Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Page 1

’Stangs keep rolling

The football team had little trouble with Carleton in Saturday’s Homecoming match. >> Pg. 11

thegazette

TODAY high 21 low 12

Getting stuck on roofs since 1906

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

WESTERN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906

TOMORROW high 17 low 10 VOLUME 109, ISSUE 07

Moses Monterroza • GAZETTE

RUNNIN’ THROUGH BROUGHDALE WITH MY WOES. Broughdale Avenue was full of Western students and out-of-town friends getting ‘turnt,’ as the kids say these days. See more photos on pages 6–7 and online at westerngazette.ca.

Students rally on Chakma’s payout not in line with other universities campus and off Hamza Tariq BREAKING NEWS EDITOR @HamzaAtGazette

An independent review led by a former judge into the cash payout in lieu of administrative leave taken by President Amit Chakma last year has found that the provision for monetizing the leave is not in line with peer institutions. The review was commissioned by Western’s Board of Governors and Stephen Goudge, a former Ontario Court of Appeals judge, was appointed to conduct it. “My examination of other presidential contracts leads me to conclude that the president’s right in his original contract to monetize the administrative leave earned for his first term and to do so at the start of his second term is not in line with the practice at most peer institutions,” Goudge said in the report. Goudge also found an error in the approval process of the amended

renewal of the president’s appointment contract, which led to Chakma being eligible for the double payout — his base salary for the year of administrative leave and his salary for the first year of his second term. According to Goudge, the amended renewal was not sent to the senior operations committee for deliberation again before Chakma took the cash payout. A separate statement by the board, released alongside the review, stated that the board will be reviewing its practices with respect to the president’s administrative leave and will also be making other changes to its processes, in line with Goudge’s recommendations. President Chakma said in April that he will be returning the $440,000 payout he received by working this year but not receiving a salary. The report revealed that in 2012, the senior operations committee recommended Chakma’s reappointment for a second five-year term,

commencing in July 2014. The Board of Governors then reappointed the president for a second term; however, terms of his new contract were not finalized. A new chair of the board, Chirag Shah, was appointed during this time. Shah and Chakma discussed “the possibility of Dr. Chakma taking his administrative leave entitlement in the form of cash payment rather than deferring his entitlement to the end of his second term as president.” According to the report, the apparent objective of the discussions was to provide Chakma means to enhance his pension contributions. The senior operations committee was not consulted in these discussions and the amendment was made to the president’s new contract.

>> see UWOFA pg.3

Drishti Kataria NEWS EDITOR @DrishtAtGazette

Western celebrated a successful Homecoming this weekend with its long awaited “Hoco on the Hill” event, featuring two concerts. Homecoming scene on campus “As a much bigger event than it was last year, it definitely went really well,” said University Students’ Council president Sophie Helpard. “We had a lot of great attendance and a lot of positive feedback.” “It was a great experience. I’m really into EDM and it’s just really fun when you have a group of people together having a good time,” Robert Celik, a second-year science student, said. Helpard said they were very well equipped with food, beverage, security and clean up staff in order to accommodate the students. “It was just like another O-Week experience essentially, you’re just

with a group of people on UC Hill having a good time,” Celik said. Director of Campus Police, John Carson, said his staff worked with the University to develop a plan for all the events on Saturday. “This is the first year that we’ve had the concert on the hill during the day. We’ve never had a concert that’s attracted 6,000 people in one location,” he said. “Almost all of our officers that work at Western were on duty on Saturday along with extra officers from London police to help us to make sure we had enough people on site.” There were some alcohol related charges on campus, but according to Carson it was not a high number. As of Monday evening, specific numbers were not available. “We certainly expected alcohol to be a factor and the security measures were all developed with that taken into consideration,” he said. >> see BROUGHDALE pg.3


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