It had been a New College Student Council policy to offer a
discount to commuter students attending events. However, this seemingly
benign practice was called into question early this academic year.
The brainchild of former Commuter Student
Representative Eric Cheng (current VP Administration), this discount,
of either 25% of the cost of the event or $5.00 (whichever was less),
was instituted in order to offset the transportation costs these
students often had to incur when attending the on-campus events. In
defense of this discount, Cheng argued that commuter students made up a
fraction of roughly 85% (as confirmed by the NC Administration) of the New College population, were paying a
majority of the student fees and therefore deserved a bit of a break
when attempting to be active in the college.
The main argument against the legitimacy of
the discount is that it is difficult to identify commuters – as
there is no verified list in existence at this moment in time - and
therefore much advantage of this price reduction could be taken. Others
worried that there might be residence boycotts to NCSC events, which
would cause them to be very poorly attended.
However, the main contention just might be
that the discount is not well clarified. Whether a student is a
commuter or living in residence, s/he will pay the same fees to NCSC.
Students living in residence are often eligible for their house
event-pool subsidy (which they contributed dollars themselves towards);
however, there are no concessions made for commuter students, who are
often at the mercy of the TTC or the gas station. The house event
subsidies are actually separate, and it should be clear that residence
students do pay extra to enter into this pool; however, the benefit
that this does provide over commuting students is the ease that
residence students can access the student experience at New College, and for residence student
organizers to engage their constituents.
In November 2005, a motion passed at council
that effectively suspended the implementation of the commuter discount
until a special committee could be created that would look into
statistics and the presentation of viable, nondiscriminatory
alternatives to commuter identification.
The focus group created by the mandate of
this motion discussed such issues as travel time, the costs of
commuting and social accessibility. The solutions proposed suggested
that only travel costs be reimbursed or that group attendance be
encouraged by implementing a discount, for both residence and commuter
participants only when commuter participation reached 50% or greater. This
would mean that the onus would be on commuters to organize themselves
as a group to engage in student life at New College.
The final resolution was brought to the NCSC
meeting last month. At this meeting, the motion passed, allowing the
commuter discount to be re-instituted in the cases listed above,
provided an amalgamated and accurate list of commuter students be
provided by the New College Registrar’s office.
Final amendment to the NCSC
Constitution, Article IX, Item 1.(e)
e. The
Commuting Students’ Commission shall be responsible to act as a
liaison with commuting students, and to plan services and activities to
meet their needs, and to examine how the NCSC as a whole can better
serve this group.
i. The
Commuting Student’s Commission will fund the Commuter’s
Discount through its budget as laid out by the Vice-President Finances
and approved by the Council.
ii. The Commuter’s
Discount will be applied with reason to NCSC-organized events posing
substantial difficulty to non-residence access (i.e. overnight
accommodation) or in the downtown area. The Commuter Discount will be
administered as an agreement between the Commuting Student’s
Representative and each event organizer.
iii. The Commuting
Student’s Discount will constitute an amount up to a maximum of
either $5.00 or 25% of the initial ticket price, whichever being the
lesser, and be applied in either one of two ways:
1. Immediately at the
point of purchase, to non-resident students only, or;
2. By coupon
reimbursement to all event participants, for another NCSC event within
the current school year, once a proportion of 50% Commuter
participation is registered.
Visit the New College Student
Council Website at www.myncsc.ca
for more information or to contact your representatives!
