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