Exciting feature, Angela! In 1960s, student participa-tion was noble and fundamentally different. Students spent their own time, money and energy to fight for issues and the results were tremendous. With student activism, SFU became the first university in Canada to seat students on its Senate when the first three student senators were elected in May 1967. In fact, the 1960s Universities Act only allows Senate to add members who Senate sees as providing significant contributions to the economic or cultural welfare of the Province. SFU students were the only people given Senate membership this way. Closed Senate sessions were not tactics. When SFU first opened, all Senate meetings were conducted behind close doors, until students petitioned to open meeting proceedings to the university community. Without these forerunners, the 300 students could not even get a chance to attend the Senate meeting in November 1968 to start their "cultural revolution" on campus.SFU is one of the very few universities where student newspaper competed with the university for the opening of their doors. Interestingly, the need of funding for student newspaper caused the forming of a student society. It took less than two months to establish the SFSS including the composition of By-laws and the election of the first Executive Council.

With the lack of funding in 1960s, SFSS's professionalism and dedication in services and activities were not less (if not more) than the SFSS in 1990s which collects over $1 million fee revenues annually. SFU is a leader in the democratization of university administration. However, the self-serving and bureaucratic SFSS has transformed the quality of student enthusiasm at SFU. Should this be time for SFSS to go through fundamental reform to revive student spirits on campus or should we dissolve SFSS to start another organization that would achieve this goal?

Albert Y. Chan Student Senator

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