URSU board appoints current president as interim GM
Past execs voice concerns
After a roughly 90-minute in camera session during their Tuesday, March 23 board meeting, the URSU board confirmed that they would go ahead with the firing of General Manager Carl Flis, with outgoing President Gurjinder Singh Lehal stepping in as interim GM. Although the move seems to be a violation of Section V of the URSU constitution, board chair Tim Otitoju, said that the board has consulted with their lawyer, who did not specifically say that appointing the current president to the GM role would be a violation of the section, which states that “no Director may hold more than one office or paid position of the student union at a time.” Otitoju noted that Lehal will not be getting paid for his GM role. “It depends on your interpretation of ‘two roles,’” as to whether the boards’ decision to appoint Lehal is unconstitutional, he added.
Fifth URSU board member resigns
And another one gone
Another URSU board member has resigned, bringing the total number of resignations in 2021 to five (six, if you count Operations Manager Neil Middlemiss who gave notice earlier this month). The representative for students with disabilities, Katlyn Richardson, tendered her resignation on February 18. In a public Facebook post Richardson wrote “Since 2019, I have represented the side of Student’s [sic] with Disabilities in everything I have done at the university from representing students in disciplinary hearings to trying [to] make our voices heard in board meetings. I cannot say this was a decision I wanted to make but will say it was one I had no choice but to make. I do hold hope in a better year of fighting for students in the 2021/2022 school year. I may not be a director anymore but I will continue fighting for you no matter what obstacles are faced in the future.”
Serious accusations of internal misconduct leveled at URSU
Communications breakdowns, personality clashes
Four members of URSU’s board have resigned since January and at least two are contemplating resigning amid complaints that the executive has created a toxic work environment. Although some of those who resigned attributed their departures to outside commitments, others have stated that their resignations or potential resignations are directly due to the atmosphere created by the executive committee consisting of President Gurjinder Singh Lehal, Vice President of External Affairs, Amir Said, Vice President of Operations and Finance, Gurkirat Singh, and Vice President of Student Affairs, Ziyang (Zeo) Li. Sources close to URSU allege that the executive has used bullying tactics, undermined decisions made by the board, and disregarded recommendations by the HR committee. Charges of bullying and intimidation have been leveled at Said and Li in particular. However, according to Sai
Winter bus pass improvement over last semester
U-Pass still off the table
by hammad ali,
contributor
In the summer of 2020 the University of Regina Students’ Union (URSU) and Regina Transit announced that they would not be able to provide the discounted U-Pass for the Fall 2020 term. Since most classes were being offered online, and students would not be commuting to campus as often, it was deemed infeasible to offer the discounted pass for students (though somehow it’s still feasible for the admin to charge remote students a recreation fee for a gym they can’t access).
The news was an unwelcome shock to many, particularly since many students work off-campus and would still need to be commuting to and from their places of employment. Furthermore, the rationale of encouraging students to take the bus more often and thus contribute to reducing traffic was also not being helped by this decision. Without the discounted U-Pass, the cheapest bus pass option would be the $78 mon