Quarter End

Yep! That sounds pretty ominous: The end of the first Quarter. If you need help visualizing this, imagine all the electrons of the universe condensed together and represented as a donut, and now imagine ¼ of that donut being gone! Or imagine going to a Revenge of the Nerds movie marathon (4 movies), and the first movie is already over! Or imagine ordering a four slice pizza … Oh, you get the idea…

Tom & Gerry

We have two new full-time staff members at the USC. Tom Everett is the new CHRW programme director, and Gerry Shellington is the new Executive Assistant to the General Manager, and has a very strong background in Human Resources. If you get a chance, welcome them aboard the USC team.

UWO Act

[Background: the UWO Act determines the structure of the senate and the Board of Governors for the University. The Act has to be reviewed for 1997, and if changed it will have to pass through provincial parliament. Gillian Anderson sits on a committee reviewing the act. The USC made a submission to the committee in April recommending (amongst other things) increased student representation]

A political bombshell was dropped on campus Thursday, July 18th. I received a call from the Globe & Mail and was later quoted in a story regarding a leaked document from the office of Terence Young, MPP and the parliamentary assistant for Universities. The document was a debriefing note from a meeting between Young and Dr. Paul Davenport. In this debriefing, it first outlines Davenport pushing for deregulation (no surprise) and requesting that this government not "back-down" to student lobby pressure like other governments have. I have yet to talk to Dr. D. on this particular issue, as he was away for July. It gets juicer. The note goes on to describe how Davenport is looking to see the Board of Governors reduced from 31 to a more "manageable" number. This is true, Davenport wants the size of the board reduced. However, the zinger is when note describes how Davenport wants student and faculty reps removed from the board. Hello? I hope this bothers you as much as it bothers me. A UWO press release has denounced the debriefing note, claiming it inaccurate. Davenport has since stated that he does support student representation on the Board (I would been happier if he said increased student representation). The incident has pretty much blown over. I didn’t think much about the G&M quote, until I realized how jealous some of the other University student presidents were.

Summer Meeting

Special thanks to everyone that helped make the summer meeting a success. Although the all-you-can-eat tacos were a tad spicy, they were still the culinary highlight of the month for me. The meeting went a tad longer than I had anticipated, but primarily due to some valuable presentations and thorough discussions. Good stuff! Keep it up!

All Presidents Meeting

On the Sunday after the USC summer meeting Jerry & I had a meeting with the majority of the other council Presidents (residence, affiliate & faculty). I don’t know how some of the other Presidents felt about it, and perhaps it’s just part of my gradual evolution into becoming a bureaucrat, but I found sitting around the table and talking about the issues very satisfying. If this group meets once a month (like we have planned), there is huge potential!

Financial Aid

Had an informative discussion with Doreen Whitehead & Rob Tiffin regarding work study and the new job mart programs. Essentially, with the last tuition hike, the gov’t mandated that 10% of the hike go to financial aid. Western has taken this $1,000,000 and put it towards work study: educationally related jobs for students in need. Job mart is an new initiative for non-educationally related jobs. There was some concern about conflict with event staff jobs, but it shouldn’t be a problem now.

Wednesdays on CHRW

Try to catch my summer stint on the "Unnamed show", Wednesdays 7-10 am.

In Summary

They say "time flies when you’re having fun" (they generally referring to the wise and the elderly). Time has flown and yes, I am having some fun. I re-read the last two reports and I thought they sounded awfully pessimistic and whiney. To balance things out, I’m making this summary overly happy and optimistic. Next month we will return to our regularly scheduled melancholy.

There wasn’t a single day in July when I didn’t leap out of bed, dance in the streets under the morning sun and scream "Boy am I glad it’s another great day in July, another great day to represent students, and another great day to spread my joy across the University community" (And if I didn’t actually physically do it then I certainly did it in spirit). It really is a thrill to do this job. I want to thank everyone for making the 1st quarter such a great time, and I’m really looking forward to making the next ¾ of the year even better.

In Brief…