Council Report - December 8

Hello Council,
Good luck on your exams, save travels back home or on holiday vacations, and may you get to spend this special season with your families, friends and loved ones.

Municipal Housing

I attended a meeting of the Thorold Town and Gown committee. Only routine matters took place and it was a short meeting, the increased policing effort between Brock and the Niagara Regional Police seems to have the intended effect of lowering the number of instances of problems in the area.

A few weeks ago, St. Catharines has passed a new housing bylaw which eliminates any references to certain types of housing, namely, boarding houses, rooming houses and lodging houses. The intent of this bylaw was to make it easier for fire and safety inspections to happen within rental properties, without legitimizing the conversion of some properties from single family homes to rental properties. The City of Thorold may be looking at similar action in the future.

Lastly, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the final appeal of the Oshawa zoning bylaw. This incredibly controversial city bylaw targeted certain neighbourhoods within a short walk of UOIT and Durham College, and placed severe restrictions on the area, including limiting the number of beds, parking spaces, requiring landlord permits, and more. It was challenged for unconstitutionality all the way through the court system. By rejecting this appeal, the SCC has basically reinforced the right of municipalities to set their own zoning standards as the city sees fit. This makes every future zoning decision so important, as the “unconstitutional” argument is not likely to hold weight anymore.

Senate

I have about 300 pages of course change requests to sift through, the same amount of work as usual each year for the Undergraduate Program Committee as each department submits their requests for next year. Keeping in mind the Brock 2014 plan and the potential phase out of 3-year degrees, I will be keeping a close eye on this process with every subcommittee.

The Governance Committee, as well as many others, continue to make recommendations about the academic review process which Brock gets to develop to our own needs, but must be submitted to the province by mid-March.


Referendums

I have been corresponding with the university about the various referendums which may be coming forward in February this year. Chris Green and I have a meeting on Monday Dec 7th about this matter. The report is written before that date, so I will be updating council verbally about the outcome.

OUSA

Last week was OUSA’s Lobby Conference, my most favourite time of the year. Lianne and I travelled to Toronto for four days, three of which were jam-packed with intense lobbying. OUSA had over 70 meetings scheduled for this week, and 16 delegates in 4 teams to do it.

The week took a rough and interesting start, as the PC Party staged a “final stand” protest against the impending HST legislation, grinding the operations of Queen’s Park to a halt. Two members were kicked out for the session (could be as short as a few months, as long as two years), but refused to leave the Legislature, disrupting any business that could be conducted. As a result, votes were delayed and rescheduled, and MPPs were called to emergency House Duty at other unscheduled times. This messed up greatly our perfectly crafted schedules, but it worked out OK. The week was a resounding success with our messages about Student Financial Assistance, Tuition, and Student Success.

I was the lead of a lobby team (Ringo) including delegates from Mac, Waterloo and Laurier, and over the course of the week I was able to meet with:
MPP Dunlop
Minister Bradley
Minister Matthews
A staffer for MPP Berardinetti
6 key policy staff members from MTCU
Minister Broten
MPP Jeffrey
Minister Gravelle
MPP Sandals
MPP Orazietti
MPP Mitchell
Minister Bartolucci
Minister McMeekin
As well as crossing paths and having side conversation with many others. Five other meetings were either deferred or cancelled due to the shenanigans in the House.
OUSA was, as a whole, able to meet with about ¾ of the cabinet, including Minister Milloy from MTCU. The response to our message was fantastic, and we look forward to seeing the policy and political outcomes as a result of this conference.



CASA

There was a meeting of the policy chairs held to divvy up tasks and update committee membership for the next policy cycle before the March conference. I will be chairing the International Branch Campuses group, and have begun to conduct some research on this topic already. I will also be participating in the Early Outreach policy group, and continuing with the Childcare group.

I also participating in helping clean up/correct some of the meeting minutes from the AGM a few weeks ago.

On Tuesday, two hours before the BUSAC meeting, there will be a conference call to finally vote for once and for final, on the new CASA voting structure. Be sure to ask me the outcome during the meeting if you wish.

Student News from Across the Country

This may become a routine section, we’ll see what other interesting news there is to report. This is something I keep tabs on all the time, but rarely do we see a two-week stretch like this one. But to keep you updated on the goings-on of the past two weeks:

Alma Matter Society at the University of British Columbia

President Blake Frederick and VP External Affairs Tim Chu submitted a formal Human Rights complaint to the United Nations about tuition rates in British Columbia making university inaccessible, supposedly violating some treaty that Canada has signed. The reaction on the UBC campus was swift and harsh: this action was not endorsed by council and cost at least $3000 in legal fees, maybe more. The reputation of UBC is at stake as well, according to many. The AMS council had an emergency meeting (which Frederick and Chu skipped), with unanimous resolutions to withdraw the UN complaint, and to request the resignations of both Frederick and Chu. They have refused to do so, and thrown two of their other executives “under the bus.” A formal impeachment meeting is scheduled for this weekend.

Dalhousie Students’ Union

The past few weeks have been considering whether to impeach their VP Internal, Mark Hobbs around issues of job performance. A meeting was scheduled for last week. After council deliberated, the motion to impeach failed: 13 in favour, 14 against, 5 abstensions: needed 2/3 to pass.

Canadian Federation of Students

Probably the most contentious part of the past two weeks, held their AGM in Gatineau. The ‘reform package’ of over 30 motions including policies on media openness, posting minutes online, random selection of judicial boards, the notification of all legal proceedings, separate budgets for the CFS-Services division, and cessation of legal action against members who have recently held referendums to leave, among others, was put forward by a number of Quebec schools. The ‘anti-reform’ motion, referred to ominously by its number ‘Motion Six’, was put forth by Carleton to make it tougher to leave the Federation. This motion would double the number of signatures needed to initiate a referendum (from 10% of the student body to 20%), lengthen the minimum waiting period between referendums about the CFS (from two years to five years), and limit the number of referendums that could be held in any years to four (there are no number restrictions currently, and at least 13 schools have submitted petitions to hold referendums this year.) The current window of up to 6-months notice required is already criticized as too short, with petitions required to be submitted before October 15th if a vote is to be held in the same academic year. It was a motion clearly acknowledged by both sides to lock in members and prevent attempts to leave the organization. No parallel motion was introduced about the process to join the CFS.

At the meeting, Quebec delegates were reportedly bullied and harassed, and some schools were asked to sign legal documents making them responsible for ‘any ramifications’ if their motions passed. Kwantlen, a school in the reformist movement, had their hotel rooms cancelled. Journalists who were part of delegations were forced to stop reporting on the conference. Only one CUP journalist was allowed inside, but was barred from interviewing anybody, or publishing any stories, until the conference finished. Willful confusion was created, with fake twitter accounts about CFS Quebec delegation, McGill graduate students, and even CASA were created to cause confusion for anyone following the proceedings.

In the highly contentions (and well-followed via Twitter) plenary session, all but two of the reformist motions failed. The ones that did pass were amended: one to put a list of all boycotts online, and one to make the minutes of opening and closing plenary available to members on request, though not on a public website. A motion to collaborate with CASA on issues of mutual agreement failed resoundingly. During the intense debate time for ‘Motion Six’, the fire alarm was pulled, and the meeting chair refused to recognize the allotted end time for the meeting once delegates returned. In a bylaw amendment that required 2/3 support, the motion received 44 votes in favour, 19 against, with 6 abstentions. The chair ruled it as carried, but the reformist movement protested: the CFS bylaws state that “2/3 present” must vote in favour, not “2/3 present and voting”. With 69 schools in the room, 46 would have been 2/3. The CFS officially claims this to be carried, but (even more) legal challenges may be pending, putting the official outcome of this vote into the unknown category right now.

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #7 – Globecampus.ca

We’re back to information sources this time around. Globecampus.ca/blogs is the rival compliment to the Macleans on Campus blogging team. So rival in fact, that a mother-daughter team in the Dobson-Mitchell family blogs against their son-brother Scott Dobson-Mitchell who writes for Macleans. Globe also features Joey Coleman, a former McMaster and current U Manitoba student who used to write for Macleans, and a few other student bloggers. This site isn’t as easy to navigate with a comments section that doesn’t work so well, and no central gathering page to see which blogs have been updated recently. But to find out about more goings-on across the country, you’d be hard-pressed to exclude Joey Coleman from the top-5 known names in PSE reporting. His often controversial topics can attract upwards of 60 comments, and is some fascinating reading (again: remember the reporting biases) for anyone getting a handle on some of these issues.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“You make me smile like the sun
Fall out of bed
Sing like a bird
Dizzy in my head
Spin like a record
Crazy on a Sunday night”
- Uncle Kracker

Council Report - November 24th

Hello esteemed council, this inter-provincial report has been delivered from the friendly confines of Halifax, Nova Scotia, among esteemed student leaders from across the country. Spending just 3 days in the office since the last meeting, and 5 days in Halifax, my past two weeks have been dominated by CASA conference-related activities.

Upcoming Referendum(s)

In light of the passed motions at the previous council surrounding the ‘Fee Replacement Referendum’, myself and Sohail sat down with the CRO and DROs to give them the information about the referendum which they will need to run the impartial information campaign.

As per the Omnibus agreement between BUSU and the University, I also delivered the notice necessary about the referendums which we know will be upcoming for the rest of the year.

I also had a chance to meet briefly with Ken from Brock Outdoors, and we are developing a stronger referendum question and memorandum of understanding before he begins the petition process to have this club funding referendum come forward.

24-hour space

I received official notice from the University that we will have access to the Kenmore Centre to use as 24-hour study space during the upcoming exam period, as a trial run to future 24-hour spaces available on campus. I am continuing to work out the final details with Campus Security, and full information will be posted and advertised shortly. I encourage everyone to ensure that their constituents know about this new option, and that it be used frequently to ensure that this trial period is a success.

Academic Affairs Committee

The Academic Affairs Committee held a Town Hall/Open Forum to discuss any issues of concern that students had about university policy. No previously unknown issues were raised at this meeting, attended by 5 people over an hour and a half. The committee will continue to work and prioritize the previously identified concerns over the rest of the year.

The AAC also met to discuss student-selected Teaching Awards on campus, and we have a framework ready to go that has been approved. The formal drafting and creation of the form is the only step left to go before this initiative begins to be promoted and ready to accept submissions. We will have a submission based teaching award for Lecturers (6 winners – one per faculty including an overall Brock winner), and one individual Teaching Assistant/Lab Assistant.

Senate

One of the Senate committees I sit on, the Undergraduate Student Affairs committee, discussed at the last meeting the ideas surrounding a formal grade for academic dishonesty cases. Some universities have moved to a system where a grade of ‘XD’, ‘XF’ or something similar, are used on transcripts to denote that a student has failed because they have been caught in an academic dishonesty situation. The committee decided at this time not to recommend any action to Senate, that our current procedures at Brock are enough of an education and a deterrent to prevent dishonest behaviour. This issue may be revisited in a few years with more information.

Referendums

There will be a presentation at this meeting to propose a referendum to be held at the same time as the Executive elections in February, to take $5 in existing ancillary fees and redistribute them for next year into a Clubs Levy, Green Levy, and an increase to the BUSU operating budget. There have been two executive meetings exclusively for this topic this past week, and I took the responsibility of writing the first draft of the Memorandum of Understanding.

Canadian Student Survey

The final e-mail about this survey has gone out to students, but the link is still live and active until the end of this week. Over 2000 students at Brock have taken the survey already, second (in numbers) in the country to only University of Alberta, and University of Western Ontario. Percentage-wise of the student body, Brock is heads and shoulders above other schools participation rates, and we should be commended for that. I encourage anyone who has not participated yet to please visit www.canedsurvey.org and take the 15 minutes to share your opinions.

OUSA

I have completed the first drafts of OUSA’s financial policies, and sent them to the rest of the OUSA membership for evaluation. We have also determined the review process for our staff reviews, and I continue to work on the organization’s future insurance needs, and a switch in credit card providers.

CASA

CASA’s Annual General Meeting was held in Halifax last week. As you may or may not know, CASA is overhauling/reviewing/discussing massively significant internal issues this year, including all of the following:
- The constitution
- The governance structure
- The voting structure
- The fee structure
- The long-term plan
This, as a sum, basically constitutes just about everything that CASA does internally. This, in addition to some policy in the week.

The following constitutes an extremely brief overview of the proceedings:

The first day began with reports from the National Director, about the government climate, and updates from the Digital Technology Officer about a recent media strategy involving east coast schools and MuchMusic personality Paul Telner. We received updates from each of the policy committees and presentations about policies ready for adoption in the afternoon, and then held a policy committee meeting to prioritize the tasks remaining for the rest of the year.

The second day was a full-day discussion about two very important issues: long-term planning, and governance structure. Through breakouts, day-long discussion (including arguments and bigschoolsmallschoollove), healthy debate, discussion and compromise, the organization received through full input, the direction towards a BHAG (the organization’s main goal), as well as organizational core values, and core purpose. The rest will be hashed out through the rest of the year on a committee that I sit on.

The third day focused more on the governance structure, and the large decisions about which bodies/groups receive which jurisdiction and authorities were sorted out, as well as that a board structure was needed, and the rough edges around how the board composition should look. We also had a lengthy discussion about how the voting structure should look, and a shorter-but-important direction-setting session to let the fee structure review committee know what to proceed with. We also held a formal plenary session to accept Fraser Valley into the membership as a full member, and Kwantlen into CASA as an associate member. Within this session, we also held an in-camera meeting.

The final day was the plenary session, with some actual decisions made, as well as more future direction. We passed the policies on Copyright and around graduate student grants, and for CASA to take out membership in the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies. Some budgetary business was discussed at length, and CASA formally passed/approved funding for the Canadian Student Survey. Other working groups and empowerment was delegated: we will be evaluating formal guidelines for observer schools, we have begun to empower our leadership team to take on the powers of the soon-to-be Board of Directors, to develop a communications strategy and the policy committee was taskedwork on the next 5 CASA policies. The motion to adjust CASA’s voting structure will go to a conference-call vote within the next month.

In addition to the committees and activities that I was already involved with, I will be heading the research and leading the committee on the issue of International Branch Campuses from Canadian institutions.

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #6 – Documentation

In a short word, keep it. Keep all of it, even the things you believe to be incredibly insignificant, or cumbersome. You, or someone else, will need it later.

BUSU has lost a lot of documentation in its history, we have some dead-zones where we know nothing about some years. Many of these were in the pre-computer days, and now that we have these, it makes the storage and tracking of information so much easier for the future.

Save every single e-mail attachment onto the network, as soon as you receive it. This allows you to delete e-mails which you may not need, while providing a back-up copy of any document you’ve received, for review later when you may or may not be online or offline, or on a different machine.

Save copies of every document you create, in every stage. I’ve begun labelling every file ‘RobsXprojectversion1point1’, and then after anybody else revises it, this becomes 1point2, then 1point3, and so on. The historical progression of a decision may not be readily apparent or necessary for you, but imagine three years from now when you are not around, someone should be able to follow your every thought process.

Create labels, folders, and subfolders as specific as possible to help your future selves find the information, in the years they need to find it. I’ve found it helpful to keep a subdirectory of every past year within quick reach as well.

Never throw out your scrap paper. This becomes where you’ve jotted down phone numbers and notes on the go, names, committees, dates, and anything else. At least once per week I sort and sift through a file in my drawer of old scrap papers, because one of those names or numbers has now become relevant or necessary again.

‘Sent e-mail’ history is just as important to save, track and sort through for this information as well. Ensure that all e-mails are backed up and saved for future reference.

An extra 10 seconds of effort today, believe me when I say this, saves you hours of headache later on. And your successors will thank you for it.



Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“This is my December
This is my time of year
This is my December
This is all so clear”
- Linkin Park

OUSA Blog Post

Coasts & Coalitions – By Rob Lanteigne (Nov 16, 2009)

With the power of Blackberry, I write this blog with a toe literally dipped in the Atlantic Ocean (cold in November, fyi). Myself and many of the OUSA folk are in Halifax for the AGM of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations.

I can’t help but marvel, not just at the beautiful country we have, but at the strength of post-secondary advocacy in this country. You know (or I hope you do from the OUSA website) about the strength and influence we have in Ontario. CASA provides the parallel voice federally, with great strength and success.

The value of these Alliances is more than just strength in numbers, and a coordinated voice. It’s also about resource and idea sharing, a way for me to strengthen the impact that BUSU has at Brock by learning about what the students’ unions at Calgary and Dalhousie offer their students. The value is in achieving more together than we would be able to fathom working independently. And that’s why I’m proud and humbled to represent my school and my constituents at these conferences.

The beautiful east coast scenery is just a side benefit.

-Rob Lanteigne

A well-reasoned report by Ontario students

The following editorial appeared online at the University Affairs magazine website, November 12, 2009, written by deputy editor Leo Charbonneau
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/margin-notes/a-well-reasoned-report-by-ontario-students

You can find the PDF version of the OUSA submission at http://www.ousa.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/OUSA-RH2-Submission3-31.pdf



I was impressed by the submission presented by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance to the provincial government this week (see the press release here, and the full submission in PDF format here).

The 40-page document contains three main priorities: student financial aid, student success (quality), and tuition. I think the report is eminently reasonable, especially some of the recommendations on quality and access. It also lacks some of the needlessly confrontational language I sometimes see with student advocacy.

Many of the recommendations are obviously Ontario-specific, but there are others that I think would resonate Canada-wide.

Here are their recommendations in terms of student financial assistance:

• Raise the living allowance to at least the poverty line and ensure geographic differences in cost of living are taken into account;
• Raise the in-study income exemption to $100/week, and tie it to future increases in the minimum wage;
• Immediately raise the OSAP maximum to $175 per week with a proportional increase from the federal government
• Fulfill its promise to provide students with an interest-free year before they must begin repaying their student loans; and,
• Maintain the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant at its current level, and finding the funding through the redirection of the tuition and education tax-credits.

Student success:

• The provincial government mandate institutions to develop early warning systems to 5 proactively identify and assist those students who may need greater support, especially in their first year;
• The provincial government create envelopes within the funding formula that designate specific amounts per FTE for student support services;
• Funding be designated by the provincial government to found and maintain instructional support programs that encourage innovation in teaching and provide ongoing professional development for Ontario’s post-secondary educators;
• The provincial government develop incentives for all new PhD students to be given formal instruction in teaching methods and practices;
• The provincial government designate targeted funding to support the development of new teaching and learning pedagogy at all institutions and across all disciplines; and,
• Quality teaching be weighted equally with research performance for all decisions relating to hiring, promotion and tenure. A panel consisting of students, government, university and faculty representatives must be established to explore how this standard can be better maintained.

And tuition:

• The provincial government regulate all tuition, including that of international students;
• The Ontario government progress toward restoring a 2:1 cost-sharing model where tuition makes up no more than a third of university operating budgets;
• At minimum, the provincial government must increase university operating grants to the per student national average.
• If tuition increases must occur, then they should go up no more than that of yearly inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index.
  

Did you catch that very last one? I got a bit of flack last week for saying that calls by student groups to cut tuition are dubious, but I notice this group is not advocating that.

I’m not up on the intricacies of university student politics, but my understanding is this group is aligned with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, which I gather is viewed as more “conservative” or, if you wish, less “ideological” than the rival Canadian Federation of Students.

VPUA Report November 10, 2009

Good evening all, apologies for being sick during the last meeting and unable to attend to answer questions. The illness kept me away from the office for much of the week, coming in only for specific meetings and then leaving again. I can respond to questions about this report or the last one during this meeting.

OUSA

I spent some time these past two weeks working on two very important initiatives for OUSA. Alexi and I have been going over quotes and types of insurance that might be necessary for the organization, and this has come with some time spent on education for myself as well as a deeper understanding of the insurance that BUSU carries for various reasons. The second project is financial policies – I have completed the first draft of a brand new set of procedures for the organization, and this will bounce back and forth a few times over the next few months before being finalized and adopted.

The OUSA website should now be back up and running as of when you read this. Check out the new www.ousa.ca and check out some of the new content, including the revamped OUSA blog which I contributed to last Monday.

On Friday, I attended workshop hosted by the Council of Ontario Universities, which was dedicated to lobby training and public policy. This report was written before that date, so I can update BUSAC verbally about how this went, if the question is asked.

CASA

I held a conference call with the rest of the Strategic Planning Committee two weeks ago to go over the timelines and deadlines for that initiative.

The pre-conference materials for next week’s AGM have been sent out, so I have spent time reviewing these, and discussing the conference with my counterparts at other institutions. Discussions will include very major issues of policy, strategic plan, governance review, voting structure, and fee structure.

Niagara Prosperity Advisory Committee

The NPAC hosted a Community Conversation last week on Tuesday on campus. Lianne and I both attended to learn more about their committee, and bring back some ideas of how we might be able to increase our service offerings. One particular initiative, a “Good Food Bag” filled with healthy local fruits and vegetables, is one service that we may be able to add on to our existing food voucher and ESLP initiatives to help students in need.

BUSAC Committees

I am the chair of two committees: External Affairs and Academic Affairs. Both attempted to meet for the first time two weeks ago. Unfortunately, only three people including myself were in attendance at External Affairs, but we still were able to go over an outline of the year, and discuss some CASA-related initiatives.

The Academic Affairs met however, and I’m proud to say that it reached quorum for the first time ever! The committee will be hosting an open town hall this week, Thursday at 3:30 in AS 215 to gather student concerns about academic matters within Brock. We also have a list of about a dozen issues to tackle this year, beginning with the creation of a student-driven Teaching Award here at Brock.

Referendums

There will be a presentation at this meeting to propose a referendum to be held at the same time as the Executive elections in February, to take $5 in existing ancillary fees and redistribute them for next year into a Clubs Levy, Green Levy, and an increase to the BUSU operating budget. There have been two executive meetings exclusively for this topic this past week, and I took the responsibility of writing the first draft of the Memorandum of Understanding.

Presidents’ Ball

I also spent a bit of time running around the Region to collect some Presidents’ Ball prizes from various local politicians – Chairman Peter Partington, Mayor Damian Goulbourne, Mayor Ted Salci, MP Rob Nicholson, and MPP Jim Bradley.

Canadian Student Survey

Monday, you hopefully (will) receive(d) an e-mail within your Badger account about the National Student Survey. This is a HUGE deal with major implications and buy-in from across the country. This is the first time that students in Canada have produced a full-scale national survey where the data is created and owned by the students, providing cross-sections on a national, provincial and institutional scale.

As many of you might know, the non-renewal of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is creating a huge data void within postsecondary education. With the limited research of Statistics Canada excepted (and that is based mostly on census data only), there is no public data and research on education anymore. The only surveys, the only research, the only data, is being collected and held by the groups that commission the research. All too often, this is private companies, groups and think tanks which have a certain agenda and purpose to their data collection. Information and statistics are only released when favourable and when necessary. Statistics that do not support their mission are never released. Those who hold the data hold the control.

This survey, owned by “the partnership” including CASA and OUSA, will allow students access to the data that we can’t get otherwise. It also delves far beyond that, asking students for the first time about many public policy preferences relating to PSE which will help inform future organizational direction. It tests knowledge to indicate whether current government programs are known and are being utilized. And it asks some questions that no other research has been asking because they don’t serve students as members.

I beg of you that you do not ignore this survey. We as Vice Presidents, Presidents, we can only do so much with the experiences we have and the friends that we know. The data of thousands of students is so much stronger than our “belief that this is the case” in our universities. Please take the fifteen minutes to fill it out, and encourage your friends to do the same. BUSU, OUSA, CASA, we can only serve your interests if we know what your interests are, and for the first time we have a large-scale mechanism to evaluate it.

Other Meetings

BUSU Exec meetings – at least 2x per week
Appeals meeting – I am on the appeals board for one of the University services which shall remain nameless. We had a meeting to discuss 9 appeal situations.
Educational Technology Advisory Group
Senate Governance Committee

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #5 – Meet Your Deadlines

This tip may sound simple, it may sound logical, it may sound like downright common sense. But all too often in this job and student union politics in general, people are not able to meet the commitments that they make. When you get a series of busy people together, whether they are students, reporters, politicians, and a date or time gets agreed upon for a meeting, work to be completed, or a follow up, there is somebody counting on you to hold up your end of the bargain. The most frustrating thing is when busy people get together, and the time is wasted when the preliminary information has not been done.

I hesitate to point out any names of people who do not meet this standard, but there are many people that I have encountered over the past two years. One of the reasons that BUSU has one of the highest meeting rates and influence with our local politicians is based on our prompt use of meeting debrief forms and follow-ups on requests for information. The reason that we are among the most prepared at OUSA and CASA meetings is that material is reviewed and commented on during the preliminary stages based on the deadlines, which gives us greater influence into the initial documents and more knowledge about the process, adding greater weight to the outcomes.

I’m proud to say that no newspaper story of mine has ever appeared with a “Rob/BUSU was unavailable for comment at press time”, and that timely information has led to the retraction of various inaccuracies. We’ve never cancelled, or even delayed, an event that I have been responsible for due to lack of preparation or forward thinking. Being prepared for a meeting when others aren’t immediately increases your credibility in the eyes of everyone else watching, and in this business, if you don’t have credibility, then you don’t have anything.

How does this get done? Get yourself into a routine of writing things down. Blackberries and electronic calendars are technologically cool and can give you a handy beep 15 minutes before you need to be somewhere. But a physical calendar allows you to scan weeks at a glance. I place “internal reminders” throughout my calendar hours or days in advance of the actual deadline, just to remind myself to work on them. I scan at least two weeks ahead in my calendar, every day, to make sure I’m leaving time for something that needs to be done. I may be VP Travel and Tourism, but I’ve never missed a BUSAC report deadline in two years. It’s time prioritization.

I hesitate to even include this as a “job tip” because I wish it was just common sense, but it jumps all the way up my list to number 5 because it’s such a basic function that takes just a few minutes of organization. You’re going to be doing the work, the readings, the reports, the planning, the thinking, and the follow-ups anyway. Do them early before you get caught on the treadmill of being late for everything, and your access and influence increases exponentially.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“It’s the perfect time of day
To throw all your cares away
Put a sprinkler on the lawn
And run through with my gym shorts on”
- Barenaked Ladies

Universities: an essential service?

Universities: an essential service? – by Rob Lanteigne (Nov 2, 2009)

(the following blog entry was written for the soon to be redesigned OUSA website, currently available as a mirror at http://dev.theblogstudio.com/ousa/)

Welcome back to the OUSA website after our lengthy delay, hope you enjoy the new navigation, and will become a regular reader of our OUSA Blog.

I wanted to start with a timely piece: as of this morning, the union representing Teaching Assistants and Research Assistants at McMaster is on strike. As of yet, classes are still on, but many lectures and labs will be affected. Strikes are becoming commonplace in higher education – immediately last year’s strike at York comes to mind, which cancelled classes for three months and led exams into June. In 2008, the part-time academic faculty at Laurier were on strike for two weeks. The year before that, I helped coordinate a student sit-in at Brock University when a looming faculty strike was set to cancel December exams. In 2006, a province-wide college strike shut down classes for three weeks.

The key similarity in all of these situations, and most certainly for all future labour disputes, is that students are left powerless, and out of the bargaining boardrooms. Certainly there are a few upper-year students who may be members of a bargaining unit, but the majority of the undergraduate and college students in the province are completely at the mercy of the union and the institution. While both sides always claim to have the student interest at heart, how are students expected to cope with squeezed academic semesters, shortened summers, and uncertain timelines?

Students pay thousands of dollars each year for an education, not just for a grade. A strike may or may not cancel classes outright, but every single one harms interaction, learning methods, and the chance to pick the brains of other thought leaders in their field. The number I receive at the end of the course means much less to me than the time spent with professors, the learning skills taught by TAs, and the cumulative knowledge absorbed through the entire process. Every single strike harms that learning environment.

Students are a captive and powerless consumer. Once I have been accepted to my school, I’m paying for whatever comes out the other side. I pay the same amount to be taught by a full professor or a sessional lecturer. I pay the same amount in a 400-seat lecture hall in a class with 20 TAs as I do in a fifteen-person class. And I’ve already paid that money by the time “strike season” comes along. I don’t get the chance at a refund, the chance to switch to a new school (until the year is over), and most importantly, I don’t have any sway with the two groups that are holding my education hostage.

I don’t intend to take sides, administration vs. union. I judge every situation based on its own circumstances. But I disagree with the notion that students as consumers must be the losers in every labour dispute in the higher education system. We have the right to an education that begins and ends on schedule, with the promised interaction levels throughout, with no worry, uncertainty or threat of cancelled classes. With no ability to hop institutions, especially not mid-semester, one of the few ways to guarantee this right is through declaring education an essential service.

Essential service declaration would not mean that the bargaining process dies. What it would mean, however, is healthy discussion that does not use “the student interest” as a pawn in the media to gather sympathy for either side. It would mean that students carry out their studies in labour peace, and do not have the threat of late transcripts, missed professional exams, or shorter employment summers hanging over their university careers. And it would mean that, when I’m advising my sister which school to attend for next year, that I’m not using collective bargaining contracts, history and assumptions to tell her which places to avoid.

Thoughts?

-Rob Lanteigne

BUSAC Report - October 27th, 2009

Good evening all, and a reminder that your clocks “Fall Back” an hour this coming Sunday, November 1st.

Senate/ Senate Committees

Senate business is still very much preliminary this year. The valuable portions of the main senate meetings are the updates from Dr. Jack, as well as the COU Academic Colleague, which keep us informed as to what’s going on from their end of things. The discussions that Jack has in particular, about the direction of the province, the COU, and the priorities he has for Brock, are extremely helpful for informing my work through OUSA, and with politicians. As we are awaiting the formal submissions to the province by the COU this year, Senate and other discussions are the only avenues to keep tabs on the requests the university has for Ontario in the next few years.

I was invited to attend the Senate IT and Infrastructure Committee meeting two weeks ago in response to the motion that was passed at BUSAC supporting 24-hour learning space. I presented to the committee for approximately half an hour including questions, and a motion of support for extended hours on campus was passed. A subcommittee was struck to come with further ideas, and this committee also includes Sebastian Prins. I continue to work with Steven Pillar about a pilot 24-hour space during exams this semester.

OUSA

Of the seven work days which take place between one BUSAC meeting and the date the reports are written for the next one, probably the equivalent of four complete days was spent working on issues that pertain to OUSA.

OUSA General Assembly took place this past weekend (but after the time of writing). After the Assembly approves policies, documentation and bylaws on Sunday, I will send out anything that becomes officially approved to BUSAC by Monday, for your reference and information. I will also highlight the conference verbally and answer questions at that time. I spend time these weeks discussing with our delegates the procedures and expectations for the weekend conference.

On the 14th, I met with the OUSA Auditors to discuss their draft audits for the previous two years. There were a few questions still to answer on both sides, and a few corrections to still make based on the discussions that took place. BDO made the corrections, OUSA signed the necessary documents, and OUSA received the final audit statements on the 21st. I also spent significant time updating the OUSA year-to-date financials for presentation to General Assembly.

The policy on the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) which I was responsible for was completed as well, with editing, footnotes and other styling details taking up most of the effort on that paper in the past two weeks. I also proposed and sent amendments for the other two General Assembly papers which I did not have a direct hand in writing.

The newest version of the Ontario Operating Funds Distribution Manual, the holy scripture of Ontario university operating funding and policies, was released (nearly 200 pages), and it took significant time to go through the document to familiarize myself with any new pieces.

The National Student Survey, which both OUSA and CASA are participating in, is coming near. I spent some time working at Brock on behalf of EPI (the survey administrators) to ensure Research Ethics clearance, and some minor changes as we near the launch date of November 9th.

Friday the 16th I was in Toronto for a Steering Committee meeting. This one went significantly longer than our usual meetings, but we had a lot to discuss. We flew through a session that looked at OSAP in detail, and all the tweaks and changes we have and should be asking for. If anyone knows more about loan calculations and differences between federal and provincial systems more than Alexi and Paul, I’d like to meet that person.

During the meeting we also had Leah Myers present, she is the Postsecondary Secretariat with the MTCU, and in charge of the current round of discussions around Reaching Higher 2. She is a former President at Durham College, and before that, was the executive director of the Secretariat which supported the Rae Review. In short, she’s one of the top ears in the world to hear and understand our concerns, and influence what we need influenced moving forward this year with respect to RH2 and the tuition framework moving forward. We were able to discuss with her the following topics, all in significant detail:
- E-Learning
- Classroom technology
- Turnitin.com
- Flat fee tuition
- Differential tuition
- Co-op programs, internships and service learning
- How the above interact (negatively) with OSAP
- Branch campuses
- Quality vs. Expansion
It was an incredibly productive day, probably the best Steering Committee that I’ve had in the past year and a half in this job.


CASA

I’ve started the bookings of hotels, flights, etc. for the next CASA conference, the Annual General Meeting in November hosted by Dalhousie.

As one of the Central Regional Coordinators, I’ve also spent a fair amount of time these few weeks on the phone with my counterparts in Ontario and Quebec, gathering input to begin the process of creating CASA’s next Strategic Plan. This stage is still a brainstorming and input stage, the creation of a structure with points and goals will follow shortly.

Niagara Prosperity Advisory Committee

Brad Clarke from Off Campus Living approached me last week about the Niagara Prosperity Advisory Committee. This is a group with a number of stakeholders coming together to address challenges related to poverty, and supporting the work of those that reduce poverty throughout the Niagara Region. There are a number of town halls happening in various communities to identify some of the challenges, solutions and visions of those who face poverty situations, for use in providing some direction for this group to proceed. Brad and I are working on bringing one of these “Community Conversations” to Brock to gather the input on student-specific concerns. Please keep watching the BUSU website and some posters in the hallways to find out more about this event, if you or someone you know is affected by poverty.

Budget Town Hall

Friday October 23rd, Dr. Lightstone held the first town hall of this year’s budget cycle, and invited the BUSU executive to attend. It was effectively a re-summarization of the results of last year, with a challenge to work this year on solutions:

The results of last year’s budget saw Brock close a 17 million dollar gap by approximately 8.1 million dollars. We are now left with a 8.9 million dollar gap to tackle. The impetus in the first year, due to time, was cuts to places where cuts could be made. This year, the focus is on revenue enhancements; that is, finding ways to increase revenues with the same amount of resources, in order to close the gap by moving the revenues side upwards, rather than by moving the expenses side downwards. We have a few months to achieve some of these creative solutions, and Dr. Lightstone will be working with all the stakeholders on campus, including BUSU, on how we achieve this moving forward.

We have promised that town halls will be held, like last year, for students to specifically have student questions answered, and to inform as many people as possible moving forward. Details about when these will be, with a likely location of Isaacs, will be forthcoming.


Deferral Fee Charges

A few weeks ago, I asked Alex to begin looking at how our tuition deferral fee of $75 compared to other schools with their OSAP and tuition payment process. This was expediated in order to get the information for the Brock Press, who independently also stumbled onto that topic for a story. You will find on tonight’s agenda a policy position relating to Deferral Fees.

New Tuition Stats

A Statistics Canada report was released last Tuesday highlighting tuition trends across the country. I’m unhappy to say that Ontario was vaulted up to #1 this year, after every university took the maximum 5% hike allowed. Nova Scotia, previously in top spot, froze tuition this year, and their average actually declined. Ontario is setting new records for all the wrong reasons. I received some coverage in a story in the St. Catharines Standard (along with Kathryn Haynes), and a story in the Brock Press.

Other Meetings

BUSU AGM – Attendance of 5; did not meet quorum
Student Senate Caucus – regular meeting before Senate
O-Week Debrief – The exec are sitting down to formally discuss the process and outcomes of all the events we ran, to incorporate everyone’s feedback from an executive sense into the reports for next year’s staff, and for BUSAC
Staff appreciation dinner
Regular Executive meetings – 2x per week

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #3 – RSS Feeds

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’, and you’ll recognize the orange square symbol that you’ve seen on many websites. An RSS feed allows you to keep track of websites, blogs and other feeds that update on a regular basis, without having to continuously check their sites directly. Though there are many formats to receive RSS, my preferred method is through my e-mail, as a new folder within Microsoft Outlook which continuously scans the RSS feeds I’m subscribed to for new content. Each RSS story will show the first three lines of content in the story, with a link to take you to the source page if you want to read the whole story/blog post, etc.

I have a host of RSS feeds coming in; most blogs and news sites have RSS feeds for their content, using iGoogle I get RSS feeds updating me on any stories about Brock University, or with my name in them. I even use RSS to automatically post content from my blog, into a Facebook note for me so I don’t even have to copy-and-paste the content into Facebook. So they’re handy in two ways: delivering you content, and disseminating your content in multiple locations.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“’Cause I’d get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance”
- Owl City

Tuition in Ontario climbs to highest in Canada

Press Release

October 20, 2009: Tuition in Ontario climbs to highest in Canada

Ontario students now pay the highest tuition in Canada, according to the Statistics Canada university tuition report released this morning. Average tuition levels have increased by 5%, or nearly $300 in one year, pushing Ontario past Nova Scotia and into the worst spot in the country.

“10 out of 10 is a great score on a midterm, but the worst place to be when comparing provinces,” noted Rob Lanteigne, Vice President University Affairs with the Brock University Students’ Union (BUSU), “Ontario needs to be at the top in quality, affordability and accessibility, not setting new records for the highest tuition levels.”

Ontario universities already face significant financial challenges, and our students continue to pay the highest percentage of university operating budgets, compared our counterparts in other provinces. BUSU is calling on the provincial government to bring per-student funding up to the national average, while asking for the federal government to take leadership on the nationwide issue of rising tuition.

BUSU stands with a partnership of federal and provincial student organizations across the country, representing over 600,000 students, calling upon the federal government to increase post-secondary funding to $4 billion. BUSU is a member of both the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA).

“Coming off a summer with record highs in student unemployment, faced with rising debt levels and reduced employment prospects, it’s unreasonable to charge more tuition to students who can’t afford it,” said Lianne Bradley, BUSU President. “Both the provincial and federal governments must come to the table with substantial new investments for students.”

-------------
For more information please contact BUSU VP University Affairs, Rob Lanteigne at vpua@busu.net or 905-688-5550 x.4198 (W)

BUSU is a not-for-profit organization representing over 15,000 undergraduate students at Brock University, working to improve the post-secondary education experience for Brock students.

Council Report - October 13, 2009

Good evening all, happy returns from your Thanksgiving break

Thanksgiving Weekend Bus Service

(Caveat, this report is written on Friday morning, and thus outcomes of this bus are not yet known as of writing. Full updates can be provided for you during the meeting upon request.)

The Thanksgiving buses took place this weekend, with three bus routes. The return trip from Kitchener to St. Catharines was cancelled, a decision made on Tuesday last week based on poor ticket sales. Those who had purchased tickets on that route already were accommodated, but we were not prepared to lose the volume of money that we would have on that return trip.

As of the time of writing, sales were approaching the break-even mark for both of the outbound trips. The inbound trip from London is fairly sluggish and will cost BUSU money, but has enough passengers that running the bus is still desirable for the passengers who have purchased tickets. Not every experiment can end as an unqualified success. A full evaluation of this service will take place after the weekend, once feedback has been received from the riders and we know where the final numbers lie.

I have been working through the past few weeks responding to questions, and dealing with both stores as they have sales questions, as well as adjusting information and working with Coach Canada on the issues that arise “on the spot” with such a new service.

OUSA

Along with Justin, my counterpart at Waterloo, I have been working on a paper which will be brought to General Assembly at the end of the month for adoption. It is focused on RAP – the federal Repayment Assistance Plan, which provides support measures for students who may have difficulty paying back their loans. Ontario currently has measures known as Interest Relief (IR) and Debt Reduction in Repayment (DRR), both of which the federal government just eliminated in favour of the new RAP. This policy is focused on convincing the provincial government that harmonizing with the federal RAP is in the best interest of students, as well as recommending some changes to RAP as it exists now. This paper is just under 10 pages, and set to be finalized this week, and will be debated and (hopefully) adopted by the end of the month.

Community Barbecue

The second Community Barbecue this year was held on Wednesday October 7th in St. Catharines, at the Anglican Church on the corner of Glenridge and Glendale. About 250 people were served between 4 and 7pm. We had the assistance of BUSU staff behind the grills and tables once again, and another successful partnership with the host facility. It was, however, very chilly and lacked the grassy surface for playing which made the Thorold barbecues most successful over the past few years. We will need to be very proactive through the summer next year to find and secure a St. Catharines location that fits all of the objectives.

Great Neighbour Program

The Brock Off Campus Living/Brock University Students’ Union Great Neighbour Awards are now live, there is a link on www.busu.net to find the applications. There will be great prizes available for 6 individual students, 6 groups of students, and 4 long-term residents/households. With the Brock website switch-over, the OCL department is not ready to host this information yet, so BUSU is currently the only location for the forms, and OCL will be directing people to our site for the immediate future.

Community Connections Day of Service

Saturday October 3rd was the 2nd Annual Community Connections Day of Service (I’ve attended both now). It attracted close to 100 people, to attend one of multiple sites throughout the region to engage in service projects, and bring students a volunteer experience which they might parlay into a long-term volunteer commitment with a number of agencies. I was located at the Morningstar Mill, at Decew Falls, assisting with cataloguing in great detail all the articles which are owned by the mill and historical site.

BUFAC Meeting

Tuesday October 6th, I arranged for a training session for councillors who were interested in doing a mock-meeting to give them the tools and tips they need to become experts at Robert’s Rules, and our other council procedures. 9 people attended, as well as Damien who served as Speaker. It was a very informative session, and I think the people who went would agree that we should continue this model of training moving forward. 37 motions, covering over 30 types of motions, were made and discussed, giving these councillors practical examples of how and why to get things done at council this year.

Other Meetings

Obviously not every meeting is report-worthy and has substantial outcomes. However, I feel bad that my report looks a little “light” on initiatives this week. Below is a summary of some of the other meetings I had this week on topics which did not become noteworthy enough to warrant extra work, or larger updates.

CASA Policy Committee – discussion about an upcoming childcare policy
Kim Meade + GSA – conversation about accessible events, and regular updates between the two associations with the Brock VP Student Services
O-Week Debrief – The exec are sitting down to formally discuss the process and outcomes of all the events we ran, to incorporate everyone’s feedback from an executive sense into the reports for next year’s staff, and for BUSAC
Legislative Affairs – has held two meetings, I’ve been at both, with two bylaw proposals
Town and Gown – Thorold committee discussed reaction from O-week, but nothing of substance was raised at this meeting, only a few concerns from private citizens
2014 Conference – Brock is bidding to host a major conference in 2014, I attended a reception to help impress the site visit committee
Online Voting – Chris, Lianne, Nazir and I had a web-based presentation from a company that facilitates online voting.
Regular Executive Meetings – we have two to three of these per week, about various topics
Senate Committees – UPC and Governance both had regular meetings with very routine business. Subcommittees are being struck, and both are in the very early stages of planning the paths of action for the year
H1N1 – A staff meeting about the spread and prevention of the flu
Dr. Jack – The exec regularly has a breakfast with Dr. Jack to have updates flow in both directions about activities happening around the school, and for us to raise some concerns
Mr. Harper – Oh right, Lianne, Sohail and I briefly chatted and had a photo WITH THE PRIME MINISTER. No big deal...

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #3 – Twitter

It may be a fad, it may be a trend, but within the past 3 months, Twitter has emerged as the most vital, and the most timely, link to education and other informational news. All of the “players in the game” have twitter accounts, including OUSA, CASA, CFS, campus newspapers (but not the Brock Press...yet), universities, bloggers, and a hefty amount of student union politicians from across the country. If something relevant happens or gets released, a flurry of re-tweets ensures that it reaches a large number of people in a short amount of time. Check #cdnpse for any national stories, and updated by contributors from all across the sector. #casaacae and #cfsfcee are fairly active surrounding student group initiatives and media releases, and a host of individual bloggers have their own threads. I also follow the @brockuniversity channel for any information flowing either to or from Brock, and often place @brockuniversity in my tweets to make sure it hits a wider audience. You can check my list of follows and followers, and ask me about some of the other major players if you are interested.

Tweet Deck is a great application for your desktop, which updates twitter feeds in real-time, keeping you updated on multiple channels all day long.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“Some people they’re looking for paradise
Others they’re searching for inner light
But me I’m just having the time of my life
I’m headin’ out, to check it out”
- Bryan Adams

Council Report - for September 29, 2009

September’s almost over, where did the month go? And, I’m already hearing rumblings about people running for my job next year. I swear those discussions begin sooner and sooner every year.

New Bus Service!

So the majority of my work the past two weeks has been getting details of this service confirmed, and running. Posters went up last week, and ticket sales began on Tuesday. Here are the details for you:

There are two buses running on Friday of Thanksgiving weekend to get people home: one goes to Kitchener and Guelph, and the other one goes to London, Woodstock and Brantford. Both of these buses return from the same cities on Monday night, allowing time for a Thanksgiving dinner with families as well. Tickets cost $22 for the Kitchener and Guelph run, and $30 for London, Woodstock or Brantford. These are savings of up to 27% over the student price offered by Greyhound and Coach Canada on their regular routes, and saves over an hour of travel time to all destinations.

For now, this is just for Thanksgiving weekend, but based on demand we hope to be able to extend this to every weekend throughout the school year, and even run reciprocal buses by partnering with the students’ unions at Waterloo, Laurier, Guelph and Western. If the demand exists, we hope this can become a permanent addition to the regular lineup of savings that BUSU offers to students on a regular basis.

It may not sound like much, but I spent the majority of these two weeks confirming buses, destinations, design and ticket details, and the back-end POS system at GB and SS where we are selling them. I’m happy that this service is finally good to go, and I expect a great response

The website contains all the information and frequently asked questions about this service, along with specific departure and arrival times. Please direct your friends who may be from these cities, who may take the bus home, and help them save a little money at the same time.

OUSA

The OUSA executive met by conference call to discuss two very important documents: the long term plan of OUSA, and our bylaws, which have not been amended since 2005. As Treasurer (and due to pending bylaw changes, soon-to-be VP Finance), I had pretty significant influence in the wording of some of the proposed changes. The bylaw changes are mainly changes of wording and reflective updates, while the long-term plan will be a very progressive, forward-thinking document. OUSA has the potential to take many large steps forwards in the next few years, and we need this vision written down and passed to take us there.

After this, Steering Committee met at Western to discuss these documents and refine them further. As well, we discussed logistics for the upcoming General Assembly in Waterloo, and talked about our submission for post-Reaching Higher in Ontario. Campus Coordinators also attended this meeting to get some training, so Carly White came along with me as the first part of her job this year.

OUSA is/was here on campus today (Tuesday) with a booth set up to talk to interested students, as well as conducting the first in a series of focus groups. The initial set are centered around the issues of financial aid, and student services on campus, and will be used to inform our future policy development. You will also find a presentation from OUSA Home Office staff on tonight’s agenda, and if you have any questions about the organization after this, please feel free to ask.

Senate

We now have a full complement of senators for the year, and for the first time that I can remember, we had all seven student senators at a meeting last week. It looks to be a promising, but important year from that end. Many committees will shortly be reviewing a new Travel Policy for Brock, which could have some significant ramifications. If you recall from the last two years, this is also a critical year for the issue of 3 and 4 year degrees. If all three year degrees are to be phased out by 2014 as the Brock Academic Plan suggests (note: this was never passed by Senate, or by students), this year is the one where the changes need to be made, such that no students are allowed to enter a three-year degree program beginning next year. Also, there are issues surrounding new degree and program expectations from the provincial government, and we will be examining ways to give senate more control over the program reviews that happen around the university.

Most crucially, it appears that all phases of the budget process will be accelerated this year, to allow Senate committees (and most notably the Undergraduate Program Committee, which deals with all program and course changes at the university) to appropriately approve/reject proposals that are contingent on budgetary decisions. The series of Town Halls that were held last year about the budget will return, with the first one being held this year on Friday October 23rd, at 8:30am in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. This of course is not a particularly student-friendly time, but I will be there, and we will ensure that one is held again inside Isaacs at a time more convenient for the majority of students.

Community Barbecue

One Community Barbecue has been held so far this year, in Thorold on September 16th. Turnout was approximately the same as last year, with over 300 people coming to grab some free food and connect with their neighbours. Mayor D’Angela, as well as Thorold councillors were also in attendance to help work the grill. This is a very important piece of neighbourhood relations, and also very important to the city of Thorold, who helps us out greatly every year.

The St. Catharines barbecue location and time have not been confirmed yet, but we are aiming for some time in the week of October 5th to 9th. That coincides with....

Great Neighbour Week

This is an initiative that Community Connections and Off Campus Living have started for this year, which BUSU will be assisting with. October 5th to 9th is the week, and this is when we will be rolling out the Brock Off Campus Living/Brock University Students’ Union Great Neighbour Awards. There will be great prizes available for 6 individual students, 6 groups of students, and 4 long-term residents/households in a program that I had envisioned during my campaign, and am now bringing to practice. Coincidentally, however, OCL was already planning something similar, so we have joined our resources together to offer over $2000 in prizing.

CASA

The Governance Review Committee of CASA has sent out requests for BUSU’s thoughts on the CASA structure, and I have finalized my comments on that, sent to Lianne for her review as well. The Strategic Planning Committee, which I am on, held a few meetings this week with our consultant to begin the next phase of our plan for that organization. The Childcare Committee is also continuing to hold regular meetings, and we will have some policy and a number of internal CASA issues ready to discuss at AGM at Dalhousie in November.

VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #2 – Academica’s Top 10

Academica is a marketing company that does research, branding, web and recruitment in the realm of higher education across North America. They have a host of clients of all types, including Brock University. They also have one of the farthest reaches when it comes to information about higher education. Academica’s Top 10 http://www.academicagroup.ca/top10/subscribe is a daily newsletter sent out (usually between 3am and 4am – turn off those blackberries while you sleep folks) with the top 10 stories of relevance to universities and colleges in Canada each weekday. Lots of it focuses on their core business – rebranding, new websites, etc., and each day’s stories usually include university expansions, new buildings and groundbreakings. But there is usually very interesting and relevant information on students, student groups, and statistics which appear a few times a week, as well as a smattering of random news which is very interesting to keep your eye on. Check out their free subscription service to get your daily dose of PSE news from across the country.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“We can't really enforce a curfew, as there is no light or sound.Just one of the many problems, with hosting a sporting event in space.”
- The Lonely Island

Council Report - September 15, 2009

School has started again! Welcome back, and hope you all had an amazing O-week. Once again, this report is longer than normal due to the two-month layoff between BUSAC meetings. Stay with me, they’ll get shorter at some point.

Financial Restrictions Policies

As I updated you in the last report, one of the projects I began working on last year was a way to restrict any money that BUSU collects as a result of flat-fee, and reallocate that back into direct financial support for students. I’m happy to say that, since the last meeting, the remaining pieces of the policy have been passed by the Board of Directors. The three new additions – an Emergency Grants Policy, and a Scholarships and Bursaries Policy, are now added to the existing Food Voucher, ESLP and Campus Support programs that we have as acceptable uses for flat fee money. This year, just over $11,000 in flat fee money will be restricted to these programs, and that number is expected to climb for the next two years until flat-fee is fully implemented across all students on campus, to a number somewhere in the $24,000 range annually.

Transcripts and Academic Issues

During the summer retreat, it was identified that academic transcripts are an issue. On a student’s physical transcript (not the online version on the self-serve), dropped classes may have been shown. I followed up immediately on this issue, looking into existing Brock policies and speaking with the Registrar. The policy states, and the current practice is, that if a course is dropped during the period when the online registration is open, nothing will appear on your physical transcript copy. If anyone knows of ANY evidence to the contrary, please contact me immediately.

I have also spent the summer assisting a few students through their academic issues relating to courses and marks and appeals, mostly in the spring academic semester.

Health and Safety

Over the summer, I became fully First Aid and CPR trained (I had unfortunately let me certification lapse), and became re-certified on the AED machines around campus. We also held a fire drill in our building, and have participated in the early stages of pandemic planning (such as the Swine Flu, if it were to hit campus in the fall), in order to keep BUSU and our students as safe as possible should anything happen on campus this year.

Municipal Transit

I became heavily involved this summer in the transit contract negotiations with both Welland and Niagara Falls. Lianne, Sameer, Nazir and I attended a Welland City Council meeting to speak about our transit issues, and we received an extension of the current contract as negotiations continue to progress. With Niagara Falls, I conducted a major analysis of class times at Brock, and we re-jigged the entire Niagara Falls bus schedule to coincide with some better arrival and departure times for students who have classes at peak times during the day. This deal is now finalized.

Potential New Bus Service

In early August, Lianne and I met with two representatives from Coach Canada, and the gentleman who runs the St. Catharines Transit Terminal. We were looking at options for chartering cheap buses to get students to and from home, or other destinations, throughout the school year. Other student unions run similar services, such as the FEDS at Waterloo, and the AMS at Queen’s. We believe we have a pricing model in place that will work for a few destinations, and we are looking to launch some buses on Thanksgiving weekend as a test-run to see if the market supports the need that we have identified. Tickets will be sold at prices approximately 20% below the current passenger rates on the existing carriers, and in some cases, could make the drive 50% faster than existing connections.

Brock TV

The executive and Brock TV collaborated to create a BUSU promotional video for this year, based on the theme of ‘Planet Earth’ and focused on Brock. By the time you read this, you should be able to find it on our website and YouTube, so make sure you check this out if you haven’t done so already.

Town and Gown Issues

I attended the first meeting for the year of the Thorold Town and Gown committee, and Lianne was able to attend the St. Catharines Student Housing Liaison Committee. Both of these committees exist to address concerns of and about students in the respective cities. The first meetings went extremely well this year, and there are no immediate threats of any student-unfriendly action. Thorold’s committee is still waiting for the release of a staff recommendation after a rental property bylaw last year proved unpopular with landlords. St. Catharines is in the midst of a crackdown on properties that are unsafe for tenants to live in. Myself and Lianne are monitoring all of these developments to ensure that students will not be suddenly kicked out of their properties and leases if any houses are deemed to be unsafe; but that appropriate and reasonable time lengths are given for upgrades, or to find alternate housing.

Media

I did a live interview on CFBU for about half an hour on Wednesday August 26th, speaking about everything from O-week to lobby priorities. I also received some coverage in a Canadian Press article (picked up by CTV, The Star, Macleans On Campus, The Record and more) about digital textbook formats. On September 4th, I did a newspaper interview about student unemployment which was printed the next day, and another radio interview that night on CKTB. I also received some press on OUSA-related issues in the Ryerson Free Press, which was picked up by the Canadian University Press and could be in campus papers across the country in the coming weeks.

Copyright

On August 27th, I travelled to Toronto for a town hall on copyright issues. This was the second of two open meetings in Canada (the other was held in Montreal a few weeks prior), and were held in addition to about a dozen closed town halls about the issue. CASA or a CASA member school has been present at every part of the consultation, and I was able to attend, on behalf of BUSU and CASA, the Toronto session.

I was able to make a three-minute speech on behalf of students, touching on three main topics:
The maintenance of the current definition of ‘fair dealing,’ which allows use of copyright material for academic purposes. The current standard is interpreted by the Supreme Court, but not yet enshrined in law, and if our efforts are unsuccessful, could be replaced by a specific series of exemptions which WOULD include academic uses, but lead our universities to become much more restrictive with the flow of information for fear of being sued.
The increasing digitization of learning, including podcasts and online supplemental materials (such as lecture slides delivered through WebCT). The previous incarnation of the copyright bill placed severe restrictions on this content, and in some cases required the deletion of materials at times that are not conducive to a research or study cycle.
The ability to circumvent digital locks if the use is for an otherwise non-infringing purpose. Examples: converting material into a text-to-speech reader, studying cryptography in a classroom.

I feel that the points were very well received, and the Minister spent more time writing during my comments than I saw him at any other point of the night. The forum was, unfortunately, dominated in a coordinated fashion by music-industry representatives with their own agenda to push, but everyone in the room recognized and saw this, including the Minister himself. I am certain that with the access students have received through this process, that any new proposed legislation will be much more student-friendly than the last (provided an election doesn’t kill a copyright bill again).

Federal Election

We’re gearing up again. The opposition parties have all once again threatened to pull the plug on the government. A federal election could be held as early as November. The Welcome Wagon kits this year included election information, and the background content for our website during an election is being updated. As well, I have already been in contact with Elections Canada on a number of issues throughout the summer.

Good Neighbour Program

Independently this summer, myself and Brad Clarke from Off Campus Living both developed an awards program to reward students and community members who are being good neighbours out in the community. We met, harmonized our ideas into one joint program (with double the budget), and have placed the information on the backgrounds of our respective websites. We will be ramping up the promotion of them during the first full week of October, where OCL was already planning to initiate a ‘Good Neighbour Week’. All-told, we will be giving prizes to 6 individual students, 6 student households/groups, and 4 longer-term community members this year.

OUSA

Throughout the summer as OUSA VP Finance, I had been working on revamping the accounting system of OUSA. This project has now been finished from my end – approximately 70% of OUSA’s line items are either renamed or moved, and about 90% of lines now have new descriptions to better reflect what expenses get put into them. This is a significant improvement on what had been done in the past – there were numerous lines used that had not been budgeted for, and vice versa. There were a number of gaps where expenses were falling into miscellaneous accounts, and many numbers from the previous three years were virtually useless for any future predictions. The bookkeeper is now finalizing all of the changes in our accounting software, and our auditors have been notified of the changes. This will be a marked improvement in the past, and should be able to withstand the next decade or so of finances for OUSA.

Along those lines, OUSA’s information from the past two years is now with the auditors. We had missed an audit, so this is a double-year for us. We don’t anticipate any major deviations from our calculated income statements, and the results should in by early October, with plenty of time before OUSA General Assembly.

We are now looking at revamping OUSA’s bylaws to update them into modern language, and updates needed as the organization has moved away from some of the realities at the organization’s creation. These should be approved by Steering Committee at its next meeting, later this month in London.

At the same time, we are working on a new long-term plan for OUSA, as this is a year for the expiry of that as well. The core principles and strategies should be ready for General Assembly to adopt in October.

Meetings with bureaucrats in Toronto have continued all summer, with Alexi and Dan taking the lion’s share of these. MTCU has two important projects this year (in our eyes) – the tuition policy, and a follow-up to Reaching Higher 2. Both of these will ramp up quickly in the fall when the legislature and politicians return.

CASA

Beyond the copyright issue that I discussed earlier, much of the work with CASA this summer has been of the preliminary policy nature. I am, as of now, sitting on three committees: policy committee, child-care sub-committee, and the strategic plan committee. I have a few more that will come on-line in the coming months, and for now we are mostly reviewing the existing documents and policies in these areas, looking for the gaps and compiling our research independently to move forward with new documents for November in Halifax.

CASA is, of course, also preparing for a federal election, and as a Regional Coordinator, I have some extra roles to play in the facilitation of satellite lobbying, and setting general election campaign strategy for the organization. These conference calls continue to be on-going as well.

Welcome Wagon

Lianne, Sameer and I were able to participate in this year’s Welcome Wagon on the Wednesday of O-Week. I was sent out to the Jacobson area with two fire prevention officers in St. Catharines, and we knocked on all doors on the street. If we hit a student house, we welcomed them back to the neighbourhood with a welcome kit, and we also talked to the longer-term residents about good neighbour relations. This program has been a growing success every year, and I feel very positive about the impact we will be having, especially in some of the higher-problem areas of the past.

O-Week

Was pretty boring this week. JUST KIDDING! We had an amazing week, with over 300 volunteers for move-in day, the best tower kick-off ever, and a tower party that broke attendance records. Of course, we also smashed the Guinness World Record for Largest Air Guitar session on Wednesday night during the Metric concert, and held the first ever Brock Paper Scissors tournament. Over 100,000 free items were given away, and the week was a resounding success on all fronts. You’ll receive more information verbally, and from Sohail’s report.

VPUA Job Tip of the Week – Part 1.

I’ve been doing a ‘closing lyric of the BUSAC’ for a year now, I thought that I’d also start filling my reports with “job tips”, or some of the tools and things that I have learned that help me gather information and do my job to the best of my ability. We have 14 BUSAC meetings scheduled, including this one, so consider this a 14-part mini-series about the VPUA and politics. For anyone who is considering running for VPUA in the future, or wants to get more involved in external activities, representation, or anything else, you may find some of these suggestions useful for you immediately.

Tip #1 – Macleans on Campus

Keeping tabs on the website http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/ is a virtual requirement. This site features a number of regular student bloggers, as well as consistently updating with relevant stories about universities and colleges, student assistance, and broader issues that are making national news which might be student-related. As well, a few longer-term bloggers have very in-depth knowledge about internal students’ union workings, and share their thoughts when certain topics come to the forefront. This is also one of the few places where bloggers actively seek out information on what student unions are up to, outside of everyone’s individual “campus bubble” (such as breaking last year’s ‘Shinerama scandal’ at Carleton). Also look to this site to be in the middle of any issue involving CASA, OUSA or the CFS. **Caution, as with any media, be cautious to separate opinion from fact, and recognize that some articles may be written with certain political slants.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC

“Every generation gets a chance to change the world
Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls'
Cause the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard”
- U2

Correction

My last blog (council report) used some misleading wording about OUSA which I take full responsibility for. That language was taken and used in some news stories in campus papers across the country. The correct information, stated at council, is:

- OUSA only missed one audit year (ending April 2008). That audit, and the one ending April 2009 are both with the auditors right now
- No financial information was ever missing or lost. The lack of an audit was simply an internal oversight
- The General Assembly was informed of the financial state of the organization at every meeting throughout the year
- OUSA has employed a certified accountant to manage the bookkeeping of the organization for the past three years
- The 'budget overhaul' was an internal process to help us better budget for year-over-year consistencies, not a 'fix' of a broken system
- We are confident that the audited statements will show that all financial statements have been materially correct throughout these past two years

I am not going to retroactively change what I have posted, though I apologize for using stronger language to reflect the importance of the work I was doing through my job at BUSU and my election to the position within OUSA.

July Report to BUSAC

Rob Lanteigne
Vice-President University Affairs
BUSAC Report
July 26, 2009

Welcome back council! This report is very lengthy due to the two and a half month gap between BUSAC meetings, so rest assured that future reports will not typically be 7 pages in length. Be aware though, that I have a habit of making my secondary reports and documents fairly long. Grab a coffee, kick back and enjoy reading about my summer so far.

Lobby Meetings

Within the past few weeks, I have had meetings with all four of our local federal MPs to speak about the issues of Student Financial Aid, Copyright and Academic Materials, and the issue of national research and data about Post-Secondary Education. In addition, I have had the privilege of briefly speaking with some of our provincial and national ministers, and the leader of Canada’s official opposition at announcements and events. I have been able to meet with:

May 20th – Dwight Duncan, Provincial Minister of Finance
May 25th – Tony Clement, Federal Minister of Industry
June 22nd – Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
June 24th – Malcolm Allen, MP for Welland
June 25th – Rob Nicholson, MP for Niagara Falls and Justice Minister of Canada
July 14th – Dean Allison, MP for Niagara West-Glanbrook
July 14th – Rick Dykstra, MP for St. Catharines

At a Dwight Duncan luncheon, Sameer, Nazir and myself were able to ask about the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and its effects upon students. I spoke to Minister Clement about copyright issues, and was fortunate to have a picture with the minister posted on the Industry Canada homepage for a week. I met Michael Ignatieff at a public event in Welland, and was able to ask a question about ensuring access to post-secondary education for all qualified students, as well as filling the research gap at the federal level. I was also able to speak to him after the event. Mr. Allen will be helping us with issues surrounding student debt levels and ability to repay, and Mr. Nicholson is most interested in issues surrounding access for underrepresented students. Mr. Allison will be a great ally for us in the area of students with disabilities, and Mr. Dykstra continues to work for us on issues surrounding copyright and textbook importation laws. Many of our needs as students are being quite seriously tackled by our elected representatives of all party stripes, and I am fortunate to be building on a great tradition with long-established relationships through BUSU.

Inter-City Transportation Issues

As many of you may know, late last school year, GO Transit announced their expansion into the Niagara Region. GO Trains have already started rolling into St. Catharines and Niagara Falls on weekends and holidays until October, and rush-hour bus service will be coming to the region beginning in September, linking to the Go Train station in Burlington. This was a result of some hard lobbying in previous years, and we are happy to have a new way for our students to get to and from the GTA. The number of round-trips towards Toronto will exceed 20 daily in the fall.

In the aftermath of this announcement, I sent out a press release, which was picked up by the St. Catharines Standard. Some members of the private bus industry saw this coverage, and came into BUSU to meet with me about some of their concerns about GO Transit. Many of their concerns are extremely important, but especially a concern about the sustained level of coverage to the smaller cities and towns in Niagara should one of the two existing private carriers leave the area due to increased competition. This is certainly an area that I will be keeping my eye on throughout the year, as we need to protect the routes to Welland, Port Colborne, Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Beamsville, Grimsby, Jordan and more.

A side-issue in this conversation led to the issue of offering a chartered bus service to our students out of town on weekends to many popular Ontario destinations at a reduced cost. Other student unions including Waterloo and Queen’s run a similar service for their students. We have done the research into the hometowns of our students, and believe that the demand might be there for certain routes leaving St. Catharines on Fridays. I have been following up with this company and have been contacting them about pricing for routes to Waterloo-Wellington, Peel, Durham, London-Sarnia-Windsor, and Kingston-Ottawa. This is still very much an issue-in progress, but if the price is right, we may roll out service on long weekends to gauge the demand for a regular, sustained service to some of these destinations.

The last transit-related issue deals with inter-municipal service in Niagara. As many of you know, there are currently six transit services in Niagara (St. Catharines including Thorold, Niagara Falls, Welland, Port Colborne, Fort Erie, and Pelham). Current laws prohibit these buses from crossing municipal lines in their service except for chartered routes, which is what BUSU buys through the U-Pass. The Niagara Region has hired a consulting company to look at the transit issues in the region, and has launched a survey to which we have posted a link on www.busu.net. I have submitted thoughts on behalf of BUSU to try and eliminate these barriers and borders which would allow for more efficient routes to get our students to and from Brock. Sameer has also been at meetings with this company. It appears that the ball is finally rolling on this issue, and we will be participating and monitoring the progress of this study throughout the year.

Provincial Grants

On May 1st, the provincial government announced that it was negatively affecting two grants available to students – the Textbook and Technology Grant, and the Distance Grants for students whose home is more than 80km away from any university or college. Both of these were previously available to any student who applied to them, however the government has decided to restrict them to only students who qualify for OSAP. Doing so took away the ONLY mechanism for students to receive government grants without being automatically forced into taking a loan as well. For our debt-adverse students, this is an especially significant blow. The Textbook and Technology grants for our remaining students will also not be increasing for this year as promised.

In the aftermath of this cancellation, I received some media coverage in the St. Catharines Standard, as well as a live interview on 610 CKTB.

Retail Operations

On May 25th, I was trained and worked a shift at SubCetera in the afternoon. All of the executive also underwent their training on different days, so that we are all familiar with the operations of our convenience stores. This allows us to understand the prespectives and needs of our employees, as well as having four extra fully-trained staff available for our stores in case we run into emergencies.

OUSA

My work with OUSA has been extensive so far this year. It “began” with the interveiws for the Director of Communications on May 8th to replace Tammy McQueen, who has moved on to a postgraduate program in Australia. As the only returning member of OUSA Steering Committee, I was asked to sit in on these interviews, where we eventually selected Alvin Tejdo to round out our staff team.

On May 11th, I was back in Toronto for a meeting with the Canadian Publishers Council (CPC), to review the results of a joint survey, and to discuss strategies to reduce the cost of academic materials in the future. Discussions related around the topic of “unbundling” CDs and ancillary information for students who just want a textbook with no support materials, and the future of online delivery methods including “digital textbooks” which can be “rented” with an expiry code, often at half the cost of a conventional hardcopy textbook. This was the 5th in a series of meetings with the publishers that began last year.

From May 26th to 28th, OUSA Transition Conference was held in Toronto, with the incoming VPUA’s and Presidents from across the province, as well as some of the outgoing members. The week included sessions on lobbying and media strategies, as well as some presentations from key organizational stakeholders (Kelly Jackson from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, Paul Genest from the Council of Ontario Universities, Alex Usher from the Educational Policy Institute, Tyler Charlebois from the College Student Alliance, and representatives from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations). All of these groups and more are vital partners that we have built strong relationships with over the years, and they help us achieve our educational mission.

The conference ended with a Steering Committee meeting, where the new executive slate of OUSA was elected. I am happy to let you know that I have been elected as the new OUSA VP Finance, alongside our new President, Dan Moulton from Western, and our VP Administration, Justin Williams from Waterloo.

Since that time, we have held two Steering Committee meetings, and our Strategic Planning retreat for the year. These have outlined our organizational priorities for the year including:
- The groundwork for our new Strategic Plan
- The continuation of the Blue Chair campaign this year
- The strategy to tackle the provincial tuition policy
- The strategy to tackle the new multi-year government plan for PSE after ‘Reaching Higher’ ends this year
- Media strategies
- Internal organizational functioning, such as a wiki to assist our lobbying efforts
- The revamp of the OUSA website
- Our policy development priorities
o Students with Disabilities
o Repayment Assistance Plan
o Student Success
o An Economic Lens on Student Issues
o University Differentiation
o University Inflation
- Our advocacy priorities
o Tuition
o Student Financial Aid
o Student Success
o Funding Excellence
I have also spent numerous days working from both Toronto and St. Catharines on the OUSA budget, as the new VP Finance. In previous years, financial controls have significantly lapsed, and the organization has gone two years without an audit. In addition, a lack of knowledge and policies around our finances have led to significant mis-postings, and budgets that look nothing like the actual expenditures. I have been leading a complete budget line-item overhaul, and the beginnings of developing strong financial controls and procedures for the organization. It’s easy to sum that up in a sentence or two, but it’s been a solid week of work so far, and will take a significant chunk of time moving forward this summer.

CASA

The CASA year started off with Brock hosting the Central Regional Transition Conference in late May. We had 24 student leaders here for a two day span, where they received an overview of the organization that would allow them to jump right into policy discussions at the next conference of the year. We were also able to show some great Niagara hospitality with a Maid of the Mist tour, dinner in the Skylon Tower revolving restaurant, and some winnings at the casino.

This was quickly followed by the Policy and Strategy Conference in Calgary, where we set organizational direction for the year. Outcomes of this conference included:
- An ambitious list of Policy Development Priorities
o First Nations, Metis and Inuit Student Issues
o International Students
o Childcare
o Access Grants
o Copyright and Intellectual Property
o International Branch Campuses
o Graduate Student Issues
o A Pan-Canadian Data Set
o Student Debt Cap
o Electoral Streamlining on campus
o Academic Materials
o Distance Education/Online Learning
o Students with Diverse Abilities
- Advocacy Priorities
o Metis, Inuit and First Nations Student Issues
o Democratic Accessibility
o Childcare
o Graduate Student Issues
o Academic Materials
o Access Issues
o Affordability
o Research Renewal
o Dedicated Transfer
- A motion to post all minutes, documents and agendas publicly available on the CASA website
- The defeat of a motion to deal with voting structure reform at CASA, but the continuation of a committee to work on a new proposal
- A motion to have complete bilingualism with simultaneous translation service available at the next conference, and explore more bilingualism options for the future. The previous year’s surplus was dedicated to finance this task
- A committee to review the fee structure of CASA
- A committee to create a new strategic plan (I sit on this one)
- A committee to review the governance structure of CASA (I sit on this one)
- And various policy committees

I was also re-elected as one of the Central Regional Coordinators, which gives me more input and communications responsibilities between conference periods. As a result of this position, I then attended the Leadership Retreat in Ottawa last week to further strategize our priorities for the year. As of this writing, the decisions that we made at this retreat are still of a confidential and sensitive nature, but I will happily note that the organization is shifting away from a staff-centered model to be much more responsive of member priorities and input, and the committees and decisions that will be made this year will help enshrine a process that allows for a much smoother and more accountable structure within the organization.

Projects

I have begun (and in some cases finished) a number of projects which are not currently visible, but will provide us with the valuable knowledge and background tools to make strategic decisions in the future. Others are results that will be seen by the Board and the student body shortly, once they have been finished.

Financial Restrictions Policy

Near the end of last year, I created, and the Board approved, a policy which restricts the use of any money that BUSU collects as a result of the University’s flat fee tuition model. Simply not charging ancillary fees on the extra billed tuition is not a feasible option, either in time or finance. So this “extra” money should be returned directly to students in certain ways. We already have policies surrounding some of them: ESLPs, Food Vouchers and Campus Support, but there are some options which the policy included, that have not been developed yet. I have been working to create policies on three options: Emergency Student Grant Program, Scholarships, and Bursaries.

Ontario University Funding Grants

The way Ontario funds universities is incredibly complex: the manual concerning this is over 130 pages long, and is missing half of the information that is necessary to truly understand how operating funding works in this province, both today and historically. For use by OUSA this year, and by BUSU and others in the future, I have been working on condensing the relevant information into a much shorter booklet for use in our lobbying and media strategies.

Student Union Fees across Ontario

The last major review of where we compare to other student unions in terms of fees charged is at least four years out of date. Myself and Alex have been working to catalogue all of the fees that are charged to students at every university across the province, to find out where we stand and help us in our preparations for the BUSU Strategic Plan review.

Students Guide to Representation

There has historically been no “one-stop-shop” for students who are interested in getting involved on decision-making bodies within the university, or who are interested in finding out which body or group is responsible for making decisions in their area of concern. This problem has now been addressed with the creation of the Students Guide to Representation, a listing of all of these bodies, how to get elected or involved with them, and what they do on campus. This will be a section within the Dayplanner this year, and will have its own section on the BUSU website.

Dayplanner

Speaking of the dayplanner, a task that I took on this year was all the text and content revamp that needed to happen for this year’s version. It is now sitting in the hands of the Brock Press, and ready to go for September.

Website

And speaking of the website, with our redesign, there are a number of content changes that have happened, and will continue to happen as well. With the assistance of Jordan, and the rest of the executive, the site map for our new design was created by myself, and I have written the content for over 10 of our new or redesigned pages, with more still to come.

Executive Video

We want to create a fun welcoming and informative video for our students, which can also be placed on YouTube and viewable for the world. Lianne and I jointly created the storyboard for this project, and we are working with Brock TV to figure out the filming logistics. I don’t want to spoil the project and tell you what it will be yet, but filming will happen in August and it’s going to be un----------believable.

BUSU Budgets

I have also been playing with historical numbers and doing some analysis on our previous years, to get a mindset and framework for how BUSU’s budget needs to look in the future, during our Strategic Plan discussion and creation.

Other

Each morning, the executive does two Smart Start presentations for incoming first years students in the Skybar Lounge. We also then show up at the Services Fair in the afternoon to answer any questions, as well as sell Access Gold, Lockers, BOC memberships, and to collect lists of volunteers. This takes a significant chop to our day each and every day, but is so productive and useful to inform the first year students about what we do for them, why and how.

I was also pleased to be a part of the BUSU Relay for Life team overnight on the Brock campus last month. Along with Alex, Sara, Trish, Jacky, Curtis and Cailin, we rocked the night and survived the rain to contribute to cancer research.

Closing Lyric of the BUSAC
“I’m on a boat and it’s going fast, and I got a nautical-themed pashmina afghan” – The Lonely Island