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History

What is MONSU Caulfield?

The Monash University Student Union (MONSU) Caulfield is the current installment in a rich history of the development of student representation and the provision of student services on the Caulfield Campus of Monash University.

MONSU Caulfield is the student representative body that represents the interests of all students on the Caulfield Campus of Monash University within Monash University, to all levels of Government and the broader community. We represent postgraduate and undergraduate students, local and international students, evening and day students, part-time and full-time students, school leaver and mature age students.

As the teaching organisations on the Caulfield Campus changed over time, the student organisation has evolved to meet the needs of its students. MONSU Caulfield is the successor of its predecessor organisations, which were:

  • Caulfield Institute of Technology Students' Representative Council;
  • Caulfield Institute of Technology Student Union;
  • Chisholm Institute of Technology Student Union (CITSU);
  • Monash University Student Union (MUSU then MONSU); and now Monash University Student Union Caulfield (MONSU Caulfield)


The Monash University Student Union (MONSU)

The Monash University Student Union had a dual structure, including a both a representative arm and a services arm.

The representative arm was known as the Student Association, which was responsible for student representation across both the Caulfield and Peninsula Campuses of Monash University. The senior members of the Student Association were also members of the Board.

The services arm was led by the MONSU Board, Bookshop Board and Catering Board. This meant that MONSU was responsible for student representation and service delivery, often forcing that the politics of student representation to affect service delivery. MONSU operated across the Caulfield Campus and the Peninsula Campus of Monash University, and ran a number of other off-campus ventures that were extremely successful.

This enabled revenue from off-campus services to go towards reducing the amenities fee paid by students.


The Establishment of MONSU Caulfield

Due to the enormous change and to MONSU's structure through the formation of Monyx and its ceasing to act as the primary service provider on the two campuses the role of MONSU was primarily a student representative organisation. As a representative organisation it was felt that it was best that each campus was best represented by a representative organisation specific to that campus. MONSU took the opportunity to reform its student representative structure and constitution by establishing two separate student councils under the MONSU Board.

Each student council, the MONSU Caulfield Student Council and the MONSU Peninsula Student Council, would take primary responsibility for the representation of the students on their respective campuses and the MONSU Board would be responsible for ensuring that both Student Councils operated successfully and were open and transparent.

During this process new student representative structures were established with separate campus Presidents, the introduction of a Clubs Council and Clubs Council Coordinator (now Clubs Officer), 2 x Sexuality Officer (one female, one male) positions and including the Overseas Student Services as part of MONSU Caulfield to ensure international students had a direct say in the management of MONSU Caulfield.

Since the establishment of MONSU Caulfield is has gone through a number of changes including expanding and redirecting student representation, introducing and removing committees and creating systems to ease the transfer of responsibilities between each student representative team.

MONSU Caulfield is a key player in Monash University and has taken an active role in representing the views and issues of the students of the Caulfield Campus of Monash University to Monash University, local, State and Federal Government and the wider community. MONSU Caulfield has a particularly proud history of working with Monash University and having established and respected relationships with University management to the envy of other student representative organisations.


The Establishment of Monyx

In 2000 Monash University approached MONSU and the Monash Student Association Clayton, (the student representative organisation on the Clayton Campus of Monash University) and Unicomm (the University controlled commercial and students services provider on the campuses of Monash University other than Caulfield and Peninsula) to establish a new cross campus student and commercial services organisation, to be called Monash Service Organisation (MSO).

MSO was an organisation that had, at the core of its aims, to provide seamless student services to the students of Monash University on all campuses of Monash University, including the newly established Malaysian and South African campuses of Monash University, to guarantee funding for student representation, to ensure student representation continued with the possible future introduction of voluntary membership of student organisations and for student services to become self funding to reduce the amenities and services fee through profits made from profitable business ventures.

After more than a year and a half of consultation and discussion between the stakeholders of the new MSO, the Deed for the Provision of Student Services, the agreement establishing the MSO, was approved by MSA (Clayton) Student Council, MONSU Caulfield Student Council, MONSU Peninsula Student Council and the MONSU Board as well as all of the relevant stakeholders within Monash University and Unicomm.

In this time efforts had already begun in establishing the structure, names and branding of this new organisation which was eventually named Monyx.

Monyx was established as an organisation that is half owned by the students of Monash University through the student representative bodies of the participating campuses, MONSU Caulfield, MSA (Clayton) and MONSU Peninsula, represented through the holding company, Students of Monash (SOM), and Monash University through Monash Commercial (Moncomm). Monyx is governed by six directors, three nominees of SOM (one from each the Caulfield, Clayton and Peninsula campuses of Monash University) and three nominees of Moncomm.

Since the first meeting of the Monyx Board on Monday, 2nd February 2003 the role of Monyx has been to run the commercial and student services component of MONSU and Unicomm.


Achievements of MONSU Caulfield

Some of the achievements of MONSU Caulfield include:

  • a 4 and a half year successful campaign to reduce the cost of tertiary student public transport concession cards;

  • successfully lobbying Monash University to double the size of the Caulfield-Clayton intercampus shuttle bus;

  • successfully lobbying Monash University, the City of Glen Eira and the Melbourne Racing Club to turn vacant land used for occasional race day parking at the Melbourne Racing Club into ongoing parking available for staff and students;

  • successfully lobbying Monash University to include 80% of new car parks in the new Caulfield Campus 3-strorey car park development to be available to students;

  • introduce new bike lockers and racks on campus for students who need security for the bike they rise to university;

  • successfully lobbying Monash University to introduce 4 new computer labs in T Block to ease demand on computer resources;

  • working with the Faculty of Art and Design, Monash University and Monyx to establish a new student run and managed gallery for students to exhibit their artwork;

  • providing numerous outlets for students in the Faculty of Art and Design to exhibit their artwork;

  • working with Monyx and Monash University, introducing a plan to gradually reduce Monyx and MONSU Caulfield’s dependency on the amenities and services paid by each student through generating profits from outside business ventures;

  • ensured that its election processes are the most transparent, open and accessible of any student elections by using the independent returning officer, the Victorian Electoral Commission; and

  • implemented extensive student representative reporting procedures to ensure accountability to the student community.


Past Presidents of MONSU Caulfield

  • 2001 - Kenny Lee
  • 2002 - Tim Wilson
  • 2003 - Tim Wilson
  • 2004 - Michael Josem
  • 2005 - Michael Josem
  • 2006 - Andy Poon

 

  
MONSU Caulfield