Talk:University of Toronto Students' Union

Criticisms?
A lot of criticisms have been deleted. There were criticisms for the organizations activism, which some students consider to be excessive. However, the only criticisms that remain are historical ones, apparently from back in the day when the organization wasn't activist enough. It's pretty clear that they've come here and edited it themselves. Why else would a number of cited criticisms simply disappear?

Mention of a Medical Society referendum to leave UTSU was also deleted. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.183.215 (talk) 16:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Current section
I was wondering if someone could cleanup the "current" section. It seems to contain a great deal of either erroneous or uncited material, and some sentences have gramatical errors. In particular the claim of 15% voter turnout seems a bit off... the latest referendum results show a voter turnout in the <10% range for the St. George campus. While the occaisonal director election may reach 15%, I can't personally recall any union wide election or referendum breaking the 10% turnout barrier. Last year's executive elections were in the 7-8% range for voter turnout, and the year before that was even lower. Could this claim maybe be cited or removed? Frankly it'd be nice if there was at least one citation on this page, though I do realize the official UTSU is very poor for retrieving any kind definite facts or figures.

The sentence regarding the various commissions is a) innacurate (campus life is missing) and b) incoherent. I would fix it myself but the official webpage omits UTM, so it's hard to find a reliable source.

Also, does anyone else share my concern about the link for Canadian Student Associations for UofT pointing here? APUS, GSU and SCSU share that title, and while as far as I know they don't have anything on wiki yet, it seems to me that that link implies that the UTSU represents all UofT students, which it does not. Any idea on how to fix that?--RMCampbell (talk) 15:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticism and Protection
I think I understand why the criticism section has been placed under protection, but I don't quite understand the removal of the section which pointed out that the diversity of the University of Toronto campus student body ensures criticism of UTSU will happen. Is that just too obvious? I was tempted to add it back in again, but don't want to get into a cycle of addition and removal Lostphd 21:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Redirect
Does anyone object to redirecting this to a new page, University of Toronto Students' Union? Considering that's the official name of this organization, the wiki page should reflect that.

Since the question has been asked, let me say that I have no objection. Organizations which change name should be listed under their new name Lostphd 20:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Past Presidents
Is there anyone who can get a list on this for the article? --Spinboy 00:27, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can probably get you a list from someone that I know at SAC. There was a book written for the 101st anniversary in 2001, so a comprehensive history is there, and I believe the author and researcher are still around. Send me an email. Thanks--Alexdelarge 15:27, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the list published in the SAC 101 book is not perfect (especially for the early periods). I have a list of past presidents of SAC from 1915-1950 culled from my own research with proper first initials. If someone manages to type in the list from the SAC 101 book I would be glad to edit it -- send an e-mail to ut.history@utoronto.ca when the edit is needed. The 101st anniversary book is not a "comprehensive history" but it is an excellent start.

Expansion
Could someone more knowledgeable about the SAC's organizational structure give a bit more detail on the Board of Directors? (The proviso being that each individual faculty's own separate student union should not have its own distinct article, per Wikipedia rules about notability; anything important enough to be noted should be done specifically within this article.) Bearcat 02:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I've requested a citation for this claim: "Professional students reputedly had less time to debate university issues because of their more rigid timetables." Also, if anyone can add more information regarding the current role and importance of the SAC, that would be great. --Marysunshine 19:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The citation about professional students is a paraphrase from one of two sources. Either an article in The Varsity from around 1913, or a report on the Students' Parliament in the University of Toronto Monthly around the same time. I will have to check out which one is correct and report back. The source of the citation may still be questionable because it was a surmise by Arts students as to why professional students were not active participants in the Parliamemt. Lostphd 20:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Further to this -- sorry. The actual references are from 1908 and 1909, see The Varsity for December 18, 1908 and November 26, 1909. Both articles mention the low attendance at meetings and specifically point out that medical students were the main culprits. Neither mentions timetables, that was a mistaken interpolation on my part. I have corrected the text accordingly Lostphd 18:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

History
The organization in 1901 was called the University of Toronto Union (and sometimes the University of Toronto Undergraduate Union). You can check this in the Varsity between 1901 and 1905, see for example the Varsity masthead of November 19, 1902 or the editorial of January 19, 1905. The recent change of name cannot be considered a "renaming" because the original name was not "Students' Union". Lostphd 05:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

2006 Election Controversy?
The articles says that in 2006 there was a slate run that was filled with Liberal politicians and staff. I don't remember that. As I recall, the 2006 election was almost entirely uncontested. That claim seems unlikely. Kilrae 19:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If it's not sourced, I'm happy to have it removed. J 19:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a leftover from a longer paragraph that addressed controversies in the 2007 election. Someone deleted the criticisms of the opposing slate and someone later tried to make sense of the orphaned sentence by adding the (wrong) year.  No one has added a source yet and (particularly without the viewpoint it's offered in opposition to) it's not relevant (criticisms of a defeated slate are not criticisms of UTSU) so I'm deleting it. Kilrae 16:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Section on criticism
As probably the only conservative in the UTSU/GSU-run UofT Drop Fees coalition, I know first hand which issues they push, and the ones that they don't. It is true, many of the viewpoints and issues they push are centre-left positions, but "free education" is not one of them. It is a goal, but not one that is actively or ever pushed. They campaign on the Canadian Federation of Students slogans: "Reduce Tuition Fees", "Drop Fees", and "Education is a Right". What they are pushing for is the accessibility to public post-secondary education for all students, and to push for Government intervention to alleviate the burden of student debt which is an average of $25000 per student and rising.

Second issue I have with this section is the fact that it states that the UTSU was in cahoots with AlwaysQuestion. Not true. UTSU support is limited to the aftermath of the sit-in in regards to the charges laid by the Toronto Police Service and the non-academic student code of conduct by the UofT administration. I was one of those people who stormed into the UTSU's office and demanded to know why the union was backing the 14 AQ members who had been arrested and the President Sandy Hudson made it clear that the UTSU did not endorse the sit-in or the demonstration, but were supporting them as a result of the Administration's actions in reaction to the sit-in. During the demonstration, AlwaysQuestion did not have any support outside of their group.

If these issues with the section cannot be resolved (i.e. WP:NPOV issues, WP:V issues, etc) parts of the last paragraph will be removed on the basis that it sounds like propaganda/"facts" from Naylor's letter to the UofT community in regards the sit-in and the fact that a lot of claims made in the section contradict many of the published positions of the UTSU. nat.utoronto 08:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Why was so much of the criticism section deleted? a number of issues that used to be there including the Always question issue in 2008 and the yes campaign student union building scandal in 2007 have just been wiped off.. and then replaced with someone saying that the UTSU is progressive...??? this seems bias, as if UTSU has been editing this itself. A number of sources were also deleted, the Varsity was sourced; it documents a lot of criticism towards the UTSU by average students. Why has all this been deleted?

Whitewashing
Someone with a Toronto IP is quietly removing and rewording criticism of the UTSU. Again.--ArmyLine (talk) 18:09, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Added Advert and Unreferenced Section tags
Reasons for advert tag
 * The "Victories" section is a direct mirror of the student union's own victories page.
 * The "Victories" section was added by a University of Toronto IP address, 128.100.101.10
 * The "Victories" section was added by the same IP address that section blanked the criticism section.

Reasons for unreferenced section tag
 * The section only has a single reference which is to the student union's own victories page.

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