SLC updates Refugee Student Board’s Terms of Reference at Nov. 27 SLC

By Ashar Memon, November 29 2018 —

The Students’ Union Students’ Legislative Council approved changes to the Refugee Student Board’s terms of reference at their Nov. 27 meeting. A new student representative for the University of Calgary senate was also sworn-in early in the evening.

Jonah Secreti joined the U of C senate, taking an Oath of Office at the beginning of the meeting. Secreti was selected by the SU Nominations Committee and approved to the position by SLC last week.

During announcements, vice-president academic Jessica Revington reminded SLC that the Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS) is being held from Nov. 27–29 in MacHall. She added that URS workshops are open to the public.

During executive reports, Revington reported attending various General Faculties Council (GFC) sub-committee meetings. She said GFC will create a new ad-hoc committee to discuss how the U of C’s Code of Conduct addresses relationships between students and academic staff.

Vice-president student life Nabila Farid reported hosting the stress management workshop Stress Busters and had an introductory meeting with the new SU clubs coordinator. Vice-president operations and finance Kevin Dang reported meeting with staff to discuss changes to the Refugee Student Program.

President Sagar Grewal and vice-president external Anayat Sidhu were not present at the meeting. Dang said that they were in Ottawa for a Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) advocacy event and read their reports in-absentia.

All executives reported attending U of C president Elizabeth Cannon’s farewell celebration.

During faculty representative reports, arts representative Dana Nasser reported meeting with the U of C Consent Awareness & Sexual Education student club, the U of C’s sexual violence support advocate Carla Bertsch and others to discuss a new event series on sexual violence resources available on campus.

Nursing representative Candace Cho reported receiving approval from the faculty for new scholarships, where recipients will be nominated by their professors based on their leadership.

SLC then discussed changes to the Refugee Student Board Terms of Reference. Dang said the board will absorb the responsibilities of the now-defunct World University Service of Canada student club, which previously helped support the Refugee Student Program. Dang added that the club was dissolved this fall because it failed to meet the requirements of a registered SU club.

Notable new changes include an increased number of executives on the board, including students-at-large and non-executive members of SLC. Additionally, the board will now meet once a month instead of once a semester.

The resolution to approve changes to the Refugee Student Board Terms of Reference passed unanimously. The meeting concluded with a resolution to excuse arts representative Marley Gillies for her absence at SLC last week, which passed with one abstention by herself.

The next meeting of SLC will be on Dec. 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the MacHall Executive Council Chambers. Access elected official reports, trimester reports, minutes and all other SLC documents here.