Ab SchStudents’ Council meets every second Tuesday at 6 p.m. in University Council Chamber (room 2-100 located in University Hall). The next meeting will be held Tuesday, Jan. 19, where free food will be provided for all attendees.
The first meeting of the winter term offered a generous serving of curry, accompanied with council’s classic cookies and vegetable trays. So if you’re at all interested in student politics, swing by, fill your belly, and get your democracy on.
DRO Presentation:
Ideas regarding the SU’s Get out the Vote campaign, election advertisements, and expectations from this year’s Chief Returning Officer Jessica Nguyen and Deputy Returning Officer were discussed. There’s interest in campaigning to undergraduates this year before elections begin, so students will have a greater knowledge of student governance and what each executive position is responsible for.
The DRO announced this year’s SU election forums:
SUB Stage 1: Feb. 23, 2016
SUB Stage 2: Feb. 24, 2016
Lister: Feb. 25, 2016 (evening)
Campus Saint-Jean: Feb. 26, 2016 (afternoon)
Myer-Horowitz: Feb 29, 2016 (afternoon)
Students’ Union Submission to the Institutional Strategic Plan
The SU will be submitting its recommendations for the University of Alberta’s Institutional Strategic Plan consultation process. The Institutional Strategic Plan will be the U of A’s next university-wide guideline for long-term development. All faculty, community members, students and student organizations have been invited by U of A President David Turpin and Vice-President (Academic) Steven Dew to share their own recommendations in campus’ future.
The SU has made recommendations in four areas: affordability, teaching and learning quality, opportunities in transformative learning and campus culture that will provide context for achieving all of the above.
Affordability — The SU suggests the development of more open education resources (OERs) to use as course materials. OERs are more flexible to use and have been effective in saving students money at other institutions. The SU also wants the university to increase funding for bursaries and grants.
In-class teaching and learning — To improve the learning experience of students, the university is asked to recognize and reward quality professors to create a culture of teaching excellence. Growing class sizes have also been a problem at the U of A, which the SU suggests to outline a multi-year plan for faculty recruitment.
Experiential learning — Given the growing importance of practical skills in job markets, the SU suggests the creation a centralized office for experiential learning. The SU also wants the university to increase its support of extracurricular leadership opportunities.
Campus culture — Continuing mental health support and improving access to student involvement on campus are both priorities of the SU. To improve student consultation, the university is also recommended to adopt the Student Participation Protocol, which was co-signed by the SU and the GSA in January 2015.
Council attendance
Former Faculty of Arts councillor Marina Banister has compiled semesterly updates on the attendance of Students’ Council representatives this academic year.
Banister calculated that Council as a whole had a 73 per cent attendance record in the Fall 2015 semester.
Council Speaker Saadiq Sumar acknowledged that attendance is important for the bi-weekly forums, but said engagement is a “much more important metric.”
Attendance for SU Council Forums can be found here.
Exec Reports
SU President Navneet Khinda attended Board of Governors and voted in favour of a rent increase for university residences and against an increase in international tuition. The rent increase and international tuition increase both passed. Khinda also has a plan to create a pamphlet for students dealing with sexual assault.
Vice-President (External) Dylan Hanwell met with CAUS to talk about residences potentially not having property taxes — Alberta residences have to pay property taxes, in other provinces universities are exempt. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission included some point s relating to post-secondary, which CASA is . Hanwell will be consulting with the U of A’s Aboriginal Student Services Centre and the Aboriginal Student Council to incorporate the recommendations into SU policy.
Candidates have been shortlisted to interview for the position of Dean of Students, as current DoS Robin Everall will be leaving her post this year. Interviews will be held mid-January. The campaign for international student mental health has been kickstarted, as the university contacted the government regarding provincial mental health funding and CAUS is preparing to contact the government as well.
Vice-President (Academic) Fahim Rahman has been refining the SU’s submission to the Institutional Strategic Plan. Rahman has also been discussing the possibility of introducing a teaching tenure stream, which governance has responded to positively.
VP (Operations & Finance) Cody Bondarchuk has been meeting with the Registrar’s Office to create a scholarship database, increase language accessibility and include a French version of BearTracks. Bondarchuk has also been working to take steps in introducing herder-inclusive language to university documents. He’s also been strategizing the future of ONEcards, as ETS now can use Smart Fare technology.
