Dear members,
We wish to inform you that the Students’ Society of McGill University will be reducing our provided services for the period of April 8th to April 19th inclusive. During this time, the University Centre and SSMU Office will be closed. There may be delays in responses to your inquiries during this shutdown period. Gerts Bar and Cafe will remain open. Other exceptions may be made for essential functions.
The SSMU has been operating at and over capacity for years, leading many departments to be understaffed and overworked. Our focus has primarily been to provide services to our students, but that has prevented much needed work on efficient internal processes and projects. Unfortunately, this closure period cannot be avoided. In addition to limited staff capacity, the SSMU faces a great unprecedented financial deficit that has accrued over the past few years, resulting in an inability to maintain operations as they are. Over 90% of the budget goes towards paying our 40 full-time employees and supporting almost 100 part-time employees and with the current deficit, there are no financial resources to expend to provide adequate staffing.
During this temporary two week building closure and service reduction, our staff will continue working but will use the time to improve internal processes.
A lot of invisible labour keeps the SSMU running so that we are able to support the student body and their initiatives. We currently support 240 Clubs, 18 Services, and 11 ISGs (Independent Student Groups). The core SSMU team consists of 7 departments with 40 full-time staff. In particular, our Accounting, Building, and Communications departments work particularly closely with the students to maintain our services. Our Accounting Department is made up of 5 full-time employees who need to process and record payments and reimbursements for over 140 employees and 18 Services, and support the bank accounts of 240 Clubs. The Building Department has 3 full-time employees who cover the University Centre from 6:30am-11pm every weekday, some weekends, and support over 1000 bookings in the University Centre, all of which is also processed by our Student Life Operations Department. Our Communications Department has 3 full-time staff and 2 translators that put together every single listserv email and social media post, along with all the advertising and signage for every SSMU initiative, including general communications support for student groups. These departments only represent a portion of the work done by our team to support all student groups.
Every single person employed at the SSMU works to provide services to our members. We thank and appreciate all our employees for their work and what they provide to our student community. The SSMU works together as a whole: the revenue brought in by one department may be used to allow us to operate another at a deficit. For instance, the Student Life Operations Department brings in revenue with sponsorship and external bookings, which offsets Gert’s operating deficit, allowing us to keep our cafe and bar open to students at affordable prices.
We hope to be able to return to you at the end of this two week period with a refreshed team and well organized processes so we can continue offering the student body the essential support that keeps student initiatives alive.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us:
- Clubs/Services/ISG inquiries: studentlife@ssmu.ca
- Building and room-booking related inquiries: operations@ssmu.ca
- Finance related inquiries: finance@ssmu.ca
- Any other inquiries: info@ssmu.ca
- Please note that your email may only be answered after April 19th.
