Who’s running to govern your student union next year? Pg. 9 & 10
The Omega Thompson Rivers University’s Independent Student Newspaper
News Pages 1, 2
Editorial & Opinion Page 3
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Arts & Entertainment
TRUSU Election Info
Loans Feature
Pages 6, 7
Pages 8, 9
Page 11
Grant funding black hole sees the light of day Fund receiving more than $1 million of students’ money per year soon to have greater transparency Jessica Klymchuk Ω News Editor Students pay $5.30 per credit to support the Comprehensive University Enhancement Fund (CUEF), but have very little control over how that money is spent. Since 2003, CUEF has allocated over $10.7 million to various university initiatives. Many institutional departments have become dependent on the “soft funds,” grants or other funds that require no return on investment, provided by CUEF. TRUSU is trying to give students more control over what the levy is supporting. TRUSU’s March 11 submission to the Budget Committee of the Senate (BCOS) suggested a restructuring of the way the CUEF is allocated and operated. The student union said that the current model for the fund doesn’t reflect its original purpose, and that it is failing to support the interests of the students and the strategic priorities of the university and that it is also not transparent. TRU VP admin and finance and BCOS chair Matt Milovick called the report “timely in many ways.” “We thought that the proposal was very well thought out and well structured, and the fact that CUEF has been chugging along now for ten or eleven years, it seems to me that it is time to review it and I think that it’s ready for a change,” Milovick said at the March 11 meeting. TRUSU proposed that the CUEF steering committee be dissolved and that BCOS step in to provide direct oversight to the allocation of funds. It also recommended changes to how funds are disbursed, proposing that the management bodies best suited to hand out money become directly responsible for doing so.
Those management bodies include: BCOS for strategic initiatives, TRUSU and the TRU Williams Lake Student Council for direct student initiatives, and the research committee of the senate for undergrad research award program (UREAP). Each body would be allocated one-third of the fund to distribute. “If I have the purview to do it, with the support of [provost Ulrich Scheck], I’m saying we accept these recommendations,” Milovick told BCOS.
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a problem over time,” Milovick told BCOS. TRUSU‘s VP internal Leif Douglass and executive director Nathan Lane outlined the history of the fund (and its subsequent failures) to explain why TRUSU is making these recommendations. The CUEF fund, its levy and the CUEF steering committee were created more than a decade ago in anticipation of UCC’s transition from a university college to a comprehensive
I would like students to know how poorly the money they spend on fees is being managed,” —Nick Byers, Looking for accountability
When contacted for a response, Linda Butt, chair of the CUEF steering committee said the committee couldn’t provide comment because they had not yet seen the submission made by TRUSU. “One of the concerns we have as an administration about the funding is the fact that there are salaries built into the allocations and that could present
Volume 23, Issue 24 March 26, 2014
undergraduate university. Its first budget was adopted in 2003-04. Funding allocations were to be prioritized based on seven criteria, which included support for student initiatives, strategic priorities of the institution, enhancement of the “environment” of the institution and that funds could be used as “a ‘loan,’ a ‘revolving’ allocation,” as per a CUEF committee report.
By the numbers: From the CUEF’s 2013/14 approved budget
This isn’t the first time concerns have been raised over the fund. In a 2002 board of governors meeting, the Cariboo Student Society (now TRUSU) also expressed its concerns, and a 2002 CUEF committee report states that students were concerned about how much they would be consulted regarding decisions about how the fund was to be used. TRUSU’s report stated “since then, students have repeatedly expressed concern about the reliance of salary expenditures on the ‘soft’ money of the fund.”
“Student Research”
$ $ $
$100,000 “CIS Athletics”
One student’s concerns Student concerns about the fund have not since diminished. Most recently, Nick Byers approached The Omega about his effort to investigate how the CUEF steering committee makes decisions regarding direct student initiatives. After he was denied funding for an initiative connected to an on-campus club, Byers tried to appeal, but was told that there was no appeal process. Byers then requested that the committee clarify their decision making process. He asked the committee to provide all meeting minutes and budgets for the last two years and all direct student initiative applications for the past two years. He was required to file a freedom of information request with the university under the Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy Act, which, according to Butt, applies whenever the university shares information. Byers’ request, filed Jan. 21, is still in the process of being fulfilled under the Act. “My big thing right now is I would like students to know how poorly the money they spend on fees is being managed,” Byers said.
See FUND Pg.
$165,000
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$92,000 “Centre for Student Engagement”
$40,000 “Study Abroad”
$25,000 “Baseball”