News

Following revelations about the Massey University Extramural Students’ Society (EXMSS) President’s salary, EXMSS is once again under scrutiny after one of its staff was suspended without explanation and a member of the Executive unexpectedly resigned on the eve of an Annual General Meeting.

Last month MASSIVE reported that Jeanette “JV” Chapman, the President of EXMSS, is receiving a salary of $53,000 for her part-time position. Following the publication of the MASSIVE article, which first appeared online, EXMSS Communications Manager Adam Dodd was suspended. Dodd is also the web manager for MASSIVE, and is responsible for uploading MASSIVE’s content to its website.

EXMSS did not respond to Critic’s request for confirmation of the reasons for the suspension, nor did they clarify the circumstances around the resignation of Executive member Shane Field and the proposed AGM. The AGM was originally scheduled for Thursday 5 September, but was postponed after failing to meet quorum.

Under the Media Grant Agreement (MGA) between Massey and EXMSS, Massey grants the association money to be used for web support. Part of the agreement is that all of MASSIVE’s content must be available online. With Dodd suspended, MASSIVE’s latest issue took over three weeks to be formatted and published online.

Mike Ross, the communications manager for the Massey at Wellington Students’ Association (MaWSA), believed that Dodd’s suspension was depriving students of their right to access this information. “It’s a contractual issue between the Uni, EXMSS and MASSIVE,” he stated.

Massey University Communications Director James Gardiner believed the suspension could potentially have given rise to a breach of the MGA. “But I have not received any information about this apart from your inquiry,” Gardiner told Critic.

However, Nelson Mail and MASSIVE reporter Sasha Borissenko confirms that she had discussed a potential breach of MGA with Gardiner on 21 August. “Unfortunately I can’t go into details for fear of getting the chop, but I definitely did have a grand ol’ adrenalin-inducing convo with the big cheese,” Borissenko said.

Gardiner is responsible for overseeing the allocation of the media grants portion of the levy money collected by Massey University for student services. “MaWSA, which produces MASSIVE, is a grant recipient and the grant assists with the production of MASSIVE magazine. EXMSS, which assists with MASSIVE’s online presence, is also a grant recipient,” Gardiner explained.

Ross believes that Gardiner’s position creates a potential conflict, and gives Massey a way to exert pressure on student media.

“[Gardiner has] rightly become concerned that the JV Chapman story raises questions about oversight of media funding. Given the supposed independence of student media, this is potentially dangerous territory to be in,” Ross said.

The suspension also provided a convenient excuse for Chapman not to stream the much-anticipated AGM, as no one else in the office was capable of setting up such a system. The EXMSS Facebook page went into few details on the matter, explaining only that the communications manager was “not here this week.”

EXMSS students expressed concern over the failure to stream the AGM. Given that extramural students are scattered across the country, many were simply unable to attend in person. This was particularly alarming considering Chapman’s proposed changes to the Constitution, which were to be voted on at the AGM.

The main proposed changes to the Constitution were reducing the number of Executive members from seven to four, reducing the quorum at Executive meetings from five to four, and reducing the quorum at AGMs from 25 to 20. All of these measures would have increased the ability of the President to pass motions without democratic support. The proposals also included changes to the President’s payment structure, with the President to be paid on a fortnightly basis instead of quarterly.

The 2010 EXMSS Constitution states that under Section 6(f), “any officer may be removed from office by a two thirds majority of those voting at an Annual General Meeting (where due notice of such a proposal had been given), or at a properly constituted Special General Meeting [SGM] called for that purpose.”

Critic understands that a number of students had applied for an SGM several weeks ago, at which they would be able to vote Chapman out of office with a two-thirds majority. However, the requests for an SGM were ignored by EXMSS.

At the time of print, it was unknown whether the AGM was postponed due to not meeting the quorum for executives or for members, or when the rescheduled AGM will be held.