By Matthew Steinbach
News Editor

ouglas College has long been outspoken

in their position regarding the status of

the Douglas Students’ Union. The college
withheld student fees in June of 2005. Then they took
the DSU to court in 2007 to force them into receivership
and since then they have not let the union out because of
lingering financial concerns.

After a recent meeting between the Douglas
Students’ Union’s receiver-manager, the DSU, and the
College’s finance committee, the college has now begun
“negotiations with the receiver-manager and the DSU to
bring the student union out of receivership,” according
to Blaine Jensen, VP of Educational Services with
Douglas College.

Geoff Lenahan, treasurer for the students’ union,

“Things went a lot better [in the meeting] than | expected”

also expressed that “things went a lot better [in the
meeting] than I expected,” that the college even
“dropped one request, [the] ability to withhold fees.”

Jensen said that the college does “believe that the
DSU is in compliance,” with the College and Institutes
Act.

He went onto explain that the DSU have “been
open with us about what’s going on at the DSU.”

However, while this might be a major obstacle

Quick facts on receivership:

What is receivership?

Receivership has been going on for over two years at
the Students’ Union. This was the case where the courts
ordered that an outside person should take control of
the organization until it was ready to manage its own

BVO TTe

WPI ry orc M Ao m sO eerie mila
MUO Mm OnLy COI ed

This story begins at a time when an entirely different
group of people were running the Students’ Union and
they purchased a building, which became known as “the
Subway building’ since it houses the subway located
across from the New Westminster campus on 8" Street
. The building was purchased to build a new student
union building, but led to deficits for the organization
eventually causing the College to step in and withhold
fees from the DSU. The college then went to court to
place them in receivership. However, the Students’
Union's board of directors disputed whether or not the
college had a right to do this at the time.

So what’s this College and Institutes Act all about?
The College and Institutes Act is one of two acts in
British Columbia that direct how Student Unions are

to undertake their business. The Act is a guide to how
student unions and colleges are supposed to work
together on issues like fee remittance, which is covered
in Section 21 of the Act. Under this act, the DSU must
have audited financial statements completed in order to
collect the student fees that the college has collected on
their behalf that year.

The other act is the Societies Act, which outlines
what the society must do in order to remain a society;
for instance when yearly financial statements are to be
presented. The statements were not being presented at
the appropriate time during the College’s withholding of
the fees from the Students’ Union.

However, much of the debate in this issue has
been around what compliance is in regards to this Act,
which is a part of what the DSU recently agreed to in
principle with the College. The College wanted detailed
reporting. including the DSU’s audited statements
themselves, while the DSU argued that the College had
no right to view them.

INCH m Cece Mo CCM som eo acoe
as over?

There have been many reports in the past of an
impending end to receivership that date as far back as
November of 2007.

 

the two sides have overcome, Jensen admits that they
“still have legal processes to go through... [the] courts
appointed Marne [Jensen receiver-manager and they
are the] only one who can release her.”

Lenahan also stated that the DSU still had to hold
an emergency meeting with their board before the
college could debate the proposed agreement further.
But he did admit that he gets the feeling that this issue
could be over shortly.

That said, even Jensen admitted that while he
hopes that it will be over shortly he still thinks they
would be “lucky” to have this completed by the end of
March.

 

News Shorts

By Matthew Steinbach, News Editor

Suffering from student
debt?

The Council of Student Affairs Leaders,
an organization open to all educational
institutions in British Columbia and
comprised of senior administrators at
educational institutions and members of
student unions, want to help ease student
debt.

The group will next meet on February
26" in Vancouver in a closed-door meeting
to “talk about student debt,” according to
Blaine Jensen, Chair of the committee and
VP Educational Services here at Douglas
College.

Jensen explains that they want to
“give some easy wins” to the BC Student
Loan Program “leading into the upcoming
election.” He expressed his hope that
the council will “hopefully [be] able to
get something together” to present to the
program shortly.

The group began as an outlet for
senior administrators at BC colleges and
has since grown to include members of
students’ union and most recently senior
administrators at universities. Their
original mandate was to find common
ground to lobby the government with.
However, Jensen explains they now are
more “targeted” in their approach and look
more closely on “specific issues [and they
still] work with the Ministry [of Advanced
Education in BC].”

Free audio books for
students

The West Vancouver Memorial Library has
enabled students in the Lower Mainland the
ability to download audio books from their
website.

The Library has been building up
its collection of audio books for awhile
and have enabled these downloads to
be compatible with most MP3 players.
However, before students download these
books they must first install Overdrive
Media Software, version 3.

The goal of this program is to help
“cash-strapped students” find the text books
they need in a media-friendly way.

For more information please visit www.
westvanlibrary.ca