In Brief

JENELLE PETRINCHUK STAFF

Photo by David Lipnowski
Nellie Morrisseau camps at the legislative building, July 1, 2006. Her family protested to get compensation from Manitoba Hydro for the hydro development in the early 1960’s at Grand Rapids, Manitoba that caused a change in their surrounding environment. There are also very serious cancer statistics as a result of living in the area of hydro lines.

Monteris Medical moves into Smartpark

As of July 1, 2006, Monteris Medical Inc. is officially part of Smartpark. Monteris is a spin-off company of St. Boniface General Hospital Research Centre and will be taking the place of the medical company IMRIS.

Monteris is expanding quickly and was in need of more room for their pre-production, marketing and clinical affairs activities.

Jim Dunca, CEO of Monteris explained that the Smartpark location is a perfect match for the needs of the company. “Moreover, the high tech environment and proximity to the university will serve us well.”

Monteris Medical is currently developing a treatment for brain tumours that cannot be practically treated with existing methods, such as surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. The technology they are working on will enable neurosurgeons to kill tumor tissue virtually any place in the brain without damage to surrounding healthy brain tissue.

Smartpark has expanded over the past four years, with over $100 million in capital development, seven buildings and 15 new companies and organizations as part of the park.

According to UMSU president Gary Sran’s report for the July 13, 2006 UMSU meeting, members of the UMSU council, along with representatives from the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) met with Toni Rogge, the director of the International Students’ Centre (ICS) to discuss the terms of the off-campus work permit program for international students at the U of M.

The ICS is responsible for administering work permits to U of M students; the federal program requires that international students have a letter of good standing obtained through the registrar’s office.

UMSU expressed concern that it is the student’s advisor that determines if a student is in good standing or not. Sran’s report stated, “This could be an issue for some graduate students, especially if the advisor is not supportive of the student working off campus.”

However, the ICS assured UMSU that they would provide mechanisms to stop advisors from impeding on an international graduate student’s ability to work off campus.

On July 7, 2006, members of UMSU met with David Morphy, U of M vice-provost (student affairs) and Christine Blais, director of University 1, to discuss their involvement in this year’s University 1 orientation.

Despite the tradition that UMSU executives speak at the opening ceremony of U1 orientation, Blais stated that the only speaker at the opening ceremony will be the university president Emöke Szathmáry.

“What we’ve seen is U1 taking a different direction [with orientation] and pushing certain student groups out of the process,” said Sran at the July 13 UMSU council meeting.

U1 orientation has asked UMSU to provide a tent, stage, 24 cases of Pepsi products (UMSU administers sponsorship through the university’s exclusive Pepsi contract) and a speaker system for the two days the orientation will be taking place. UMSU is currently negotiating to be able to supply what the orientation has asked of them and to receive some compensation — in terms of speaking to students — in return.

If UMSU doesn’t succeed in obtaining any speaking time at orientation they would like time to be able to speak about their services in classrooms.

On June 20, David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF), presented U of M president Emoke Szathmary a $100,000 cheque on behalf of the Manitoba Métis community and the MMF. The donation is to be used towards the building of a new Aboriginal Student Centre.

The Aboriginal Student Centre will be built west of the Education building on the Fort Garry campus. The new centre will provide Aboriginal students with “an environment that is both culturally appropriate and conducive to academic success,” according to the Bulletin.

Chartrand called the donation of the MMF an “investment in [the student’s] future,” and said “Our support for the centre will increase the profile of Métis students and Métis culture on campus.”

The MMF announced plans to make two more donations of $100,000 to the U of M over the next two years.

A ceremony was held on June 27, 2006 to break ground for the new Apotex Centre, the new home of the faculty of pharmacy.

In the fall of 2008, U of M pharmacy students will be moving from the Fort Garry campus to the Banntyne campus where they will be closer to corresponding faculties such as medicine and dentistry.

Funding for the new building has been acquired from several donors such as Shoppers Drug Mart ($250,00), Super Thrifty Drugs ($100,000) and the Government of Manitoba ($7 million).

The building was named after Apotex Inc., which has pledged $3 million to assist in the construction of this facility.

A construction tender of $22.5 million was awarded to Bockstael Construction on April 7, 2006 for construction on the new centre.

UMSU met with the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) on July 5th, 2006 to discuss autonomy. At the meeting, issues such as business and endowment funds were talked about but nothing was actually agreed upon.

UMSU asked the GSA to prepare a written proposal that includes how they want to deal with issues such as representing UMSU and contributing to student groups and how they will be funded.

Sran is hoping to come to an agreement with the GSA by the end of the year. “We are moving forward,” said Sran, president of UMSU.

The next meeting between UMSU and GSA will take place in September or October.

The GSA has been pushing for autonomy since 1966 when they became incorporated into UMSU.