The Philosophy Students’ Association (PSA) is looking into the possibility of separating their finances from the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS).
The PSA’s announcement came after the AUS’ decision earlier this semester to internalize faculty associations’ bank accounts. This means that the AUS would act as the PSA’s bank account, holding PSA’s money and checks.
The PSA raised concerns about the potential for this change to weaken its autonomy as an association. While the AUS has since offered a compromise, in which associations keep their external bank accounts but use an accounting software called Quick Books, the PSA is still considering separation from the AUS.
“The PSA is an extremely active group for our allocation size, so being able to fully control our finances is extremely important to us … in light [of] past AUS financial struggles,” PSA President Jonathan Wald said. “This is a process that has been tested at the Francophone universities and has worked very well for them.”
The PSA is therefore looking to form their own bank account—which must be approved by the provincial government—and to be accredited to become the official representative of philosophy students at McGill.
Saad Qazi, AUS vice-president finance, said the PSA’s potential accreditation does not necessarily mean separation from the AUS.
“Financially, it would mean that the PSA can fix an assessment (fee) payable by each member of the PSA,” Qazi wrote in an email to the Tribune. “This assessment would be collected directly by [McGill] and disbursed directly to the PSA.”
According to Qazi, McGill currently distributes all arts students’ assessment fees to the AUS, which then distributes the fees to individual departments on a pre-established per capita basis. Wald said that even a low assessment fee would give the PSA more money than they currently receive from the AUS.
Qazi said it is too early to determine exactly how the finances of the PSA would operate following accreditation.
“It is very likely though that the university would ask the PSA to provide annual audits, as is the case for all other accredited student associations on campus,” Qazi wrote. “The PSA’s assessment would then have to be sufficient to cover the cost of providing an audit to the university.”
Should the PSA separate from the AUS, philosophy students would still be members of the AUS, said Wald, but their exact relationship would be determined through negotiations with the AUS.
According to Wald, PSA decided to pursue this course of action after a three-week-long series of meetings conducted on a consensus-basis, in order to ensure that the decision was widely supported. An accreditation vote would likely be run next semester, with the help of the Quebec government.
