The OUSA Executive appears to be sick of its current structure, floating changes that would see the death of the Post Graduate Representative and Political Representative, plus the rebirth of a Disability Representative. On behalf of esteemed publication Critic Te Ārohi, I would like formally apologise for a lack of coverage on the matter, but I’m as fucking confused as anyone else is regarding the changes. In any case, a Student General Meeting (SGM) will be held to discuss the changes on the 9th of September, so we better figure it out.
From my understanding, the plan is to chop and change nearly all roles. There will now be an Engagement Vice President (20 hour role) to sit alongside the Administrative Vice President (20 hour role), absorbing the responsibilities and role of the Political Representative (RIP). The Finance and Strategy Officer will lose the second part of their role, being solely dedicated to financial governance and dropping from 20 to 15 hours. In terms of Post Grad Rep, current Administrative Vice-President Kamesha Jones was quick to assure me that the death of the role is happening in “name only”. The Exec are “definitely not letting the importance of Post Grad go unsupported”, and they’re working closely with Student Support and the class rep system to “outsource a lot of student representatives” in individual departments.
The Welfare and Equity Rep will lose 5 hours, becoming a 15 hour role, which will be used to create a Disability Representative (5 hours) responsible for advocating for disabled student members, ensuring their interests, rights, and wellbeing are represented, respected, and advanced within the OUSA’s welfare and equity matters, and on campus. They’ll act as a direct association liaison between the National Disabled Students’ Association, the Otago Disabled Students’ Association and OUSA. The Academic Rep will be split into two roles: an Educational Representative (10 hours) and Academic Officer (10 hours).
The Clubs and Socs Rep will keep their hours, as do the Residential and International Reps. If you think any of this is a good or bad idea, make sure to have your say on the 9th of September at 12pm in the Main Common Room. For a major change like this, the Exec must get student approval to pass it, hence the SGM being called.
In terms of co-governance, it took me three days to wrap my head around what these changes would mean. Shit was hard. To explain this, imagine OUSA as two chunks. One chunk has things like Clubs and Socs, Critic, Radio One, Student Support, Ori, Hyde Street Party and so on. The Executive sits at the top of this chunk, and employs OUSA’s CEO. Additionally, there’s an Advisory Committee that has two independent, non-student members that advise the CEO and the OUSA President. This committee owns the second chunk, which is something called OUSA Holdings. Holdings comprises all of OUSA’s commercial business, including the University Bookshop, the apartments above the bookshop, and Beer Fest. Holdings has a board – they kind of just do their own thing. Holdings was made by Quintin Jane, the 2023 OUSA President. The idea was that Holdings would limit the legal liability of the Executive, and make sure those with commercial experience would look after commercial matters as opposed to less commercially experienced students.
The co-governance model basically would create another committee, smushing the governance into one place. That’s a big deal given what I’ve just explained about Holdings doing their own thing and the Exec doing theirs. The proposed committee would have four Exec members and three independent non-students. That committee would then employ the CEO, having say over OUSA’s commercial and governance matters and reporting to the Exec. The Exec would continue to advocate for students, and the Holdings Board would have the same members as the committee. From my understanding, it would have basically meant that elected students would have more oversight and involvement in some of OUSA’s commercial decisions, with the help of highly skilled and independent board members. It would also ensure that not every Exec member has the legal liability and responsibility that comes with being an officer of OUSA, which is quite a lot. I’ve seen some chat about how the co-governance model would reduce student involvement, but this model would actually be reducing non-student involvement. There wouldn’t be an Advisory Board anymore, and the Holdings Board would be composed of the committee members. So, instead of having 6 non-students helping govern the place, we’d only have 3 with the new model, and they’d be directly working alongside Exec members.
In any case, President Daniel Leamy recently announced that the proposal is not going ahead – the reasoning being a lack of time to consult with students about the massive change. Plus, when the first draft of the proposed constitutional changes came back from the lawyers recently, it became clear that there was significantly more mahi needed. For example, the proposed committee was being given more authority than the Exec, which was never the intention and definitely needed changing.
However, with the SGM and elections coming up fast, and the time to consult with students running out, it seems like this Exec won’t be getting it over the line. And, in my opinion, that’s a real shame. As put by Daniel, the reason why the Exec looked into the change is because they don’t actually have enough time in their days (due to being busy with advocacy) or in their roles (due to having such a short amount of time to do things from induction in February to OUSA elections and handover happening from September), or the skills and experience to actually have proper oversight to govern OUSA. “A former Exec member says he spent the first third of the year learning how things work, one third actually doing things, and the final third finding someone to take over the work and the subsequent handover process,” Daniel told me.
To sum it up, Daniel said that “change in the Executive means new ideas can come through, but change this regular in governance means it is incredibly hard to do things.” Therefore, this hybrid model could have brought some much needed continuity and strong governance to OUSA. But whatever – that’s just my two cents.
