Huskies track team
jumps the competition
SPORTS 4
Sheaf the
.com
Student Project Symposium to take over the tunnel next week
Liberal Party leadership candidate Marc Garneau stops by campus
NEWS 2
17 January, 2013 | The University of Saskatchewan student newspaper since 1912
Scared by the Bears — men’s hockey squad falls from first place
NEWS 2
SPORTS 5
What’s the value of vitamins?
Who the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks cares if the NHL is back?
CULTURE 6
OPINIONS 9
University to lay off 40 staffers within next three weeks
President announces TransitionUS, second major initiative to combat deficit BRYN BECKER and DARYL HOFMANN
raisa pezderic/photo editor
Forty employees will be sent packing in the coming three weeks as the university looks to slash spending. A second wave of firings is expected to be announced in April.
The University of Saskatchewan is set to lay off about 40 employees over the next three weeks as part of a campus-wide audit of its workforce meant to axe spending in the face of a growing budget deficit. The round of job cuts will affect administrative and support positions, with “more job loss expected in phases over the coming months,” said Barb Daigle, associate vice-president of human
resources, in an email to the campus community Jan. 14. The sweeping survey of employees — or “workforce planning,” as it’s called by administrators — is a major part of the university’s long-term plan to combat a projected annual budget deficit expected to reach $44.5 million by 2016. In March 2012, the university received an annual operating grant from the provincial government that was less than the university had budgeted for. The school expects to receive similar grants in the coming years. The yearly grant accounts for about 68 per cent of total revenue. The 40 jobs that will be lost will save the university an estimated $2.3 million annually. There are
about 7,500 university employees whose salaries and benefits use up roughly 70 per cent of the school’s operating budget. “While job loss is a normal part of the university’s business, what is unusual now is that our current financial situation requires a new strategic, long-term approach to our overall workforce complement,” Daigle wrote. “College and administrative leaders are making these difficult decisions strategically, rather than through across-the-board cuts, which are not effective in the long term as they don’t result in a workforce that is focused in the right areas.”
U of S layoffs
We The Artists showcase music, drama, art JENNA MANN Culture Editor
For the second year in what will hopefully become a long running tradition, student group We The Artists will showcase their work Jan. 19 at TCU Place. The event, also known as We The Artists, presents art, music and drama from students all across campus. The group was founded by the head of the Drama Students’ Association, Adam Naismith, in 2011. Naismith approached the heads of the Visual Arts Students’ Union and the Association of Student Musicians as well as
members of the faculty in order to shape the collaboration. “It was really important to Adam when he started this project to actually create something together as a group and not just in our own individual areas,” said Toryn Adams, administrative coordinator for the collaboration. “The fine arts are so inherently connected.” Adams said the show is a platform for students to interact with the community and to present their art outside of a scholarly context. By bringing We The Artists to TCU Place, a public venue, the group is hoping to reach a varied audience in the Saskatoon
area, outside of the campus community. The show will have music and drama performances as well as a gallery to showcase paintings, drawings, sculptures and even digital media work. In addition to work from the visual arts, music and drama colleges, this year’s event will include a project from students in the university’s MFA program in creative writing, a program that began in 2011. In their project, Brushes with Words, the students wrote poetry to accompany paintings made by the residents of the Sherbrooke Community Centre, a special care
home in Saskatoon. Brushes with Words has been featured on transit buses around the city since Oct. 1 and will be available for viewing at We The Artists on posters and postcards. The postcards will be handed out throughout the event and will have raffle numbers printed on the back for a draw at some point during the evening. “It was a really exciting project. It was the first time [the MFA creative writing students] had ever done anything like that,” Adams said. “Last year was the first year that the MFA was [a program], so it seemed natural to include them this year.”
brianna whitmore
Last year’s live painting was a hit among audience members.
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Live action painting will be returning to this year’s event. Tyson Atkings, who participated in the live painting at last year’s event, will be joined by painter Jordan Bulgis. “It was one of our biggest draws last year,” Adams said. The live painting artists start the evening off with a blank canvas and are to complete a work by the end of the evening. Last year the final project was auctioned off, but Adams was unsure if this year’s live painting will be for sale.
We The Artists
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blair woynarski
A dramatic performance by Jordan Svenkeson.