Finances
All accounts payable and EFTs are up to date and have been approved and completed on time. The VISA statements have been reviewed up to the start of the winter break, and I am currently going through the most recently released VISA statements, and will have them all reviewed within the next week.
GSA Transit Info Session
Robert and I attended an info session hosted by the GSA, to allow their students a direct avenue to ask any questions they may have regarding the U-Pass program, that may be more specific to Grad students. While there wasn’t much of a turn out, we were excited to provide the students the opportunity to ask questions, and the GSA was very appreciative of our time and attendance.
Brock Hiring Committees
The Vice-President Administration and Faculty Applied Health Science dean searches are on-going. These are confidential searches, but I will provide updates once I am able to do so, and hopeful for both searches that we will find amazing candidates. It is my understanding the dean search results are to be announced shortly.
VPUA Advisory Committee
It’s been lovely to connect with such a range of students and to learn more about what they want from BUSU during the fall term, and I am in the process of scheduling the meetings for this winter term.
New Student Centre
On December 4th and 5th, further updates were provided to the Brock Board of Trustees, and we are excited to be brining it back for the last stage of approval in the next board cycle on March 5th and 6th.
The staff received an updated information session, last week on January 9th, and following the updates given to the BOD today, we are excited to bring the bulk of this information to students on January 23rd and 28th during two open house sessions in Isaacs.
We have been diving deep into onto room design sheets and I am very excited about the progress of this project. Finally seeing it come to life has been wonderful, and I want to once again thank the team at aTTR for their incredible work thus far.
OUSA SAC
As I had previously mentioned in my last report, I had the pleasure of joining Mark at OUSA’s Student Advocacy conference, from November 17 – 23. I had noted I would include some further details of our meetings in my last report, and while it has been some time, I am excited to share here.
My group had the pleasure of meeting with MPP Dave Smith, with whom we had a thorough conversation regarding OSAP interest rates, and the possible economic advantages of removing student loan interest, as well as touching on further investment in post-secondary education (PSE), and the current state of student housing across the province.
We met with our MPP for Niagara Centre, MPP Jeff Burch, touching on the need for greater provincial investment into PSE, specifically through operating grants.
We had two wonderful conversations with MPP Sol Mamakwa, and with MPP France Gélinas, specifically regarding addressing hate motivated attacks through a student mental health lens on campuses.
I had the pleasure of joining Mark’s group to meet with another Niagara MPP, Jennie Stevens, were we had the opportunity to reiterate the goal of interest rate removal on student loans, and a wonderful discussion on student mental health, specifically framed in our Brock context.
There were a few other meetings mixed in this long week of advocacy, and my group wrapped up the week with a virtual meeting with a team from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, including Assistant Deputy Minister Jeff Butler, where we discussed OSAP and the Blue-Ribbon Panel Report.
Start of Term Breakfast
Mark and I had the pleasure of joining the GSA executive for a start of term breakfast with the President, Dr. Lesley Rigg and Provost, Dr. Arja Vainio-Mattila, on January 7th and we are incredibly excited for the semester ahead. We thank them both for taking the time to meet with us and to set the tone for the collaborative efforts to come in our final semester of our executive terms.
Office Hours
Office Hours have begun again for the winter term, and we are excited to offer students the opportunity to ask questions or provide feedback on a drop-in basis, every Wednesday from 10 am – 11 am in the Isaacs lounge.