McMaster Students Union - Governance

Governance

The MSU's Constitution and Bylaws establish the political apparatus of the union and its component organs, while a separate collection of Operating Policies define the functions of service-providing departments and the operating parameters of the organization.

The political leadership of the MSU is four officers—a President and three Vice-Presidents (Administration, Education and Finance). These positions are filled by students, typically after completing three or four years of study, who take a year off classes to work full-time in student government. The president is elected directly by the student body in annual elections held in early February, while the vice-presidents are elected by the Student Representative Assembly in early April. Slates and/or political parties, though commonplace at many other student unions, are not a typical feature of the MSU's political culture.

The MSU's chief legislative body is the Student Representative Assembly (SRA), a 35-member parliament comprising the president, vice-presidents, and 31 elected student representatives from nine (9) academic divisions of the University (Arts & Science, Business, Engineering, Health Sciences, Kinesiology, Humanities, Nursing, Science, and Social Sciences). The SRA is the MSU's highest policy-setting body and has the sole authority to approve and modify legislation and elect officers other than the President.

The executive branch of government is the Executive Board (EB), which comprises the president, vice-presidents, and five SRA members-at-large. The board, chaired by the President, supervises the functioning of the union's services and bureaucracy and performs planning and priority-setting tasks in a manner somewhat akin to a Westminister-style cabinet. With the exception of the President, the EB's membership is elected by and responsible to the SRA. In emergency circumstances and during the summer months it can operate as an executive committee of the SRA and exercise the powers of the full Assembly. Functional authority for full-time staff and the departments they supervise lies with the Corporate Board of Directors (see below) rather than the EB.