparency from either side, and I do not believe we got it ( myself and the students still have no idea what the agreement was between the UPEIFA and the Administration ). I understand legal disputes inherently carry NDAs and all kinds of red tape, but I believe we the students could have been monumentally better informed than we were. I do not blame any single individual from either party, but I am frustrated and appalled with the way two groups of adults conducted themselves and I wish for better in the future. Opposition and disagreement are one thing; degradation, untruths and disdain are quite another. And that was it. The Board of Governors meeting happened later that day, and the agreement was ratified. I went home and began to do the weeks of calculus work I had ignored. The next day, I helped to draft the statement that went out on the fourteenth, the only major decision being that the SU didn’t want to say much for fear of spreading misinformation on the Administration’s return-to-class plan. Then, I was done with the tasks I had to do, so I focused on trying not to drown in all the coursework and marking I had failed to complete during the time away from classes. The Week After Until Now The only other period I would like to discuss would be these past eight days, from April 18th to April 26th. During that time, Adam received the only direct email communication from the Administration that I am aware of (though there may have been others sent to executive members, and I do not want to speak for them) asking us about what we think they should do about the tuition rebates we’d fought for and had been assured we’d get. Adam sent an email on the 18th asking the Strike Committee’s opinion on how they should go about reimbursement. The Committee deliberated over email and was eventually near-unanimous in their feelings that UPEI should deliver a refund based on the amount of courses taken this term by a student: i.e. Students who took five courses would get more money than students who took four courses. The Committee was also unanimous in their belief international students should receive a higher sum, because their tuition is magnitudes higher than domestic students. A Brief Response to the Rebate When the tuition rebate agreement was put forward, no dollar amount or percentage was specified. However, I would like to take this time to say publicly the amount we are to receive is incredibly low . This was not what I had in mind when the Strike Committee was informed we would be receiving a rebate, nor do I believe it was what any of the other members had in mind. As of the writing of this paragraph, the SU plans to fight for a bigger refund. Whether we will get it or not is largely up to the Administration, but I don’t have high hopes given they opted not to go with the Strike Committee’s recommendation. But that is it in terms of the strike and my involvement with it. I think myself and the SU made a lot of mistakes, both in the way it conducted itself and the way it went in its communications with you. I will say nothing in my personal defense except that I am not a politician; I am a student, and this fancy ‘Policy and Research Coordinator’ title given to me (that, for a while, I did quite like the ring of) is just a description of my duties. I am here because I think you deserve to be represented and because I think you deserve better. I apologize for my failings in the process, and I will try to do better, starting with the release of this document, which hopefully gives you at least one third of the truth. This is my first time going through a labour strike, and it will hopefully be my last. That said, I do believe I learned some things from the experience, and I think the SU could stand to improve itself in many areas. I would now like to take the time to outline them: SU Systemic Problems (Strike and Otherwise): Lack of Transparency: The biggest, most important fault I think we had during this whole ordeal centers around one of our biggest mandates; honesty and transparency. Speaking with students before, during and after the strike, it has become very clear to me that the student body has no idea what the SU is, what we do, and who we are. I believe we need to do better. People do not know who their representatives are. People do not know who the SU’s staff is. People don’t know what we do, why we take the courses of action we do, and even that we are not affiliated with the UPEI Administration. Our council meetings, while in theory open to the public, are not heavily advertised nor are their minutes recorded or posted online. This is bad. Students pay the SU money every year, and all they know about us is we send out surveys, release limited information (if any), and absolutely nothing happens. During the strike, students deserved to know that we knew nothing a lot of the time. I got the information I shared with the Committee the same way everyone else did; I read the community bulletins, I looked at the UPEIFA’s website and their Twitter page, and I tried desperately to put the pieces together. A large part of the problem with the statements was us saying virtually nothing in fear of spreading misinformation. But that was incorrect and wrong of us. We should have explained to you in clear terms when we had no idea what was going on and we did not. Additionally, we should have explained to you what our advocacy process was, and why the bulk of what we could do was put out statements asking for both sides to reconcile and think of the students. We did not do that, and left you mostly in the dark about our lack of information. For that, I am sorry. It is incredibly important that students are able to understand what happens at the SU, and are able to know what our plans are and where their money is going. Strike Statements and General Messaging: We put out statements that looked very official, and signed our names to the bottom. We acted like politicians and diplomats, when we should have acted like the students we are. It is incredibly insulting to say ‘the SU condemns this’ or ‘the SU is disappointed that’ when there are people out there who’ve fought for years and aren’t sure if they’re going to graduate on time. Great, we made a statement; now, what are we doing about it? That part was always left out, and the political posturing that occurred, while not entirely unnecessary, should have been accompanied by our plan of action if we had one, or the admission of not knowing what we were supposed to do if we didn’t. We also made it seem like we have a lot of power we don’t have. For that, I am sorry. This problem I’ve found is actually systemic within the SU. We as a unit are very poor at properly communicating with students. You do not know our faces, our beliefs, our jobs or really anything about us. Hell, most of you probably only know me as the guy who’s name is signed at the bottom of every frustratingly vague statement we put out. We’ve received so many complaints that we’re doing nothing, and I can understand why. We are elected and hired to support you, but if we can’t even effectively communicate with you, why are we here? Anyone who tries to talk with us needs to walk up a set of metal stairs and go into a reception area that looks like a doctor’s office. We need to be public facing and approachable individuals, because we cannot represent students if they are afraid to talk to us or unsure what we’re saying. Big words and taking half a page to make a point is great in an English essay. It is abhorrent for talking with the student body, particularly in times of crisis. In the future, we need to do much better at presenting ourselves as what we are; a group of students who are trying to affect change without having the direct political or lawful power to do it. Lack of Proportional Representation at the Tables That Matter: The number one issue students put forth toward the end of the strike was that most of the students, in no minced words, did not want to go back to class. This issue was brought up at the Senate and it was essentially brushed over. There was nothing the SU Senate representatives could do about it. The Senate is a 44-person body deciding the policies that affect the lives of students every day; why do students only fill six of those seats, and why are those five seats given to the Student Union? That’s student representation of only 14%, leaving us largely powerless to get anything passed unless we garner support through sympathy or research. And, if a student has no involvement with the SU, they have no way to get their voice heard directly to the Senate short of being given special speaking privileges. This is, in my opinion,