Minutes for November 30, 2011

Thursday, 01 December 2011 00:41

Social Science Students' Council Meeting

 

November 30, 2011

 

Roll Call

 

Speaker’s Announcements

 

Member’s Announcements

-          Mikki Chen: Member-at-Large Gillian MacFarland’s birthday

-          Jeff Hernaez: Thanking council on behalf of the USC Councilors, thanks for promoting the USC strategic plan, helping to build a 3 year plan

 

Mid Year Review

-          The executive will present it back to council at the first meeting back

 

Presentation to Council

-          OUSA – Neha Chandrachud, Patrick Whelan and Brian Belman (15 Minutes)

o   Speaking as the External Affairs Coordinator (Neha)

o   Advocate on behalf of you to the municipal, provincial and federal government

o   Patrick Searle is the main advocate for you

o   Under Pat is a team of people in his portfolio that work alongside with him

o   University Affairs Portfolio -> internal (academic issues that affect students on campus) and external (representation of students on the three levels of government)

o   Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

o   Provincial lobbying organization that represents your interests to the provincial government

o   You pay $2.76 each year to OUSA

o   The USC along with 8 other member-institutions form OUSA

o   Western, McMaster, Laurier, Waterloo, Queen’s, Windsor, Brock, UOIT

o   Each year there are two General Assemblies and one lobby conference

o   Fall GA took place in Windsor

o   Western sends 10 delegates

o   Patrick Searle, Andrew Forgione, Neha Chandrachud, Patrick Whelan, Jesse Collin-Swartz, Alysha Li, Nick Palombo, Melissa Kargiannakis, Brian Belman, Erin Uberig

o   4 Policy Papers

§  Four areas where OUSA wants to focus on this year

§  Aboriginal Policy Paper

·         Brought up last year, not enough research when they wrote the policies last year, tabled it, sent to OUSA staff, and then come back and bring up a new policy

·         Edited from Spring GA

·         Addresses the need for a strategy to the significant and widening post-secondary attainment gaps between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal students in Ontario

·         Original document emphasized: early outreach, financial support, student support services, institution information, and evaluation

·         Key additions we made: integrating Aboriginal perspectives in primary and secondary education, addresses the need for more qualified Aboriginal instructors, more access to provincial grant programs, increase support services, and aboriginal culture training for admin, faculty and staff

§  Accountability Paper

·         How should universities be held accountable? OUSA believes that the provincial government should be using its power to nor simply appoint BOG members that are recommended by the BOG itself, but whom are knowledgeable in government and institutional priorities

·         For what should universities be held accountable? Universities should be held accountable in providing accessible education, not only financially but physically and cultural as well; universities should be held accountable to their quality of education, including high quality instruction and adequate support services

·         For what should universities be held accountable? Universities should be held accountable in providing accessible education, not only financially but physically and culturally as well; universities should be held accountable to their quality of education, including high quality instruction and adequate support services

·         How should universities be held accountable? MYAAS: Multi-Year Accountability Agreement made with the provincial government; institutions must report their progress in meeting MYAAS targets

·         Targeted funding, ombudspersons officers, and quality assurance

§  System Growth Paper

·         Funding: raise per student operating funding to the weighted national average

·         Cost Inflation: create a task force to address cost inflation, explore strategies for reducing faculty and admin compensation disparity

·         Differentiation: pursue a moderate level of differentiation based on discipline/program, ensure access to PSE especially in rural and northern communities is not compromised through any type of differentiation

·         Satellite campuses: pursue them as a means of broadening access and choice but should not be viewed as a replacement for traditional campuses

·         Online learning

·         Infrastructure: make funding for instructional space a priority for government investment

§  Tuition Paper

·         OUSA’s Recommendations: the governments should continue to regulate tuition; the government should increase their funding to cover at least inflation; if tuition must increase, it should only increase by inflation, a portion of the new revenue must go to fund student priorities, the increases should be uniform, to allow students to predict the cost of their education

·         Universities should charge tuition on a per-credit basis (i.e. instead of paying full tuition while taking fewer courses than 5.0); the cost of taking a course should be a dependent on the faculty the course is from (i.e. an engineering student should pay the same for arts credit as an arts student)

·         Students should be able to defer at least half of their tuition until the January OSAP release date (penalty free); this deferral should be automatic for students receiving OSAP or other government financial aid

·         In summary, OUSA wants tuition to: be regulated by the government; have predictable increases so students can expect and budget the cost of university; be charged per course and per faculty; and be automatically and freely differed (up to 50%) to 2^nd term for students on OSAP

o   In Summary:

§  Spring GA will occur at McMaster

§  Questions direct to Patrick Searle, VP UA This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or Neha Chandrachud, External Affairs Coordinator This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

§  www.OUSA.ca

 

New Business

-          Jessica Chambers: a motion they would like to put forward, Online Accountability Act 2011

o   Online Accountability Act (CHAMBERS/Barkley)

o   Barkley – the creditability of our council has been under fire due to social media, make people accountability for their actions; not an attempt to hamper free space, make people accountable of our council online

o   Chambers – this is not based on any action, but rather to prevent

o   McGuire – in favour; talked to IRC already and sent to Jeff Hernaez, tasks the IRC to create this document, nothing finalized or in place yet

o   Kobayashi – in favour; appointed question to Chambers and Barkley; did you want to limit the type of social media (information based?)
Reply: Chambers – there are negative light put on council based from members of this council; pride issue

o   Kobayashi – Supplementary – who would oversee that inappropriate tweets are being taken down? Sub-committee to monitor that?
Reply: Chambers – Up to IRC to figure out

o   Lazarevic – defer speaker rights to Ridhima Gupta: in favour; as an outsider that it looks badly on its constituency if its members are the ones spreading negative light on its council, its members should be positive on its council

o   Hutchenson – question: want to know if we can figure out what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable
REPLY: Barkley – if you talk about council in a negative way, there are ramifications for doing that

o   Hernaez – in favour; a lot of information is transferred through Facebook and twitter, part of the IRC and would like to create a policy and would like to work with members of council to see what you would like to see in this policy; our actions do have an impact on our council

o   Durgy – against; should have the opportunity to be critical; need to be more detail on what’s okay and what is not okay; freedom of expression
REPLY: Chambers – tasking IRC to determine what is good and what is bad, putting it forward for IRC

o   Chen – in favour; general question, what ramifications are we looking to put in place?
REPLY: Chambers – IRC will discuss

o   Harvey – deferring speaking rights to Diego Noronha; urge a bit of caution to this kind of motion, vaguely worded; dangerous precedent, verging on people’s speaking rights; can't even give constructive criticism; if you want your organization talked about well, you need to have openness

o   Gupta – in favour; there is a fine line between negativity and criticism, this is just to task IRC to come up with something, they can come up with where the line is crossed

o   Slowka – in favour; just a motion to task IRC, we can debate these things after

o   Anton – in favour; suggestion for IRC when they develop the fine line, look if the USC or other councils have similar policy that we can use as a base for drafting our own, it is a bit vague and make sure we aren’t stomping on people’s free speech

o   Kopera – against; there is no censorship on USC council, that is a good indication; we will probably pass this motion and screw ourselves over and that we should not even look at these issues and we will dig a hole for ourselves

o   Binns – in favour; censorship issue and freedom or speech, this doesn’t hinder it too much, ample opportunity to come to exec or any council members to voice it, doing it the right now, not through social media are not the right way to do it to voice your opinion, such as the mid year review to get over this issues

o   Clements – against; we should also include any person-to-person if we do this, cant debate council process, we’re also trying to sell our council, any media is good media; dangerous motion limiting free speech, if we get a majority of council against minority of council = bad; if it’s bad press, it’s press

o   Whelan – against; two issues not addressed: elected members are not responsible to respond to the exec, they are supposed to represent their constituency

o   Chen – in favour; we are tasking IRC to do something, there are a lot of important things that need to be heard but we need more structure direction from IRC, there’s a lot of stuff between this and IRC, they will have to create a multi-step issue on how each issue will be handled

o   Duncan – in favour; we do have different avenues to criticize our council, we shouldn’t be using social media to talk about our council but the proper avenues should be used first, if you have negative views on this council and you go through the proper issues (exec, then through council), then maybe you can go to social media and that would be something for IRC to talk about

o   Chandrachud – against; there are lots of avenues to address those criticism, remind everyone that when you start questioning what people are able to say, you also get into the dangerous area what people are allowed to tweet about council and other things as well; if its negative about other people but not council does that fall under that as well?; it’s just going to go on and on and on; we can’t censor everybody; the work and integrity of the council should speak for itself

o   Jim-Poweski – against; we as a council are supposed to be transparent, our faults and weaknesses and our strengths, we can start censoring ourselves in other ways as well; how are people supposed to engage our public?

o   Point of Information – Bennett – do elected members vote or everyone? Will I be able to vote on something that can censor me when I can’t vote on it?
REPLY: Chambers – not censorship, just to get discussion going

o   Belman – against; we honestly can't do it, we can't restrict what people say, if we have a policy at all, maybe we can restrict them speaking on behalf of council

o   Point of Information – Lazarevic – is there a complaint policy to report a complaint?
Reply: McGuire – if someone wrote something online that offended someone, they should bring it to the executive and we’ll do something, there’s nothing to hold anyone accountable

o   Point of Information – Kopera – this excludes harassment I’m assuming, you can’t just say anything
Reply: McGuire – Yeah

o   Point of Information – Clements – does the vote in IRC need majority or unanimous?
Reply: McGuire – Majority

o   Point of Information – Jim-Poweski – Talk about criticism again?
Reply: Chambers – when there’s conflict, it goes online, we aren’t trying to limit free speech, properly avenues to criticize council

o   Voorpostel; against; the overall ideas are impeding free speech; we should have the right to talk negatively

o   Call the Question – KOBAYASHI/Chen

o   Vote: Not Passed

 

Posted Motions

-          First Year Student Caucus

o   Point of Order: Zach Sicard is not here

o   MCGUIRE/Yu

o   Slowka – favour; would like to exist

o   Gupta – in favour; USC Presidential Liaison Commissioner; positive way to incorporate the FYSC rep on Social Science Students’ Council

o   Vote: Passed

-          Advertising Commissioner

o   Point of Order: Zach Sicard is not here, Stephen Yu will second

o   ANTON/Yu

o   Vote: Passed

-          Departmental Committee

o   CHAMBERS/Chen

o   Jim-Poweski; in favour; we all like Laurissa

o   Vote: Passed

 

Department Rep Reports

-          Anthropology

o   Totem Anthropology Undergrad Student Journal

o   Submit your interest to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

o   TAs running Totem and will send you information on the process of how people can volunteer as a reviewer and submitting a paper

-          Economics

o   First speaker series was on Nov. 21 at 5:30, Mike Ward, VP of Sales and Trading at Jameson Bank

o   Ward is going to start looking to recruit out of Western as Jameson is growing rapidly

-          Geography

o   Geography Study Session Drop-In on December 8 at 2:30PM SSC 2333

o   Geography Bar Night has been postponed until the new year

o   Geography sweaters have designs in the works and will be available next year

-          History

o   Risk Night was a success

o   Book Auction in early January

o   Tentative Museum Trip for February

-          Political Science

o   Grad School Seminar on Monday was a great success, go to UWOPSA.org for notes from the meeting

o   First Year Social was supposed to be December 1^st but the Wave was booked so postponed until the new year

o   Thank you for the money for Winnipeg!

-          Sociology

o   Been going to first year classes to promote the SSSC and the SSA and all the upcoming events

o   Wine and Cheese tomorrow, 5-7 at the Wave

-          Women’s Studies and Feminist Research

o   December 6, fundraising money for violence against women, 10% of proceeds go to the campaign (eating from Veg-Out or Aroma)

o   First De-Stresser tomorrow, 5:30-7; Women’s Studies Lounge, 3^rd floor Steven Lawson Building

 

Executive Reports

-          VP Student Events – Neha Chandrachud

o   Social Science Ball

§  Sold just under 150 tickets (estimate 120)

§  Council members, sophs, students at large, non Social Science students

§  Photography was done by Think.Nu (like them on Facebook) and Anna Stone

§  Send any “epic” photos to Neha

§  Special thank you to the following people: Ashley, Adrian, Mikki, Stephen (Team Effort), Gianluca Mazzanti, the Bravery Bunch Exec: Devon, Jess, Devin (the Bravery Bunch raised almost $300), and finally the Wave

o   Council Merchandise

§  Ideas and designs will be finalized during December break

§  Look forward to council merchandise first thing in January

§  You will all be receiving an email from Jessica Ambler soon

o   Holiday Social

§  First years we’re looking at you!

§  Ugly Sweater Party so look as hideous as possible

§  Potluck!

§  Likely this weekend, stay tuned for date and location

§  If anyone can volunteer their house, contact Neha ASAP

o   Concert

§  Placed two offers to two performers

§  Timeline: late January – early February

§  This is a SSSC initiative (no partnerships)

§  Venue: The Wave

-          President – Ashley McGuire

o   Meeting with the Dean and Wendy

o   Going over concert budget and Student Donation Report on Friday

o   Concert Information – will be most likely under budget – have put in two different offers – may do 2 concerts depending on prices artists come in at

o   Will most likely donate some profit to Bravery Bunch

o   Buying a new safe this weekend

o   Getting rid of the old safe

o   Cleaning up council office before holidays – if anyone would like to help, let us know! We’d love your company

o   Keeping in touch with USC Councillors via email prior to USC Meetings

o   If you have questions about USC, come talk to us!

o   Social Science Ball

§  Thank you to Neha for throwing a successful formal

§  Hope everyone had an amazing time

§  Any feedback, let us know!

o   Mid Year Review

§  I encourage everyone to fill one out.

§  Any questions please ask!

o   First Year Representatives

§  They had a meeting last Wednesday

§  Vindya – President at Large oversees this committee

§  Planning a first year event for Frost Week on behalf of SSSC

o   Executive

§  The Executive is completing “What we’ve been up to” Reports which will be available for all council to view as well as general social science students

§  Will most likely be posting them outside of the Council office

-          VP Academics – Mikki Chen

o   Meetings: accountability and executive

o   Accountability: 22 meetings, 2 weeks, report to come

o   Academic Event: speaker, Prof Debates (hoping for Feb 6-10, SSC 2050), social science games

-          VP Communications – Stephen Yu

o   Welcome Members-at-Large: Jessica Khaper, Scott Rake, Christopher Palmer, and Tyler Winterink

o   Office Hours: remember to sign-in, members-at-large start office hours this week, new office hours will be selected after Christmas exams for second semester, there are NO office hours after December 7^th

o   Facebook Group: Please only post relevant things in the group such as promotion of events, council socials, questions/getting more information, etc.

o   Slide of Shame

§  Nicole Kopera

§  Dylan O’Callaghan

§  Nikki Pilo

§  Patrick Whelan

§  Erin Uberig

§  Brendan Clement

§  Steven Sirbovan

§  Zoe Mak

§  You have all reached 3.0 but the semester is over, demerit points reset for the new year

o   Calling out Adrian Binns for signing in and not showing up for office hours

o   Summary of Semester:

§  Guide to the Internet Commissioner completed

§  Purple Fest – got over 100 students interested

§  Promotion of USC Councillor position, got 458 votes (up 60%)

§  First issue of the Socializer is OUT

§  Calendar on the website and Board are updated regularly

§  Committee Minutes are on the Website

§  Formal Promotion = sold out!

o   Chandrachud – the Get Involved form wasn’t working, is it working now?
Reply: Yu – I didn’t know it wasn’t working, but I will check it ASAP

-          VP Finance – Adrian Binns

o   SOGS meeting Friday at 4pm

o   Made more than $3000 for formal, more than budgeted

o   Spent double for homecoming, out of our control, unforeseen circumstances

o   Point of Information – Nakanishi: Why did we spend double?
Reply: Binns – truck rental, it was taken back late, we had extra charges, Health Science and Social Science and Science met up to determine cost on who would pay what, we bit the bullet to end discussions and took the extra costs, generator was another big one, the DJ never showed so we bought the generator for no reason
Add: Chandrachud – Homecoming had a lot of difficulties they didn’t have last year, issues started from Day 1, not great support from the USC and our committee wasn’t supported, a lot of responsibilities fell on Jessica and Neha and took most of the responsibilities; a lot of things that were out of our control

o   Shout out to Leila Wong for looking at sponsorships for us for when we put on events; got us tickets to the Mustang hockey game that we gave away at formal

o   Chandrachud – is Formal supposed to be profitable? Is the concert?
Reply: Binns – No. It would be nice, but no. We have locker sales, we have the money from the USC. We have the money to spend. Concerts, maybe not profitable, but we have the money to spend. The money is not supposed to just sit there. We want the money put to use.

o   Point of Information – Durgy – How much of the Student Donation goes into events and how much goes into academics?
Reply: McGuire – we don’t get any of it, it goes to the Dean. We have the say over it, we look over each department’s request form and they get the money, we tell the Dean, he writes the cheques. For the concert, Ashley applies for it to the Dean. Ashley has the final say but the Dean writes the cheque and can say no.

o   Kozycz – When we can tell our departments the results?
Reply: Binns – After Friday, meeting with the dean.
Reply: McGuire – The Dean will send an email.

 

USC Report

-          Passed a bunch of motions, how well the Western radio is

-          Standardize the logo

-          Making sure events are accessible physically and mentally

-          Soph Contract/Charter of Rights – says sophs can sleep every night, can accept or reject anything the USC gives you, makes the USC liable to protect the volunteers, two way communications

-          COCOA – Passed motions on by-law number 2, talk to Kevin Kobayashi for more details

-          USC Holiday party was on Sunday

-          White Ribbon Week; men against violence against women, all week in the USC

o   Westernusc.ca -> Video on the top right

o   @uwo_whiteribbon

o   whiteribboncampaign.ca

 

Senate Report

-          Not a lot applies to Social Science this year

-          Talked about Maclean’s magazine, 10^th year in a row we had the best grades in a lot of the categories

-          Comments about the communities that the western website is difficult to navigate, revamping it

-          University is in a performance review in compared to other universities in Canada; good at retention of our students and graduation rates, and satisfaction, below average in international students, not enough graduate students who are getting awards from governments and other groups (getting less funding) so they’re working on it

 

Motion to Adjourn