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M musters up a mass of musicians P. 13
Stingers leave Rouge et Or seeing red P. 18
You say ‘tuition hike,’ we say ‘pay cut’
Editorial P. 20
Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011
life Mo’ter Boat your way through Movember P. 7
arts FOFA presents annual undergrad exhibition P. 12
opinions Some dog breeds having a ‘roff’ time in Montreal P. 22
Volume 29 Issue 13
Graphic by Katie Brioux
Proposed transparency motions touch a nerve at board meeting Board of Governors at odds over how much public interaction should be allowed in their meetings Alyssa Tremblay Assistant news editor Concordia’s Board of Governors is in agreement with one representative’s call for increased transparency at their meetings—they just can’t agree on how to do it. The board is rethinking the way it holds its meetings after graduate representative Erik Chevrier proposed to much debate last Thursday a series of motions formulated to open up the Board’s activities to a wider audience. After rejecting one motion, the board decided to send two discussion points to the executive committee for further review. Chevrier said that the motions were presented in the hopes of getting the board to take “a proactive stance” against controversy. “Concordia picked up quite a big deal of bad press when Judith Woodsworth was let go,” said Chevrier, referring to the dismissal of Concordia’s
former president last December, asking that the board take steps to avoid future conflicts by adopting some sort of transparency agreement. The defeated motion called for the location of the board meetings to be able to have no less than 50 seats for those who wish to attend in the same room. Changes were also proposed to the way board meetings are run, calling for all open session board meetings to be video recorded and broadcast, and to establish a 20minute period in which the public at large can ask questions or comment. The board’s executive committee will study these two ideas, then present their recommendations to the full board. No specific deadline was given for the report. Each motion was presented individually, resulting in nearly an hour of heated discussion between board members.
See ‘Student’ on P. 5
Some expenses show Lowy ‘out of touch’ with students: CSU president
Expense report shows university president flies business class and has made numerous repairs to his car Jacques Gallant Editor-in-chief Since taking office in February, Concordia’s interim president Frederick Lowy has been reimbursed for over $9,000 in airfare, $4,000 in car expenses, and almost $3,000 in hotel rooms. These numbers, taken from his expense report obtained by The Concordian through an access to information request, are not that surprising to Concordia Student Union president Lex Gill, who describes Lowy’s thousands of dollars in reimbursements as “business as usual.” “It’s actually a little better than what I would have expected, but we all know that senior administration at this university is notorious for wasteful spending,” she
said. “I’m more interested in the expenses that aren’t here. What is the university buying on his behalf, like golf memberships and cocktails.” The reimbursement forms, all approved by chair of the Board of Governors Peter Kruyt except for one, show that over the past nine months, Lowy has made plane trips to destinations including Toronto, New York, Victoria, and Italy. Although the details in the report are fairly vague and all names except for Lowy’s have been erased, the forms show that Lowy’s trip to Victoria was for meetings of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, while the New York flight was for “alumni meetings” and the May 21 Italian
See ‘Gill’ on P. 5
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