LETTER: Gaelic College board of governors should be answerable to the community

Members of the Gaelic College Foundation are still waiting for meaningful engagement from the college’s board of governors, instead of assurances that ring hollow.

There is a new board now, and there was an old board before it. Two of the same people are still on it, and aren’t new to anything going on here. Neither board seems capable of meaningful engagement, or anything beyond copy-pasted replies to individual emails, if there is any reply at all.

The last two letters that a large group of foundation members sent to them had a deadline within for a proper response, and I am sure the board did not care much for that, because no one likes to be dictated to.

But on our end, if we don’t put a deadline there, we will have no idea if they intend to respond or not. Given the passing of deadlines, it seems that they do not.

Foundation members submitted a detailed request for a governance review in September.

Foundation members also submitted two formal requests for meetings in August and October, in accordance with the procedures outlined in the provincial legislation and bylaws governing the institution.

Under these regulations, the meetings should have been mandatory. However, both requests have been completely ignored.

At this point, the Gaelic College leadership publicly states how essential open communication and constructive dialogue with the community will be going forward, while openly violating its own rules to deny community members communication or dialogue of any sort.

This does not bode well for the aims of the upcoming strategic planning session of Oct. 29.

The board of governors has not made an effort to build the trust that has been broken in this community.

I think we are very much at odds over what matters here, and I think they need to make that effort to understand how deeply this is felt.

Why do we have to insist that the board be answerable to the community it serves and the purpose it was created for? That should be a given, not a point of contention.

I’m certain that any application for public money that the Gaelic College has ever made has stressed its importance to the community, and it is hard not to feel that community and culture is something to be used when needed but barred at the door when there is a problem.

There is no trust here that the strategic planning session is anything more than a PR move, to look as though community discussion has been part of the process, when in reality they will continue to do as they always intended, without community input.

Yet I remain hopeful for a way through.

Kate Beaton

Mabou