By Rose Carmichael
“They force 25 people to sit in a room for an hour. And your assignment comes up, you’re so excited that it’s going to happen, and then everybody looks at it, and nobody speaks.”
— Petra Kocsis, chair of Dormsessions, third-year social science major
For the first time in two years, a motion at the Budget GA was voted on. On February 25th, AUCSA held its semi-annual General Assembly, which gives students the opportunity to ask questions, raise motions, and vote on all budgets for the committees, commissions, and teams (CCTs) at AUC. The General Assembly is a six-hour ordeal, starting at 10:00 and ending at 16:00. However, despite the lengthy process, very little voting (other than voting by acclamation) has taken place in the last few years. Participants are first given a chance to review the budget, then there’s a question period, followed by the opportunity to raise a motion. If a motion is raised, students are asked whether they would like to vote on the motion or let it pass by acclamation. Then, students are asked if they want to vote on the budget. Following the trend in recent years, “almost all the budgets pass by acclamation,” Jared Carter, chair of Pubquiz and third-year science student, reports.
So, when several people raised their hands to signal a desire to vote on the proposed motion to reduce CUTs budget, a laugh rippled through the room. People were surprised a vote would actually happen. In the several minutes it took to determine a vote, describe the process, hand out ballots and count them, Petra Kocsis, the chair of Dormsessions and third-year social science major, laughed at the length and bureaucracy of the process, remarking, “Well, this is democracy.” Her sentiment reflects a general feeling that the GAs are a long, bureaucratic ordeal. Petra explains her mixed feelings: “It’s just tedious, but I guess there’s not much you can change there.” Even if the Budget GAs feel inefficient, it can feel like there’s no other way—this is just democracy. Jared agrees with this sentiment, noting that although “there is very rare participation,” he believes “the GAs create the opportunity, and it’s up to the individual to pursue it as far as they want to.”
But the Budget GAs didn’t always lack student engagement. “Before, sometimes the GA would be 10 hours because of discussion,” shared Jonas Dornieden, past AUCSA treasurer and current member of the Audit Commission. He’s a third-year science major and reports that it must have been 3 or 4 years ago when there was rampant debate during the GAs. The Budget General Assemblies were seen as an event to prepare for. One satire article in the Herring was written in 2021, titled “It’s Every Man for Himself: Two Days Before the General Assembly, AUC Students Ready Themselves for Battle.” The article quotes fictional students worried they haven’t stocked up sufficiently on food for the all-day ordeal and concludes with a quote from an AUCSA member reflecting on the experience: “Those gruelling days spent behind your laptop discussing the budget. The entire university is going through the same thing. That kind of shared adversity creates a bond.” AUC’s recent past shows how the Budget GAs don’t have to be unengaging.
Jonas speculates as to why the GAs have become much more tame, attributing it to the increased AUCSA budget implemented in 2024/25 and to additional treasury consultations held before the assemblies introduced in 2022/23.
Talking to people at the GA, the present sentiment leans towards apathy. A couple of students questioned the point of the GAs. Zoe Metais, a third-year social science student and past member of the Pangea Club, considered whether the process could be streamlined by putting it online. The suggestion of putting the Budget GAs online reflects the event’s bureaucratic nature: a minute to review the budgets, any questions, any motions, any vote, and (as is common) pass by acclamation. There’s a lack of casual back-and-forth discussion suited for in-person assemblies.
Jonas notes that “general attendance” is one of the GA’s biggest challenges. “The biggest thing is to try to reduce the participation threshold for people to come to the GA or add something that makes them more attractive for people to come.” Snacks are one way to make the event more alluring. But despite the incentives, attendance remains very low. There are 8 to 10 CCTs in each block, and it’s mandatory for the chair and treasurer of each committee to be present. At the two blocks I attended, approximately 20 students were present: the minimum, given the attendance of each chair and treasurer.
Deirdre de Leeuw den Bouter, a third-year social science major and the head of the Audit Commission, has a positive outlook on the GAs: “For an average student, while this might seem quite boring, it is actually quite interesting, and it is a good way to share your voice.” Jared did praise AUCSA for going out of their way to be transparent, and Cecile Breuss, a third-year social science student, added that she massively respects the logistics that go into the GAs.
However, Cecile also believes that although the assemblies address the need for transparency and democracy on a theoretical level, students can feel alienated from the decision-making process: “I don’t think there are any apparent barriers to participation, but the process disincentivizes one from questioning the budget. Because it’s like, maybe my concern is just my personal opinion, then for me to call a vote feels a bit ridiculous.”
Petra compares being at the Budget GA to “playing dress up,” as it doesn’t feel like she has the qualifications to be there. “It’s so bureaucratic,” she says. “It feels like you’re in court or something, but we’re just students. I have never sat in something like that before, so I don’t know what’s going on.”
Confusion about the budgets plays a role in the lack of engagement. In the minute allotted to reviewing the relevant budget, Petra and her friend would occasionally point out things they were confused about or didn’t feel were right, but when AUCSA asked if anyone had any questions, they wouldn’t speak up. There were others who spent the review time whispering, only to say nothing when given the chance.
I asked Jonas if he would be “the guy in the back” this time around, who wouldn’t hesitate to raise his hand, and he laughed. When I told him about the one guy last year who would raise his hand at every single budget, he asked, “Tom?” Tom Heyning was the treasurer for AUCSA the year before Jonas and was also a member of the Audit Commission. It’s mandatory for Audit Commission members to attend every GA, and they had set up an informal table in the back. When I asked Deirdre whether she thought the Audit Commission changes the atmosphere at the GAs, she replied, “Audit naturally draws people who are more interested in the budget, and therefore, there is a correlation between those people being more active in the GA.” Audit members did ask more questions than all the other students, and although this encourages discussion at the GAs, the Audit Commission can raise concerns about AUCSA budgets outside the assembly—it’s their job. The GAs are meant to gather input from all students, so if Audit members raise the majority of the concerns, the purpose of the General Assemblies becomes less clear.
One prominent challenge to participation is that few students carefully review other AUCSA budgets before the GA, even though they are sent out a week prior to the assembly. The idea is for participants to familiarize themselves with other CCTs’ budgets beforehand and prepare questions and motions. However, few actually do this, and only a minute or two is allotted at the assembly for review. “Who has the time?” says Petra. This question stands in stark contrast with how the 2021 Herring article portrayed AUC students as needing to “ready themselves for battle” before the GA. Jared said he glances over the committees with larger budgets, but mainly out of his “blind curiosity,” since it is quite difficult for him to single out anything unusual, given that he is not involved in other CCTs.
In general, students see the Budget GAs as a bureaucratic practice where their participation doesn’t make much of an impact, whether it is because they don’t understand the spreadsheets, they don’t feel it’s their place, or they feel the sheer amount of procedure is alienating. These are common complaints with democracies in general: not feeling like you’re informed enough to speak on the matter, or feeling like your voice doesn’t truly impact the decision-making process in the face of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy can often serve as a barrier to engagement and collaboration because each voice is atomized and systematized rather than brought into union with others.
The common room is large, and there are many empty chairs. Every time someone wants to speak, a microphone needs to be passed around. There’s a lot of waiting, many steps, and only a short window of time after the AUCSA member asks if there are any questions before they move on.
Perhaps this system served a function in the past, when Budget GAs had so much engagement and debate that order needed to be maintained through a rigid, bureaucratic structure. But it could be that there is too much order now, and a more collaborative setup could spur discussion—where clarification questions could be asked on a whim rather than being whispered to evade formality.
“If you want the student body to have a more active role in shaping the budget, I feel there should almost be a separate space where conversations about the budget can be held, where people could collectively, let’s call it democratically, have a holistic look at the budgets and find points they might want to raise as a unit. This way, the responsibility falls less on an individual, because it feels a bit silly to be that one person raising their hand,” says Cecile.
Just because the Budget GA mirrors the faults of democracy does not excuse it. When AUC students have few general assemblies to voice their concerns about money and spending, the Budget GAs could be an excellent opportunity for students to become involved in the university and feel that they have a stake in AUC. A dormant democracy might work for the moment, but given that the Dean recently acknowledged in his December 22nd message that “political developments may shift rapidly” and there has been “sustained pressure on budgets,” students need to be prepared if turbulence does arise. The GAs’ bureaucratic style adds legitimacy, but is it necessary when dealing with only a handful of students at a time?
The Herring 