The union posted the initial vote counts of 1,618 “no”, 1,548 “yes”, and 17 spoiled ballots on their Facebook page.
The total voter turnout was 3,183, about 900 more students than voted last year. This is equal to about 24.7% of UTM’s population, compared to the 5% required for the referendum to be valid.
No work will be done on the expansion this year, and the dollar-for-dollar match of up to $2 million offered by the university will not be granted without a demonstrated student commitment.
The results still have to be presented to UTMSU’s Elections and Referenda Committee for official ratification.
UTMSU’s website has not yet been updated, nor was the Medium notified in time to print the results for this issue.
Full coverage will be provided in the next issue of the Medium.
]]>UTMSU’s president, Raymond Noronha, had promised the results in time for this issue, in an answer he gave to Jill Kennedy, station manager of CFRE, at a Student Centre Tenants’ Meeting on January 17 in which he assured her that they would be “in that Monday’s issue of the Medium”.
According to UTMSU VP internal Nausheen Adam, the poll clerks are taking longer than anticipated to count the votes. As such, the Elections and Referenda Committee will not make the results public until Monday, February 3.
“The poll clerks got tired and had to go home,” said Adam.
On Monday last week, the day before voting opened, the UTM Debating Club held a forum at which students could discuss the referendum, inviting UTMSU and the Medium.
Over 30 people attended the event in the Davis Building’s Council Chambers, most of whom answered an opening question to say they were in favour. Six were undecided.
Swapnil Shah, a first-year computer science student, was one of the latter.
“I’ve had a couple of lectures that have been interrupted by the students’ union […] pretty much trying to convert us to say yes,” said Shah. “But most of the reasons they come up with are pretty much cookie-cutter reasons. You see these reasons on the website and the people who are giving these speeches are saying those reasons word-for-word.”
Shah invited UTMSU executives to speak for the expansion “in their own words”. Hamza Ansari, UTMSU’s VP university affairs and academics, took the question and cited the campus’s growing enrolment.
“What’s also important is the unprecedented deal that we’ve received from the university. A dollar-to-dollar match […],” said Ansari. “Sitting behind closed-door meetings, you might not know what it’s like to face the administration. It’s extremely difficult. It’s extremely political.
“We’re interested in always lowering the fees for students,” he added. “This dollar-to-dollar match from the university is the best deal we’re ever going to get on the table.”
Noronha also took multiple questions on whether students want fee increases from a union that, in the askers’ opinions, had a mandate to lower fees. “It’s the democratic process and it’s the decision of the students on this campus that we respect […],” said Noronha. “There is also a high possibility that on Friday, when you get to hear the unofficial results, a majority of students will vote against the referendum.”
When asked about UTMSU’s large-scale yes campaign, Noronha replied that anybody could have formed a “no” advocating committee and that notice had been given of the deadline of January 10 to form such a committee.
He also mentioned the referendum notice ads that UTMSU placed in the Medium mentioning the deadline, and which appeared in the January 13 and 20 issues.
“I truly wish there were a ‘no’ advocating committee […] because in that case it’s more fun engaging students on campus, because they don’t only hear one perspective, they hear multiple perspectives, and that’s when the students actually get a chance to see what’s right and what’s wrong,” he said.
]]>According to Raymond Noronha, president of UTMSU, Kamran Khan resigned from UTMSU on January 22 following disputes with UTMSU regarding what Khan called “health and safety issues” as well as over UTMSU having declined to cover the cost for Khan to attend a conference in his capacity as sustainability coordinator.
In a Facebook post that was also privately forwarded to the Medium, Khan announced his resignation and explained that as a diabetic and celiac, he had not been provided with appropriate meal options while attending staff meetings.
“I didn’t realize that this would become a trend with UTMSU. No food was ever provided for me and as a result threatened my health, and they didn’t seem to take it too seriously even though this was a violation of equity and health safety in the workplace,” said Khan’s post. He said that halal needs were more regularly attended to than his own.
Noronha said in response that he doesn’t think it was an equity or a health and safety issue.
“I will admit that on one occasion we did fail to provide Kamran with food tailored to his needs. He made us aware of that fact and we committed that moving forward, we would order food specifically catered to his needs,” said Noronha. “However, there was no other instance after that where UTMSU failed to cater to his needs.”
Khan also alleged that during an Environment Week event to which students and faculty were invited, local organic food was expected and required but an “associate” of Khan’s planned on purchasing non-organic food at local supermarkets, an option that Khan refused on moral grounds, he said.
Khan also cited the fact that UTMSU did not pay for his attendance at the seven-hour Toronto Environmental Summit, though he was hired staff, as a motivation for his resignation.
In response, Noronha said in an email interview, “We highly encourage UTMSU staff members to attend conferences that would enhance their skills at the workplace. We encourage them by often paying the cost associated with attending the conference, which also includes registration costs and food. Kamran attended the conference and UTMSU agreed to reimburse him for his travel, food, and registration.
“We do not pay any coordinators or associates to attend the conference,” Noronha continued. “The reason for going to the conference should not be [to get] paid for a few extra hours, but rather for the skills and knowledge you gain via being in attendance.”
Khan declined to comment.
]]>“The week of plentiful events has just wrapped up with a fantastic open mic night where around thirty people showed up to watch and perform in a positive, judgement-free space,” said Roya Ghahremani, the executive director of OUT@UTM, the club that hosted the event. “Throughout the week it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, and also some new ones of people who checked out the events and were educated about why a positive space for queer folk is so important.”
Ghahremani said she thinks they accomplished their goal of “creating a welcoming environment where everyone, regardless of gender or sexual identity, felt safe and confident”.
The weeklong series of events was a collaboration between UTMSU’s Ministry of Equity, OUT@UTM, the UTM Positive Space Committee, the U of T Sexual and Gender Diversity Office, and the U of T Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office.
]]>However, students have continued to pass through it at times when it’s open for construction workers, despite the signage, says Campus Police.
There is a lot of pedestrian traffic by this entrance because of the nearby bus run. This is proving dangerous, especially when a bus stops in front of “Gate A”, from which cement trucks sometimes back out towards the road, in place since last fall.
To date, there have been no student injuries, according to Campus Police, but there is a risk of it as long as this behaviour continues.
“Students need to be even more careful. We just want to be super sure that students pay extra attention,” said Len Paris, manager of Campus Police, in an interview. “When you’re trying to put a new building into an existing building which is still being occupied, it can be difficult.”
Paris also cautioned students not to text as they walk around campus near the construction sites.
The entrance has been closed off for the past week and will reopen in late August with the expected opening of the Innovation Complex. Meanwhile, the Blackwood Gallery, Matthews Auditorium, and some classrooms and offices are still open.
Students and drivers have also been parking on Outer Circle Road in the closed-off loop, which is currently only open to shuttle busses and emergency vehicles due to construction. The upper part of Parking Lot 9 has been opened to allow for student pickups, according to Parking Services.
]]>Attendance at the symposium, held on Friday afternoon, was by invitation only; about 80 people gathered in the Faculty Club, where Dr. Stuart Kamenetsky, Associate Chair of the Psychology Department, made opening remarks.
“We are obligated to repairing the world, not just the individual,” said Kamenetsky in his speech.
Condeluci then spoke briefly about how his cousin Carol, who had Down Syndrome, inspired him to begin to fight for the rights of those with disabilities. He spoke about looking beyond personal differences, building bridges, and looking to change the world so that it values individuals with disabilities, rather than excludes them and mitigates their disabilities.
Social capital was at the centre of Condeluci’s talk. Condeluci emphasized the need for more opportunities for people with disabilities to engage with others on the same level so that commonalities and similarities may be found. This way, said Condeluci, it is the accommodator who is changing, and not the person with the disability. He added that among those without disabilities, attitudes are shifting and broadening about what is “acceptable”.
“I would like all members of the UTM community, whether they are faculty, students, or staff, to actively contribute to making UTM a more inclusive community by accepting differences based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability,” said Kamenetsky in an interview. “We need to actively reach out to less well-connected individuals and work hard to include them in the UTM community.”
Kamenetsky pointed out that inclusion is not as novel an approach as most people think. According to the ancient Hebrew Bible, said Kamenetsky, “it is incumbent upon us to repair the world (rather than the individual), hiring someone (inclusion) is better than providing charity (keeping people excluded), saving one person is akin to saving the entire world (the task can seem overwhelming but if each of us get involved and help one person, the world will be a better place).”
The event was sponsored by UTM, Community Living Mississauga, and the Interdependence Network.
]]>UTM’s CampUS Safety Project launched its Community Safety Plan as part of the Health & Wellness Fair at the RAWC this Thursday, according to a press release last week. The plan’s spokesperson is Chad Jankowski, acting assistant director of UTM’s Health and Counselling Centre.
Initiated by UTM in collaboration with Interim Place, a Peel-based shelter for young women, and with additional funding from Status of Women Canada, the plan calls for campus administration, social service providers, and Campus Police to come together to address the prevalent problem of violence against young women.
The CampUS Safety Plan is the result of recent consultations with UTM students and staff. Projected results include changes to police reporting procedures and the physical environment of the campus, according to the press release.
]]>The fair, which was previously called the Summer Job Fair, has been known to attract the most students of all Career Centre events in previous years. This year, the Get Hired Fair attracted 1,816 students to the RAWC, whereas last year’s fair attracted approximately 1,200 students. According to Michelle Atkinson, the coordinator of events and employment services at the Career Centre, this year’s was the biggest turnout of any fair hosted by the Career Centre to date.
The goal of the Get Hired Fair, said Atkinson, is to connect students with organizations that are hiring for either summer positions or full-time positions (for recent graduates). At the fair, representatives from 80 exhibitors were on hand to chat with students.
The Career Centre encouraged students to bring their updated resumes and to dress appropriately for the fair, since ”first impressions are important”.
Various summer camps and tutoring companies were present, as well as American Eagle Outfitters, GoodLife Fitness, Peel Regional Police, and the Royal Canadian Navy, to name a few.
“It’s important that students know of job opportunities that are out there—some from great organizations that they may not have heard of until the fair. That will help with their job search,” said Atkinson. “On the flip side, we want employers, both locally and outside of the GTA, to know that UTM is brimming with qualified candidates across all disciplines, and that a UTM student is a great hire.”
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“Imagine if you’re sitting in a far-off land, and you’ve gotten an offer from the University of Toronto. You’ve accepted it, and you’ve basically turned your back to all other potential offers you may have had elsewhere, and then suddenly you find that you can’t get to Canada because you can’t get the visa,” said Saini. “It was a pretty brutal situation for these students, so we decided that this year it’s important that we allow students to start in January.”
Because of the foreign service officers’ strike last spring, international students were left in the lurch when the process of getting their student visas approved was delayed.
Last April, the officers responsible for processing Canadian visa applications went on strike to campaign for increased wages. The Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers—which represents 1,350 non-executive Canadian diplomats—was then embroiled in the longest-running public service workers’ strike in Canadian history.
The strike caused delays in processing visa applications around the globe, which affected the applications of international students at UTM.
According to Saini, some 150 international students were admitted for the winter session, and a larger number received offers.
Every year, a few students are refused visas by the Citizenship and Immigration Centre due to the assessments of their financial capability and health records, among other factors. However, due to the special circumstances surrounding the processing of student visas this year, UTM made an exception.
“This year was special,” said Saini.
Dale Mullings, UTM’s director of residence and student life, said that UTM reached out to international students over the summer to encourage them to apply for their study permits online. The CIC also encouraged the application for study permits online, which were sent out worldwide to be reviewed and processed much faster than the paper copies being circulated.
Mullings said students were allowed to start classes two weeks into the start of the winter session, as they needed time to prepare for study and book flights after receiving their permits.
“I think the efforts have been successful in managing the number for January here,” said Mullings in an interview.
To accommodate the students beginning their studies in January, an additional orientation must be planned for the winter.
“We have to repeat the process now, on a smaller scale,” said Saini.
According to Mullings, one struggle faced by international students, identified by International Centre student-user focus groups and peer academic leaders in the InternationalLIFE program at UTM, is engaging with students not from their home country.
Mullings said new student coordinators have been hired in response to this issue and that programming aimed at international students and domestic students with an international interest will begin next week.
“Rather than the one-day, larger, international orientation-type activity that would happen with a large population in September, this is more one-on-one peer-based focus to get them connected with the appropriate resources on campus now,” said Mullings.
According to Mullings, another challenge faced by international students is “navigating the systems”, including ensuring that their study permits don’t expire, for example. UTM is looking at launching an alert system to help students keep track of them.
]]>After gathering feedback, the executive team decided to run the referendum to replace one with the same terms that was passed last year but failed ratification due to human error.
Full-time undergraduate UTM students and Faculty of Medicine students will have a chance to vote for or against the question from January 28 to 30 after a campaign period this week.
The first proposed increase is $27 per semester for a maximum of three years in order to raise $2 million for the actual construction costs of the expansion. The university has promised it will match a student contribution dollar for dollar up to a maximum of $2 million, if a student commitment is demonstrated, up to a maximum of $4 million towards the expansion.
In an interview with the Medium, Raymond Noronha, president of UTMSU, explained that the student contribution had been capped at $2 million in order to maximize the ratio of university contribution to student contribution.
“If we were to collect $4 million from students and the university pitched in $2 million, it would be fifty cents to a dollar,” he said.
Because the total collection from students will not be allowed to exceed $2 million, the duration of the increase could be reduced if enrolment increases.
The duration could also be lowered if outside sponsors were found. Because the Student Centre is the property of the university, the Office of Advancement could put in a request to add the expansion to their list of donor projects. UTMSU cannot approach donors directly.
According to Noronha, the university has told UTMSU that its contribution of $2 million depends on students demonstrating their commitment through a referendum.
The second proposed increase is $10.50 per semester indefinitely as part of the Student Centre levy, in order to cover new operating costs associated with the expansion and to provide a reserve for maintenance expenses, according to Noronha.
Full-time students currently pay $12.50 per semester to the levy. These proposed fees yields a total of $50 per semester to UTMSU beginning next fall for a maximum of three years, down to $23 per semester after the $2 million is raised.
Noronha said that even in the existing Student Centre, costly unexpected maintenance would not be affordable within the means UTMSU currently receives.
Of the nearly 13,000 students currently enrolled at UTM, a minimum of 5% are required to vote in order for the referendum to be valid.
If a majority of voters are for the question, work could begin in the summer, including the search for an architect, according to Noronha.
According to Noronha, the same money is worth less every year because of the inflation on construction costs, so not everything originally promised will fit into the budget as more time passes.
The priorities for expansion include multipurpose rooms and club and society offices, said Noronha. At present, clubs and societies are allotted office space by UTMSU’s Clubs Committee based on their activity on campus. The offices are often shared by two or three clubs, and some clubs do not have office space.
Noronha identified improving food and services as essential steps to making the Student Centre more of a “hub” of student activity, and said that the Blind Duck’s kitchens will also be expanded and InfoBooth services added.
“Once we have an expanded Blind Duck Pub, we will be able to cater to those needs for healthier, possibly cheaper food options, and also more diversity,” he said.
Noronha could not specify which services might be added but said he will be looking at other universities and their student unions as models.
This referendum has been expected for the past year as a replacement for the identical one held last year, whose unofficial results were not ratified by UTMSU’s Elections and Referenda Committee.
Some 18% of UTM students voted in the referendum, of whom about 60% voted in favour of the fee increases and the expansion.
However, human error that the union attributed to then-chief returning officer Babatumi Sodade, who resigned over the incident, resulted in a decision not to ratify the results.
UTMSU had been provided on a T-Card scanner loaded with the voter list for the U of T Students’ Union’s annual general meeting that November, and the list included St. George students, who were not eligible to vote because they are not members of UTMSU.
Jill Matus, U of T’s vice-provost of students, alleged that UTSU had breached confidentiality agreements by supplying this scanner to UTMSU, which UTSU denies having done. Matus’s office had made a CD with the correct list available to UTMSU, but it was never retrieved.
Because it was not possible to sort through the data, the referendum would not have been ratified by higher university bodies, said Noronha, who promised more care this time around.
“We’re making sure that there is no confusion between UTMSU and the offices downtown at U of T, and that we get the most accurate and recent voter list,” he said. “It’s frustrating for students as well.”
Noronha was concerned that students were not aware of the results of the first referendum and would be confused about its appearing again this year.
When deciding whether to rerun the referendum, which he declined to use as a platform point in last year’s election, Noronha solicited feedback from students.
As the major beneficiaries of the Student Centre, said Noronha, club and society executives were mainly in favour of the expansion and associated fee increases.
“There’s always that small proportion of students that will be against the idea of a Student Centre expansion because they are against any kind of fee increase, and they just don’t use the premises, period […],” said Noronha. “There was definitely a large chunk of students that I spoke to who were looking forward to the expanded Student Centre.”
The current Student Centre was built in 1999 for a student population of about 6,000, less than half of the current enrolment.
UTMSU has been in talks with the university for an expansion since 2007 and has submitted multiple proposals, one of which was approved in August 2012.
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