The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Vice-President (VP) Student Life, Chloé Muñoz, announced her resignation from the role at the Oct. 24 Legislative Council meeting. Her resignation is effective Oct. 29. SSMU will run a by-election to fill the position and the remaining executives will share the responsibilities of the Student Life portfolio in the interim.
In an interview with The Tribune, Muñoz explained that her resignation was due partly to personal reasons and internal restructuring in SSMU which made her portfolio as VP Student Life particularly difficult.
“These roles take on a huge managerial role, which I don’t think I personally was prepared for, and I think the year-to-year transition makes it at times unfair for the permanent and casual staff that remain,” Muñoz said. “I just think there needs to be a remodelling of what is expected of executives, so that there is more support for people entering the role. The model right now makes the position very overwhelming and difficult for any real progress to be made in a way that can support student groups and students better.”
Muñoz also mentioned that the bureaucratic nature of SSMU was ultimately at odds with the action that she wanted to enact within the union.
“There were also a lot of structural pushbacks that made it really difficult to uphold the communication and transparency that students deserve, and I no longer wanted to be a part of that dynamic,” Muñoz said.
While she is stepping down from the position, she expressed support to the remaining executives.
“Ultimately this was a personal decision and I recognize that SSMU just might not be the place for me at the moment and I wish all the remaining executives the best of luck in all that they […] are doing,” she said.
The VP Student Life portfolio covers three main pillars: Student groups, mental health, and family care. As the process for a by-election gets underway, SSMU President Dymetri Taylor explained that he will take on responsibilities regarding services and family care, VP Operations and Sustainability Meg Baltes will take on the clubs, and mental health responsibilities will go to VP University Affairs Abe Berglas.
Susan Aloudat, VP Events for the Arab Student Network, told The Tribune she is concerned that the lack of a VP Student Life might pose a challenge to student clubs and services.
“It can be really hard working on a service with SSMU when they’re transitioning between execs because it makes already slow processing times go slower and then we can’t provide certain deliverables […] on time,” Aloudat wrote. “It would be nice if SSMU removed a lot of the unnecessary communication that happened between services and SSMU execs, for example room bookings and financial affairs, because the wait and the back-and-forth is what makes it hardest to do our job.”
The two-week nomination period for the by-election will begin on Monday, Nov. 4 and will be followed by a week-long campaign period. This timeline will be extended if there are no candidates for the role. In the event no one runs in the by-election, the executives will either continue to share the responsibilities, or SSMU will hire staff to help fulfill the tasks. Taylor estimates that if someone is elected, they will likely fully take on the role in January 2025.
To Taylor, this resignation is indicative of a broader issue of a lack of student engagement with SSMU.
“In the past, the SSMU didn’t see as much resignation as it does now, and that is due to an abundance of reasons. One is simply just due to waning interest in the SSMU, which is predictable based on how things have gone for the past few years,” Taylor told The Tribune. “Things remain relevant if they are […] doing things for the student body. They don’t remain relevant when they’re doing things that aren’t really out there and engaging with the student body.”
