Final BUSAC Report - April 13th

Here we go. My last BUSAC report ever, and my last BUSAC meeting ever. It’s been a long run, with 2 years as an executive preceded by 2 years on council. Thank you so much to all of the councillors, co-workers, fellow exec, BUSU staff and volunteers, and other contacts throughout the post-secondary world that I’ve made over the past 6 years at Brock. Hopefully the lessons I’ve learned, projects I’ve undertaken and lobbying I’ve done has been meaningful to you, and additionally hopeful is that I’ve communicated all the relevant information to the BUSU record through these reports, and my files and e-mails. (Hi future exec and council, congratulations on your election!) Please let my work serve as your reference, your guide, maybe a roadmap, or perhaps even a speedbump as student leaders continue to serve Brock and BUSU into its 40th year and beyond.

Sincerely,

Rob Lanteigne
BUSU’s 39th and 40th VP University Affairs


OUSA

On March 31st, OUSA hosted our annual Partners in Higher Education Dinner in Toronto. This marquee event attracts stakeholders from across our sector, including university presidents, faculty members, government officials, partner organizations, and of course, students. Minister Milloy was once again on hand to give remarks, as well as a keynote address from Dr. Joy Mighty and Dr. Julia Christensen Hughes. I had the honour at this event, of presenting an OUSA teaching award to Brock Professor Tim Murphy, who attended at the BUSU table. Overall, it was a fantastic event, and one that is aptly circled on many calendars for next year already as a shining example of how much reach OUSA has into our sector.

Following this, the next day OUSA held our last Steering Committee meeting of the year. Among what was mostly a meeting of debriefs, discussion and thoughts for next year’s committee, we are pleased to welcome Sam Andrey to the OUSA team as the new Director of Research and Policy Analysis.

I have been working hard on the now-finished OUSA Transition Package for the next VP Finance, as well as preparing the interim budget for next year. As a final project, we will soon be finalizing and signing OUSA’s insurance contract to bring some insurance security to our organization.


Provincial Announcement

As mentioned at BUSAC at the last meeting, but I thought I’d write it down anyway, we saw a provincial announcement a few days after the budget, on March 29th. Focused on postsecondary education, this announcement provides $81 million in student financial aid through a number of reforms to the OSAP and repayment systems. Five of these recommendations were lifted directly from OUSA’s submission in the fall, including the doubling of in-study earnings exemptions from $50 to $103 per week before OSAP claws back your loan, making the six-month period after graduation before loans need to be repaid a truly interest-free period, and tying the cost of textbooks and materials to education. Student loan maximums were also raised for the first time in four years, and Ontario has now signed on to the federal Repayment Assistance Plan, which will limit student loan repayments to a maximum of 20% of their income among other great factors.

We didn’t see everything we wanted, however. This announcement included the extension of the current tuition framework for two more years, meaning 5% increases per year on average, and continued deregulation of international student tuition. At the same time, the “debt cap” of OSOG is going up from $7000 to $7300. These are issues that we will continue to address, but both are better than the alternative could have been considering the provincial government’s massive deficit this year.

I went on CFBU that evening to discuss this announcement, and the rest of the provincial budget.


Teaching Awards

I’m pleased to say that BUSU has announced the winners of our first ever Student Awards for Teaching Excellence, the only student-driven teaching awards at Brock. Your winners for 2009-2010 are:

Brock University Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Tim Murphy
Applied Health Science, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Mary Breunig
Business, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Isabelle Giroux
Education, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Ann-Marie DiBiase
Humanities, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Astrid Heyer
Math and Science, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Dot Miners
Social Science, Student Award for Teaching Excellence – Tim Murphy
Student Award for Teaching Assistants/Lab Demonstrators – Charmaine McKnight


Dean Searches

I have continued sitting in on student interview/discussion panels on two different Dean searches. Humanities has now wrapped up after four candidates have been interviewed. Education has one more candidate to come (on Monday, before this BUSAC meeting). Any students who have attended these sessions will be meeting to provide our thoughts to the overall search committee as they make a decision on who to offer the position to.


Endowments/Flat Fee

Some of you may recall last year’s ‘Financial Restrictions Policy’ which was passed by the Board. This policy limits what BUSU can do with any money collected from the ancillary fees on credits which are ‘flat fee’d”, basically any credit students are paying for, but not actually enrolled in.

This year, we were able to provide $25,000, matched by the government at a generous rate of over 2:1, towards an endowment to provide bursaries to students in the future. Taking advantage of this match, we have also converted $4500 of money from the Studentwise Health and Dental Plan Bursary into an endowment, to allow these investments to live in perpetuity.

The numbers were just released for Brock as a whole this year. Over $750,000 has been donated into new student award endowments, and has been matched by the government with at least $1 million more. Based on a pool of money available if other schools do not meet or exceed their targets, Brock could see nearly $2,600,000 in new endowments as a result of this year’s investments, enough to provide 155 - $500 new bursaries annually in perpetuity


CASA

CASA held a conference call two weeks ago to go over a few important pieces of business following the resignation of our ND, Arati Sharma. First, congratulations to our Chair, Tina Robichaud from Moncton, who will step in as the interim National Director until a new replacement is elected by General Assembly in June.

Secondly, it was confirmed that hiring should go ahead for the Member Relations Officer. Which means there are two jobs at CASA that are now open, visit www.casa-acae.com for information about both of these opportunities.


Alex Projects

Huge thank you to Alex, who has done an amazing job at Research and Policy this year. Without any jurisdiction whatsoever, I bestow on you the honourary title of ‘Coordinator’ which you’ve been seeking all year long.

Alex is wrapping up a number of ongoing projects at the moment, including one around minors, concentrations and streams with respect to placing information on student diplomas, information surrounding universities which are denoting XD, XF or other marks indicating course failures due to academic dishonesty, and country-wide surveys on topics such as assignment regulations, and student union facilities in preparation for any future BUSU expansion.


Kenmore Centre

Once again during this exam season, the Kenmore Centre will be open for 24-hour study space. Between Thursday April 15th and Wednesday April 28th, drop by any time of the day to get that studying done in this extra space. Entrance is at the back door facing Village Residence.


News from Across the Country

More CFS Defederation Referendums

Continuing from the last report, there are more CFS “continued membership” referendums being conducted around the country. As a recap, nearly a dozen associations submitted petitions to hold referendums this year. After the majority of them were delivered, some were stalled on technical reasons, some were rejected, CFS billed some schools for debts that had never been owed before, and then the CFS (illegally) changed its bylaws to apply some retroactively. Many student unions are holding referendums anyway; however the CFS has indicated that it will only recognize the results of two referendums this year according to its new bylaws. Lawyers across the country should probably be bracing for an influx of income fuelled by student fees on all sides.

At Calgary, the Graduate Students Association voted 81.6% to leave the federation, in a referendum that will not be recognized.

At Concordia, the Graduate Students Association voted 75.4% to leave the federation, in a referendum that will not be recognized. The undergraduate students voted 72% to leave, and this will be contested. The CSU was originally granted a ‘legitimate’ referendum by the CFS, but after being billed for $1,000,000 in back-fees, the CSU did not pay and held the referendum anyway. (At Concordia years and years ago, only two faculties ever held votes to join the CFS, while some others did not. The CFS recognized that only members of those faculties were dues-paying members in financial statements and meeting minutes, but have now decided retroactively to bill the CSU for all members throughout history).

The McGill Postgraduates have voted to leave the CFS with over 85% opposition to membership. This one may have been originally recognized (details are unclear), but deadlocks in the Referendum Oversight Committee process led CFS members to walk away from the process. The PGSS went ahead with the vote anyway, and it will not be recognized.

At the Alberta College of Art and Design, an officially recognized referendum took place 2 weeks ago, with the ‘Yes’ side winning by less than 10 votes. A recount may still be in the works, and challenges amid allegations that the CFS-side was handing out swag materials at polling booths. Aside from clear conflict of interest infractions, it’s unclear which set of rules this referendum operated under, but at Guelph (below), campaigning is expressly forbidden during polling days.

And we come to Guelph. After a petition was delivered by process-server instead of registered mail (and despite being a higher standard of proof), the CFS refused to recognize the petition. The Guelph CSA took the CFS to court to hold the referendum, and the judge made four important rulings:
1. Guelph organizers collected and delivered the petition properly
2. Counter-petitions to nullify signatures are invalid
3. A referendum was awarded, despite the new bylaws which are being retroactively applied elsewhere
4. Guelph CSA had a right to run the referendum according to its own process, not the restrictive rules imposed by the bylaws.
In good faith, the CSA decided to employ the majority of CFS rules including the Referendum Oversight Committee, but deviated to allow online voting, and a four-day voting period instead of two prescribed in the bylaws. Interestingly though, the ROC settled on a 20% quorum, much more than the 5% called for in the bylaws. With a flood of out-of-town campaigners coming on behalf of the CFS, Guelph has been abuzz in the past two weeks, much of the criticism stemming from the fact that most ‘Yes’ side campaigners were not Guelph students. The ‘No’ team ran a successful campaign to get students asking ‘Yes’ members to “show me your student card.”
Results were leaked to the Guelph newspaper on Saturday, and though not considered official yet, reports are 40% voter turnout (note: wow), and a whopping 73.5% NO vote in a contested referendum. Preliminary reports out of the Twitterverse from the pro-CFS side are that there might be a challenge to this result because the online vote was conducted through a channel controlled by the University administration, and “administrations are biased against the CFS.”

The University of Regina Students’ Union will be holding what we all presume to be an unrecognized vote on membership on April 13th and 14th. Students at Carleton and University of Victoria will be waiting until next year, however. Despite petitions that originally met the 10% signature threshold (the CFS is now disputing that fact at Victoria, despite a registrar’s verification. This must mean that the Federation is legitimizing the counter-petitions it circulated), the referendum processes have been stalled. Executives at both student unions are currently pro-CFS, with the petitions to defederate initiated from outside the student union inner-circle. Neither student union will be following the lead of other schools and holding a vote anyway.

UBC AMS stays with CASA

At the other end of student union politics, March 31st was to be the last day of membership in CASA for the Alma Matter Society at UBC, CASA’s largest member. After the incoming VP External attended CASA’s Lobby Conference, he presented a report to his council to make the case for extending membership for at least one more year. Council agreed, and the AMS remains a member of CASA until at least March 31st, 2011.

Queen’s AMS bans Sumo Suits

In a story hitting national and international headlines (akin to last year’s Carleton Shinerama debacle, and the UBC human rights complaint over tuition), the Alma Matter Society at Queen’s University is taking criticism for cancelling an event and banning sumo suits as “turning a racial identity into a costume...dehumaniz[ing] those who share that identity and fail[ing] to capture the deeply embedded histories of violent and subversive oppression that a group has faced.” Sumo suits are quasi-inflated costumes often used in carnival games, and in this case were to be used in a charity fundraiser. The majority of blog and media reaction has been negative, against the ban, criticizing Queen’s for being too politically correct to compensate for the stereotype of a typical Queen’s student (which I am not going to repeat in this report).

FNUC Funding Extended until the End of the Year

First Nations University of Canada in Saskatchewan has had its provincial money restored, and the federal government has chipped in $3 million to allow students to finish this academic year. Both levels of government had pulled funding last month over financial mismanagement by the Board, which has been warned multiple times over the last few years. The long-term fate of the university is still in question, though layoffs are imminent at the campus as up to 1/3 of the workforce is expected to lose jobs. Administrators are trying to pull the university out of a $300,000 per month deficit and prove the viability of the institution, for continued government funding.

UBC Grad Pub loses Liquor Licence

Koerner’s Pub, a 150-seat pub and restaurant operated by the UBC Graduate Students Society has lost its liquor licence indefinitely over a third infraction for serving underage patrons. In March, 4 underagers were found in the pub by RCMP on a routine inspection, with their fake ID’s confiscated. This follows two similar infractions, with a verbal warning given in 2008 and a written warning in 2009, each of those times when minors were found being served. The pub is operated by the GSS, but the licence has been held by the University. The establishment currently remains open as a restaurant only.


VPUA Job Tip of the Week

Tip #14 – Tell Others What You Do / Be Accountable

One of the principles I strongly believe in is openness and accountability. I understand that not every one of our student members is interested in what the VPUA does, but the need to be transparent and available still exists nonetheless. Students are the owners of this organization, and deserve to know what you are doing on a student salary, on their behalf.

With this in mind, I advise that you make yourself as open and transparent as possible. Never let anyone seriously accuse you of being inaccessible or elitist as a student leader. If you are doing your job the way you truly believe it should be done, you should WANT to let as many students as possible know what you’re up to on their behalf.

Write your reports on time. How can council hold you responsible if you don’t? Get a blog, and update your activities and reports for the public there as well. I used BlogSpot, and then imported all my blogs onto my Facebook page for further notification to friends. In addition to this, after council has received them, I also made sure to send weekly reports to the Brock Press and the Hamilton Campus Liaison Councils. When the blogs get posted, twitter them to the world. Get on the air with CFBU frequently, they love content, and it’s another medium to tell students what you’re doing. I’ve interacted a lot with Brock TV this year, but not in an information-distribution sense. Find out if it’s possible to get a regular segment, or how Brock TV can help you get information out as well.

It’s not enough just to HAVE a facebook page, twitter account, blog, and BUSU website. If you commit to them, use them all year long. Tell the media what you’re doing, let them report and criticize or praise you. Get your issues out there, gather student feedback. Use that to further your work, and to make the work of this organization more important and relevant for the students that we serve. Remember, you have 16,000 bosses who elected you, and pay your salary. Make sure you give them frequent reminders why you were the right choice for the job. And heck, make those reports interesting enough to read. I threw in news from across the country, job tips like this, and weekly lyrics. And I know it attracts more readers just to scan those sections. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll pause at the top of the page and read about the job you do as well.


Closing Lyrics of the BUSAC

“Closing time, time for you to go out, go out into the world
Closing time, turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl
Closing time, one last call for alcohol, so finish your whisky or beer
Closing time, you don’t have to go come but you can’t stay here
...
Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from
Closing time, this room won’t be open till your brothers or your sisters come
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits, I hope you have found a friend
Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”

- Semisonic