GISA Exit Interview with President Angie Bittar

By The Graduate Press Editorial Board

On May 15th, the GISA Board officially welcomed its newly elected members, with the positions of President, Vice President of Masters, Events Coordinator, Treasurer, and President of the Professional Development Committee all transitioning into their new roles. The Graduate Press reached out to the five departing board members for an exit interview, giving them a final opportunity to talk about their experiences at GISA. This is our interview with Angie Bittar, the former President.

What are you most proud of achieving during your time on the GISA Board?

I think I’m mostly proud of the community that we’ve managed to create over the past year at the Institute through GISA. Over the year that I was president, a lot of us really—and I can’t credit this to just myself because it was the commitment of the GISA board and the initiatives by our class representatives and just our community, I feel like just in the past year we’ve taken a lot of strides towards opening up some uncomfortable conversations about privilege here at the Institute and about advocacy an about what rea solidarity looks like for our peers. And about how we can mobilise together for the things that are important to us and I think this is really more an achievement of an attitude and an achievement of just the atmosphere of the Institute—and that this atmosphere has translated for example in the work of students on the housing working committee or the organising of ADA and the push from many Master’s students to mobilise around the issues of or Tas and research assistants. And I know for a lot of us we still haven’t see the fruits of that labour yet, we didn’t necessarily witness all the tangible change that we want to see and expect from the Institute or whichever body we’re requesting it from. But im really proud of the fact that we’ve managed to establish an environment within GISA and within the Institute as a whole that can hear each other out and express solidarity and sit in the discomfort of figuring out solutions in a way that’s based around community building and mutual aid.

 What did you enjoy most about your role as President?

What I enjoyed most about the role of President is how collaborative it was and how I really got to work with people across the different cohorts both in the Master’s and in the PhD programs—I got to see a lot of the incredible work that our colleagues are doing both academically and in terms of advocacy for the community and I think that was really one of the most rewarding aspects of being a part of GISA. It was seeing the wealth in our community and seeing all that it has to offer. I think that was really empowering on my side and made me really proud to be in the position that I am in and it really motivated me to do the best that I could to represent the people around me. I would definitely say that was my favourite part of the position.

What was one of the biggest challenges you faced serving as President?

The biggest challenge that I faced and one that I think is really looming over GISA—trying to refocus it as a political body. I think we reached a point over the past two years. I think for some reason we had convinced ourselves that GISA needs to be apolitical and somehow neutral, but GISA is first and foremost an advocacy body. It is a student union and it is a body that should inherently be political and advocating or the rights and means of our community, our master students and Tas and Research Assistants. And I think trying to create a space where our political needs could be expressed was and still is one of the biggest challenges that GISA is going to be facing.

What advice do you have for the incoming members of the GISA Board?

Finally, I have only two pieces of advice for the incoming GISA proud. I want to start by saying that I am very confident in the abilities of all of our new officers. I really think that GISA is slated for a successful year and I’m excited to see how they take to their roles. The two pieces of advice that I have are, first GISA would really benefit from relying on its community and reaching out to its community when it comes to issues of advocacy. So often we have students that are working on issues hat affect them and that they are passionate about and GISA could really benefit from involving those students in the conversations that they have as a GISA board, as a student committee and with the administration when they’re negotiating hard-lines. And my second piece of advice, arguably maybe the most important is to hold each other accountable. To be completely honest, over the past year—I don’t believe that we got the division of labour quite right. I think there was a lot of points where having a moment of accountability and making that everyone was carrying their weight could’ve made a real difference in the work that we could’ve done and maybe the impact, the reach that we could’ve had. I think going forward GISA should centre accountability as the cornerstone of what it means to be on the board. Because these really are positions of advocacy first and foremost and you deserve to hold your advocates accountable.