In brief
JENELLE PETRINCHUK STAFF
U of M test-ground for terrorism
“In light of the number of shooting incidents that have been on university campuses over the last number of years, the University of Manitoba campus has been selected by the Winnipeg Police as a site for what they call an ‘Active Shooter Training Exercise’” announced Debbie McCallum, vice-president (administration) at the March 9 meeting of university senate.
The announcement was greeted by laughter from an abundance of senators, and the uproar continued as McCallum stated the university was glad to be selected for the job.
“We’ll make sure that you know when it’s going to be happening so that you’re not alarmed by people running around in SWAT-team uniforms,” she half-joked.
The training exercise will be taking place this May. Until then, plenty of promotional material will be distributed throughout campus to promote awareness of the event.
“We laugh about it, but it is a very serious issue and it is important that we are ready in the event that something horrific like that were ever to happen on this campus,” concluded McCallum.
Senate excited about S.E.T.
S.E.T. has already taken place, but it has left a good taste in the mouths of members of the U of M senate.
The 2007 Science Engineering and Technology Day was held at the U of M on Feb. 16 and included six sessions, attended by high school students and scholarly scientists.
The day brought more than 220 students from 53 high schools in Manitoba to the U of M, according to president and vice-chancellor Emöke Szathmáry.
“It was a phenomenal day, with six of our scientists and scholars making presentations,” Szathmáry announced.
“High school students were completely enthralled,” she added.
According to Joanne Keselman, vice-president (research), the success of the day has left the university in hopes of making it an annual event as the event served not only as an educational experience, but as a way to get students onto university campus while learning about what the U of M has to offer.
“I thought in addition to the fantastic opportunity to promote the excitement of research and science to high school students, what a fantastic recruitment tool this is also,” said Keselman.
Next year, Keselman announced they hope to web-cast the event.
Administration to speed up application process
The goal is to process admission applications faster, with a normal deadline of two weeks from receipt, according to University of Manitoba vice-president (academic) and provost Robert Kerr.
At the March 7 U of M senate meeting, Kerr stated in his oral report that in the history of his term “there has been a lot of concern around the speed with which we’re responding to applications.”
Kerr stated that over the last couple of years, additional staff have been hired by the admissions office, and the process currently in place to review applications has been thoroughly reviewed.
Now, although Kerr said not every application will fall within the two-week turnaround period, they are hoping it will be the average amount of time taken to process applications.
Other subjects included in Kerr’s report were the new quick response-time with ask umanitoba, an online Q-and-A program for future students that answers questions about admission, tuition, student life and the like in seconds, and a new brochure that will be sent to students who have applied to the U of M in hopes of convincing them to attend the university after being accepted.
UMSU passes policies, amends bylaw
At the most recent UMSU council meeting held on March 8, two policies were passed in addition to a number of amendments to the UMSU bylaws.
The first of the policies, the No Sweat policy, is a code of conduct that deals with UMSU’s business affairs, employee personnel policies and suppliers.
The document deals with standards for UMSU workplaces in the areas of legal compliance, ethical principles, and employment standards. Wages, working hours, forced labour, women’s rights and harassment are addressed in the code.
Proper measures for violations of the code and termination are also included in the document.
“I am really excited about the No Sweat policy that was passed; there were a whole bunch of us working on it since before Christmas,” said UMSU councilor and vice-president-elect Rachel Heinrichs via e-mail. “It is really comprehensive and very enforceable.”
The second policy passed stated that “The Finance committee shall be responsible for selecting charities or causes to be the recipients for the proceeds from EBC.”
This is a change from the previous procedure of charities making presentations to council, and then having council vote to select the recipients.
A number of bylaw amendments were also presented and passed that dealt with word and clause alterations, additions and subtractions.
