Whoosh!

That’s the sound of June rushing by. Just for the record, it’s really really hard to recreate the Doppler effect on paper.

Super-con

My sincere thanks and admiration to all the people that helped out with super-con. Mike, Melissa and Craig did a superb job, but the whole thing wouldn’t have been possible without the support staff. It was a great experience for me, and it was fun to be the conference host. Humourous memories include:

• Sitting in on Gillian Anderson’s public speaking seminar, especially the section titled "Dealing with distractions…"
• It’s too long a story, but let’s just say that numerous people were impressed with my rendition of "I’m a little teapot"
• At the final banquet, during an energetic dance performance, my pants made like a banana, and split. It’s amazing how many people took pictures of my bum.

So, as you can probably tell, it was a "super" time.

Code of Conduct

The code of conduct has shifted from neutral into second gear. It looked like it was going to stall when there were some new politics being tossed around by SOGS and the TA union, but it has smoothed out. I am very optimistic that this document will be fair and appropriate, and will be a net positive for the undergraduate students.

Student Services Committee

There were three meetings of the SSC in the month of June, with each one to deal with a specific issue. The outcome of each meeting was essentially "Yes, this is a problem, and we are looking for ways to remedy the situation." We are expecting to get a firmer admin commitment in July.

Student Health Services
The big beef for SHS is: Where does our $41/year go? In the Health Industry, there are three main categories of service:

a) Insured Medical Services. (i.e. a nosebleed) These are paid for by OHIP. Its illegal to collect fees money to help pay for these services.

b) Un-Insured Medical Services (i.e. signing notes to get out of class, or removing warts). These are not paid for by OHIP. It is o.k. to collect a block fee for these services, but it must be an "opt-out-able" fee, and the services we are getting for our block fee must be clearly identified.

c) Un-Insured Non-Medical Services (i.e. AIDS awareness programming). It’s totally cool to collect fees for this, and it is what all of our fees are supposed to be going towards.

Where everything gets tense is that SHS doesn’t have the proper accounting system set up to viably say exactly where our fees go. It’s quite possible that our fees are subsidizing some b) services and some a) services. It’s a big political issue and the ministry of Health is involved. I just wanted to make sure you understood the problem.

Athletic Injuries Clinic
One of the fundamental principles in the Canada Health Act is that you cannot pay to get priory service in a public health clinic. But, in the University’s (that’s right, the University’s, not the Student’s) Contract with the AIC, it says that students will pay $200,000/year (approx. $8/student) for the privilege of priority service at the AIC. So what are you upset about - the fact that you’re paying for priority service at all, or that you’re paying for priority service and not getting it? Take your pick. This one is a little more cut-and-dry.

Student Support Fee
This one really bugs me. Each student pays $50/year directly into the University’s core budget, and we have no idea where it is being spent. I’m not even sure if this is allowed by the ministry. They say it goes towards scholarships, but they can’t force you to help pay for scholarships. I’m crossing my fingers, but It looks like we might get this fee phased out for 97-98.

Meet The Board

We had a little coffee and luncheon and invited over 150 bigwigs from all over the university. It was set up at the Wave. The turnout was a tad dismal (no more than 40), but it was a great opportunity to put the names with the faces of some of the movers and shakers on campus, and to have a few casual and candid conversations.

Convocation

Whee! I graduated. Just had to mention it.

Community Relations Task Force

This was my disappointment of the month. Heck, the title of the committee was really cool, but I found it to be a tad on the "ineffective" side. Silver lining was that it was my first trip to Davenport’s House.

In Summary

I know last report I whined about difficulties adjusting to the job. Well I’m done whining about that, and now I can whine about the job itself. Seriously, the month of June went by just as quick as May, but then again, I was at a conference for over a third of the month. I’m feeling much more comfortable in the job. Last month I gave the analogy of just trying to tread water. Well now I’m treading water, but I’m also doing the breast stroke here and there, and on occasion throwing in a back stroke or a butterfly. And, at the risk of taking the swimming analogy too far, I think that in the next month or so, the entire board will look like synchronized swimmers. I can’t believe that the summer is ½ over, and what I really can’t believe is that David Lee Roth is getting back together with Van Halen. What is this world coming to?

In Brief…