Written by Nicole Elsasser

At the Feb. 10 Central Student Association (CSA) board of directors meeting, more time and consultation was recommended to CSA executives regarding the recently purposed Student Help and Advocacy Centre (SHAC).
With the intention of making student advocacy on the University of Guelph campus more effective, the SHAC proposal, originally put forward at the Jan. 27 CSA board of directors meeting, involved combining three student advocacy centers, the Human Rights Office (HRO), the Legal Resource Room (LRR) and the Financial Resource Room (FRR) into one.
The proposal sparked controversy on the U of G campus with concern expressed about the loss of the HRO and a strong focus on human rights advocacy.
Rather than voting on the proposal at the Feb. 10 meeting, the CSA board requested more consultation to be undertaken between students, campus groups and the CSA executives, with the discussions set to resume on Mar. 10th.
Momina Mir, the external commissioner for the CSA, was one of the executives heading up the proposal and said that in her discussions with students, the general response to SHAC had been resoundingly positive.
“I didn’t feel like there was anything negative against the proposal itself,” said Mir. “In my consultation outside of board meetings, I’ve had really positive responses from students and student groups [but] there is a small minority of people that felt that there was a lack of consultation.”
Mir explained that while there was concern about SHAC resulting in a decreased focus on human rights advocacy, she has personally consulted groups that work with the HRO to raise awareness, such as Women in Crisis and Outline. She also said that as long as the events of these groups can continue with SHAC, these groups have no problem with the proposal.
Another detail that will allow the CSA board to make an informed decision about the proposal is that written feedback from all consulted groups, including the HRO, will be compiled in one package for review by the board members.
Mir explained that while she is working to engage students and campus groups in a discussion to better the SHAC proposal, she wants people who take issue with SHAC to offer criticism proactively.
“At the end of the day, this is just a proposal,” said Mir. “People need to provide positive feedback and constructive feedback. Just saying they’re not happy with the HRO merging [with other groups] is not helpful to us when we’re trying to figure out the best way to move forward. We need concrete feedback…this is a starting proposal that needs to be built on.”
According to Mir, her intention in purposing SHAC is simply to improve student advocacy, something she claimed could definitely be more efficient and effective.
“There’s not a single person who has come up to me and said ‘Please don’t improve advocacy in the CSA,’” said Mir. “If [SHAC] moves forward in its current form, that’s great because at the end of the day, we’re still going to have to improve it [anyways]…SHAC is so much better than what we offer currently.”