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Hi there,

Thank you for your interest in learning more about Sustainable Concordia.

There are many parts that go into making Concordia University’s campus culture interesting and vibrant, and that’s why many of us choose to study here. Fee levy groups play an important role in building and sustaining that culture.

The portion of student fees that goes towards fee levy organizations — like Sustainable Concordia — help keep these groups operational and allow them to offer a variety of invaluable services, activities, events, spaces, and resources to the entire student population.

Some of the types of things that Sustainable Concordia offers to students that student fees directly enable us to offer include, but are not limited to:

– Paid permanent student job opportunities
– Paid internship opportunities
– Meaningful volunteer opportunities
– Organizing Sustainability (a free 8-week workshop series on social and environmental justice and community organizing)
– Sustainabiliteas (a free series of discussions about sustainability issues, led by experts in their fields)
– Resource Library (a free and cozy space, complete with art materials and tools, sustainability literature, and community resources)
– Divest 101 workshops
– Skillshare and DIY events and workshops (oftentimes themed to holidays and current events)
– Advocacy for student voices, rights, and priorities on a variety of University-level boards and committees (such as the Sustainability Action Plan Committees, the Community Action Fund, the Sustainability Action Fund, the Concordia Council for Student Life, the Campus Engagement Sustainability Subcommittee, the Teaching, Learning, and Research Sustainability Subcommittee, the Operational and Environmental Sustainability Subcommittee, the Joint Sustainability Investment Advisory Committee, and many others)
– Student Divestment Coalition activities
– A variety of other ad hoc collaborative events, activities, and workshops

When students opt out, organizations like ours are faced with the threat of operating at a reduced capacity. This in turn makes us unable to contribute to Concordia’s student life or provide irreplaceable learning opportunities and experiences to passionate and interested students.

Sustainable Concordia’s fee levy is $0.22/credit for undergraduate students, and $0.50/credit for graduate students. Full-time undergraduate students taking 5 3-credit classes per semester therefore contribute $3.30/semester, and graduate students contribute $7.50/semester. This allows them to take part in — and help others take part in — the multitude of services and activities that we offer.

Concordia University, like any diverse, multifold community, is made up of many different parts, all of which are valuable. It’s unfortunate that sometimes the debate around fee levy groups creates false divisions between students and faculties, instead of emphasizing how the entire Concordia community benefits from having vibrant, engaged, and accountable organizations on campus.

Not everyone will access every fee levy group during their time at Concordia; in the same way, not every student will go to a CSU meeting or a Stingers game. But these services and initiatives are made possible by all students, and they are therefore always available to all students. One of the strengths of the Concordia community is that we support projects and initiatives because they can be beneficial to many students, if not all. The principle of a sustainable community is that even though we each might not directly benefit from something as individuals, it is still worthwhile to support because it strengthens and betters our community as a whole, which in turn can benefit us in unexpected ways.

We urge the Concordia community, which we are intimately part of, to consider the long-term consequences of opting out.

If you’re still interested in opting out of Sustainable Concordia, click here to learn about how you can do that.

Love, Peace, and Sustainability,
The SC Team