Since taking on the role six months ago, MUNSU’s Director of Advocacy Devon Budden says the number of cases coming across his desk from students has been “astonishing.”
Budden says he’s seen a five-fold increase in students coming for help with issues like housing, academic misconduct, and legal issues. While a portion of these can be attributed to the timing of the semester, there are “clear patterns,” says Budden.
“I was having about three to four student meetings a week over the summer, and we’re up to three or four [per] day now.
In the September 18th MUNSU board meeting. One topic included the influx of advocacy cases being processed by MUNSU and that “war room type discussions” are needed to solve advocacy issues.
“If I had the opportunity to speak to every student, I would say three things: Don’t commit academic misconduct. Find your people and your resources while you’re at the university. And don’t commit academic misconduct.”
Among the caseload in Budden’s portfolio, a few recurring themes take centre stage: Housing, academic misconduct, and general academics issues.
Housing: Landlords, evictions and inaccessible units
“Housing is a huge, huge problem right now. Those tend to be a good portion of [the cases] for the whole year,” says Budden.
While the state of the housing market has been difficult for many people across the country, the struggle has been particularly felt by post-secondary students and St. John’s is no exception.
Budden says it was “very jarring” to see so many students bringing cases involving disputes with their landlords. Cases have involved evictions, property neglect, refusal of landlords to return damage deposits and precarious living situations.
MUNSU announced via Instagram that it is conducting a survey on “students’ experience with housing, both on and off campus,” to help inform its advocacy work.
Budden says that students have reported harassment and difficulty leaving leases due to actions from their landlords. In one case, landlords repeatedly ignored a maintenance request until the day that the tenants were moving out of the unit.
Regarding whether the union is optimistic about the units planned to be built by Westerland Apartments, Budden said, “Yes and no.”
Pointing to the possible lease rates he said that “more housing is good. If it’s still inaccessible, how good is it, really?” University Apartments, a student-facing brand of Montreal based real estate developer Werkliv has yet to publicly announce the cost of the units.
Academic misconduct cases needs more nuance, says Budden
“Academic misconduct, I think, is the most frustrating [problem] just because of how preventable it is, but also how difficult it is for a student who gets caught in that cycle.”
Budden says that while cheating is not something he would ever advocate for, it is a “very human thing.” According to the cases he’s been managing, there has been an “unforgiving” series of regulations and committees which have been highly strict on misconduct cases.
While Budden agrees with the high level of standards enforced by the university, he also states that there should be more room for nuance and subjectivity between cases.
When asked if any of these cases pertained to the use of artificial intelligence, Director Budden said that this was shockingly not as common one might think.
More specifically, many of the cases currently in his portfolio pertain to a range of issues, stretching from poor citations to forged documentation and exam room cheating.
University ‘red tape’ ongoing issue for students, says Budden
While other academic cases are related to competency, other cases require Budden to assist with regulation appeals over enrolment in co-requisite credits in order to graduate on schedule, for example.
However, some of these requests have been difficult, with requests often getting denied by the university. Budden says that “red tape” is an ongoing issue for students requesting waivers and needing appeals for decisions.
“I would absolutely call it red tape. And I think, you know, not one administrator in particular, but I think a culture of dependence on these regulations and almost like an over-importance and an overemphasis on why they’re there,” said Budden.
“[It] really tends to make students and myself, in a lot of ways, feel like we’re not supported by the university in these issues.”
Budden continued by saying that out of the office he likely speaks to more people from the university than other staff at MUNSU, and believes the bureaucracy relates to a culture issue institutionally.
“There’s a lot of really great people that work here that seem like they would want to help. So I don’t think it’s for a lack of trying. I think it might just be a culture issue. Memorial University is not known to be the best governed- and you can quote me on that [laughter].”
Budden reflects from the halfway point
While the Director of Advocacy has a variety of responsibilities, the role can vary from case to case, helping students get resources and advice on navigating the university bureaucracy. In addition to the executive role, Budden also serves as the staff relations officer for the full-time employees at MUNSU.
“I don’t think there was any way I could have expected what it was. I think the structure of the organization and just the way it functions opens it up to problems that you wouldn’t see in other workplaces- it also obviously prevents a lot of problems in other workplaces, but it’s a unique spot.”
While Budden says he wasn’t anticipating “just how many fires there are to put out,” he’s enjoying the job overall.
“I go home every day feeling like I’m happy with getting the opportunity to do the job… It’s super fulfilling.”