The Road to Accreditation – What’s Next?
As hopefully most Marianopolis Students have heard, the accreditation referendum that took place the 15th, 16th and 19th of September passed with overwhelming success with 689 YES ballots, 38 NO ballots and 5 rejected ballots. As a result, many students have inquired about the process of accreditation, timelines and initiatives that may result from the legal transition the student body may be going through.
What is accreditation
?
For those students finally tuning into the process, the student body voted on the potential accreditation of the student union, a process that would recognize the organization as a legal entity outside of the Marianopolis administration. Officially, this gives more independence to the union in terms of decision making, and puts the power solely in the hands of the students.
Following the positive outcome of the accreditation, what has been the decision made by Congress?
Congress has not wasted its time following the publication of the referendum results to go through with the procedures necessary to make this change happen. The government has been contacted, and the student government is simply waiting for the official certificate to announce the official accreditation of the student union!
What has been the reaction from the administration?
The road to accreditation prior to the referendum has surely seen some rocky events, but the student union president has assured our team that for the response from the administration has been generally positive, with a number of administrative members for the College encouraging the students to go through with this change. A few “hostile” reactions were seen from members of the College whose jobs may see differences following this legal procedure, but the overall response remains respectful and encouraging.
What can students expect in the next few weeks?
Following the accreditation of the union, some of the major changes will be a public disassociation from the college, seen in terms of logos and colors (which will change to be different from the official Marianopolis logos and colors).
Generally, Congress is also currently filtering through a lot of Union and College business to clear up any past issues to ensure that this school year will see only transparent business; legally and financially.
Accreditation also allows the Constitution to become a legal document. This translates to Congress having the legal recognition to reinforce its Constitution’s clauses, specifically the new club bylaws for clubs who have adopted a Constitution of their own, such as Marianopolis Model United Nations (MariMUN). Clubs are expected to follow the rules enforced by Congress to have access to College and Union resources, such as budget and funding allocation.
In more accessible and related news for the students, club executives will soon have access to club budgets for the semester, which should mean the launch of exciting initiatives and opportunities for student clubs in the coming weeks!
To reiterate some of our paper’s past comments, we want to congratulate the student government on the overwhelming success of this initiative, and are excited to see what’s next for the College and its students.
Written by MWR Executive, Véronique Leblanc
