The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) recently shifted the duties of Vice-President (VP) Student Life to a different position: Director of Clubs and Services. Hamza Abu Alkhair, the recently appointed Director, is a U2 Electrical Engineering student. He started as the Director on Nov. 15 and completed onboarding for his new responsibilities on Jan. 19. He is currently the SSMU Services Representative and is also an active member of the SSMU Legislative Council, through which he has experience working in the VP Student Life portfolio.
The VP Student Life position has remained vacant following Chloé Muñoz’s resignation from the role on Oct. 29. SSMU held a by-election to fill the role in late November, but the results were nullified as the election failed to meet quorum. SSMU did not hold an election to appoint Abu Alkhair to the position of Director of Clubs and Services. He will remain responsible for the VP Student Life duties until a newly elected VP takes over on May 31.
SSMU President Dymetri Taylor told The Tribune that the student union made this change to the Director of Clubs and Services position because there are currently two executive vacancies and the VP Student Life position entails an extensive workload. Instead of having the other SSMU executives continue to assume the role’s responsibilities, SSMU distributed them to Abu Alkhair. In addition, Abu Alkhair will sit on the SSMU executive board, but will not receive a vote.
“It was akin to the responsibilities of a Fire Chief being given to the Deputy Fire Chief,” wrote Taylor.
Taylor added that this redelegation of responsibilities will allow the rest of the SSMU executives to focus their complete attention on the core requirements of their own roles, rather than having to juggle extra tasks. Additionally, Taylor explained that the creation of the Director role will give clubs and services the attention and focus they deserve.
Abu Alkhair told The Tribune that he was selected for the transfer of responsibilities because he was already taking on some of the VP Student Life responsibilities, and that he can now help lighten the workload for all SSMU executives since he will oversee club applications and manage services they were previously responsible for due to the vacancy.
“As the previous president of [Arab Student Network] ASN I found that we had a lot of challenges that SSMU could help out with especially when it came to managing funds, room bookings, and Activities Night,” Abu Alkhair wrote. “My goal is to be more involved with clubs and help as much as I can. We are in this together.”
Abu Alkhair’s plans for his new responsibilities include reevaluating SSMU’s clubs and services review process to improve efficiency, increasing acceptance speed for new club applications, and adding more resources for clubs on the SSMU website.
Former VP Student Life candidate Alice Postovskiy wrote to The Tribune that she was disheartened by this development, given her campaign for VP Student Life in November and prior experience as a club and service executive.
“Students should demand change!” Postovskiy wrote. “We deserve a student union accountable to its members. We deserve a SSMU without nullified elections, unclear rules, and an unelected Board.”
Postovskiy also noted that SSMU has not set a similar precedent in past by-elections that also failed to meet quorum.
“I would have hoped that the SSMU consulted with its student groups [….] As always, the lack of communication is uninspiring,” Postovskiy wrote.
