Even though this course is labelled as an introduction, it is placed at the senior level, which means that students require ENGL211 or 212 or an equivalent before enrolling. There is a lot of close reading of texts as well as supplementary material, and literary concepts such as theme, form, irony, and point of view will be applied to analyzing the works. The scope of the course makes it a six-credit course, meaning that students will have up to one year to complete it.  There are four assignments that students must complete and submit, plus a final exam worth 40% of the final grade.

I interviewed English professor Paul Huebener about the revised course, and he provided some candid answers about why it is worth choosing for AU Humanities students.

First of all, why should AU students study Canadian literature?

Canada has produced incredible works of literature, and the field is growing rapidly, so a course like this can guide students through some really compelling readings. At the same time, literature is a window into larger forms of cultural politics and meaning. What are the ways that we might define the nation and its narratives and concerns through time? Whose voices are heard or silenced?

Why did this revision come about? What did you decide to include and exclude with this revision, and how did the English Department undertake the task of that revision? Was it a difficult process?

It’s a lot of fun, and also a big responsibility, to create a course that surveys the long view of Canadian literature all the way from early European exploration narratives to twenty-first century fiction and poetry. Sonia Atwal and Virginia Gillese, our longstanding course tutors, had some wide-ranging conversations with me, and we selected some famous texts and some lesser-known ones, written by authors from settler backgrounds as well as minority immigrant writers and Indigenous authors.

There are some big themes covered in this course. Even though this is a six-credit course, do you think that it covers the themes well enough, or do you feel it still only just scratches the surface of what is out there?

The nature of a survey course is that it introduces students to the complexity of the field and helps them develop a critical literacy through selected readings. No single course can comprehensively cover an entire area of study, but a measure of our success will be if we can make students fall in love with the field, opening the door to further discoveries.

Of course, there are the superstars of the Canadian literary canon who everyone has heard about, such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Farley Mowat, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. But who are some of the Canadian writers you feel are doing some fantastic work but don’t really get the press that the “superstars” do? 

A great question! The canon of Canadian literature is always expanding. Emily St. John Mandel has received a lot of attention recently with her post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven. Madeleine Thien has become a major figure in recent years; we’ve assigned one of her short stories. Our students will also read a story from the First World War era by Jessie Georgina Sime. She’s not very well known, but her work illuminates the changes taking place at that time, particularly with respect to the shifting social roles of women. We’ve also assigned a play by Kevin Loring, who is the first artistic director for Indigenous Theatre at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and some bizarre poetry by Christian Bök, who has been implanting sonnets into the DNA of bacteria.

Besides this course, how can AU students find out more about the Canadian literary scene and what is out there without feeling intimidated and even if they aren’t English majors? 

Canadian literature is a priority in our English program. We offer courses in Indigenous Literature in Canada, Comparative Canadian Literature, and Canadian Drama. Students can also develop special research projects on topics of their choice. For students who are new to literary studies, our introductory courses English 211 and English 212 include some Canadian texts as well.

Traditionally, Canadian literature has dealt with themes of wilderness and geography and settlement. Where do you feel the trajectory of Canadian literature is going, in light of the issues and changes to society that Canada is facing in modern times? 

Like the nation, Canadian literature has been going through big changes in ways that are both exciting and alarming. Canadian novels are being celebrated internationally as great works, even while the Canadian literature industry has been caught up in controversies linked to settler colonialism and the #MeToo movement. Meanwhile, an increasing number of texts are examining our responses to ecological crisis and climate change. We’re a long way from the old settler narratives about survival in the desolate wilderness, though we need to keep examining those stories as well. By the time students reach the end of this course, they will be developing their own analyses of current works in the field. Ideal students will be the ones who go on to teach us where the field is going.

——

So if you want a course that challenges your perceptions and ideas about how Canada is viewed, but invites your own ideas into the conversation, then English 302: Introduction to Canadian Literature will do just that.

The meeting got underway on time at 6:30 PM, and the initial protocols—the motions to move and adopt last month’s minutes and this month’s agenda—were unanimous.

There were no action items to discuss this month, as Council has caught up with them for now.  The meeting then moved to this month’s discussion items. VPFA Natasha Donohue reviewed the discussion from last month’s meeting regarding the policy of Council Governance Meeting Attendance.

This meeting is the first one without the input from Governance and Advocacy Coordinator Emmanuel Barker, but the rest of AUSU council had carried on his work of editing and refining this policy. Councillor Alice Lamu requested further clarification about the attendance at the Council retreat, which President Simmons provided. He said that if someone misses both days, that would technically be two absences, but they would be counted as one. If a councillor attended most of those days, attendance will be amended accordingly. He said that overall patterns of attendance during the yearly term would be looked at, but if a councillor fails to participate in eighty percent of a council term, then the disciplinary procedure would be automatically triggered. All of council were happy with the policy, and the motion was carried unanimously.

The next motion was to approve the updated copy of Councillor Responsibilities and Honoraria. With this review, the policy did not change much from the existing policy, and the AUSU Executive did not want an extensive review at this time. There were no questions from the rest of Council and the motion was unanimously approved. This led into the next motion, to approve the updated copy of Policy Council Governance Email Voting. This policy references the AUSU absence policy, but it is not a huge revision from the existing policy. There were no comments from the rest of council, and the motion was carried unanimously.

Finally, was a motion to approve the updated copy of the Council Changeover policy. Council approved the informal reviews to this policy but the executive noted that if there were any questions, AUSU councillors were invited to reach out to President Simmons.

For the second month in a row, council agreed to move in-camera to discuss a piece of confidential council business. Councillors moved within Zoom to a separate meeting room. When they returned, they held a secret ballot regarding the proposal to remove Julian Teterenko both from council and as a member in good standing for failing to uphold the councillor academic requirements, which require that a Councillor successfully complete at least one AU course each year of their term and be in a course for at least 8 months of each councillor term year. The result of the vote was 5 aye, 6 nay. The motion did not carry.

Council then moved to the discussion of the monthly reports. President Simmons attended numerous committee meetings and more or scheduled in the coming months. A highlight was seeing the swearing-in ceremony of the new Alberta provincial government. He noted that AUSU and AU have already reached out to the new Advanced Education minister and will be helping to relay the importance of AU to the new government. President Simmons is involved with working on some new initiatives to improve the methods of communication between students, AUSU and AU. This possibly includes a new app that may be replacing AUSU’s own Ooh La La app, and will hopefully incorporate several of the most requested features AUSU has had about their app, including the ability to access it from a non-mobile device.  He was unable to give details about when this might be available for students however.

Natasha Donahue, VP Finance and Administration, highlighted meetings with various AU Faculty Councils that are in the process of updating AU program offerings. She also attended the second half of the recessed General Faculties Council meeting, which concluded the discussion regarding the Amazon Web Services platform. Attendees learned that the cost of maintaining infrastructure on the cloud represents a significant savings over maintaining physical structures on site.

Meanwhile, Communications Coordinator Donette Kingyens has had a busy month getting ready for AUSU’s website launch. She also noted that AUSU has had many Student requests for advocacy and advising, which is great for students to know that they can approach AUSU with issues. She said that AU’s Registrar has been really responsive as well.

AUSU’s Executive Director Jodi Campbell is pleased to welcome Duncan Wojtaszek as  AUSU’s new Governance and Advocacy Coordinator. He has worked with Duncan before, and knows that he brings a lot of skills to AUSU. Also, hopefully now that the podcast “AUSU Open Mic” is launched with its second episode, the word will get out and more students will be able to listen in. Find out how to access it through the AUSU website.

With the reports presented, there was no more questions or discussion at the meeting, and it was adjourned at 7:32 PM. The next meeting date and time has yet to be confirmed, but will be held during the Council retreat.

After the initial protocols of acknowledgement of the land, adoption of the agenda and last month’s minutes, Council got down to work.  The first chunk of the meeting was to report on the ongoing edits being done to create the new Position Policy Handbook and the Position Policy Manual for AUSU’s position policies.  The next item on the agenda was to take time to announce the result of the Executive election held on March 7^th.  No changes to the executive council were made and congratulations were extended to Brandon Simmons as President; Melinda Goertz as Vice President External and Student Affairs; and Natasha Donahue as Vice President Finance and Administration.

The next item on the agenda was to carry on a discussion regarding meeting attendance by councillors.  This was not a motion to approve the new policy just yet.  Natasha Donahue provided a quick overview about the discussion item to all of the meeting attendees.  She and President Simmons have met to discuss the current policy as well the executive’s own concerns about meeting attendance.  It was felt that the current policy penalizes the members of AUSU Council who could not attend meetings due to family emergencies, illness, and other unavoidable life events.  What was being presented to Council came after several version and was in many ways a complete re-write in terms of what processes are going to be followed in future.

Getting the meeting attendance policy correct is important because it would be a major change for AUSU as it also touches on other policies, so the initial discussion of the attendance policy will be good for the inertia of other policies.  Some concerns were raised that the policy was not as clear as it could be whether the tally of meetings missed or late for applied over the course of the entire term, or just a single year, this was noted and would be adjusted for the next draft.

Executive Director Jodi Campbell noted that the current council executive is conscious of the fact that in past times, there were far fewer councillors and the success of each meeting depended on everyone being there.  However, as there are now thirteen councillors and business can continue in spite of the odd absence, so being able to relax the policy a slight amount should not prove a significant challenge for AUSU.

Of course, Council also appreciates as much notice as possible, but some emergencies are inevitable and now there is provision for that.  The Executive was also concerned about the overall engagement of councillors and they will look at the overall patterns of attendance, taking allotted vacation days out of the equation.  Councillor Mark Teeninga asked about physical attendance at events like the council retreat, and whether that is counted.  President Simmons replied that the council retreat may not work for everyone because of scheduling as well as the geographic location of councillors;  and agreed that council will need to address that within the policy.  Vice-President Finance and Administration Donohue added that the potential model for AUSU might be the General Faculties Council attendance policy and perhaps a change in the definition of meetings may also be necessary.  A good summation of the goals for AUSU Council is “reasonable expectation and reasonable accommodation.”  However, it was also noted that under the old policy, a councillor could conceivably have a total of 15 absences from committee and council meetings, whereas the new policy reduces that to 12, but is more flexible in what constitutes an absence.

After this discussion, Council moved to the revision of its Election, Referendum, and Plebicite Management; Election Conduct policy.  This discussion proceeded quickly compared to the attendance policy discussion.  Vice-President Donahue provided a brief overview of the policy, and noted that this policy had already been extensively revised, with most changes this round being to tighten wording.  There was no further discussion from councillors who all voted in favour.  Tying in with this policy revision is the next agenda item, reviewing the policy  on Election, Referendum and Plebiscite Management; Election of Executive Officers.  Accountability is important to this process and reflects the policy going forward.  This was also approved unanimously by Council.   They by-election policy was also briefly mentioned as the changes were so small it only required a formal review.

Next on the agenda was the fairly rare occurrence of an in-camera discussion.  Council created a sub-meeting so they could virtually step out of the main meeting to conduct this order of business.  The non-council meeting attendees patiently waited for approximately twenty minutes until the councillors returned.  No further explanation or information about the nature of the in-camera portion of the meeting was provided.  However, the next item was a proposed motion that AUSU council approves a provincial advocacy initiative where AUSU will independently advocate for the unique needs of our student members to the Alberta provincial government.  AUSU will continue to seek out further opportunities to collaborate with AU on provincial matters, as well as other Alberta student advocacy groups.  There was not much discussion on this motion, presumably that was what was being talked about in the in-camera session, but it reflects the overall goal of this AUSU Council in increasing provincial advocacy and a more direct approach to advanced education in future of AUSU and Athabasca University.  All members carried this motion unanimously.

The final section of monthly business was to vote to ratify the appointments of AUSU Committee members.  The Awards Committee consists of a minimum of three councillors and a maximum of five councillors, one of whom must be an executive councillor.  The committee chair must be selected by the members of the committee following their appointment.  AUSU Councillors Sarah Blayney Lew, Lisa Oracheski, Christine Hudder, Brittany Daigle, and Melinda Goertz were unanimously approved as committee members.  Amanda Lipinski stepped down as committee chair, and Brittany Daigle is the new chair for the 2019-2020 council year.  The Member Engagement and Communication Committee voted to elect VPEX Melinda Goertz as chair and Councillors Amanda Lipinski, Christine Hudder,.  Josh Ryan, and Brittany Daigle as council voting members.  AUSU Council approves the re-appointment of Mel Mirosal to the MEC committee as a member-at-large for the 2019 council term year.

As the AUSU covered a lot of business during the first part of the meeting, the second section, consisting of the Executive reports, was straightforward.  President Simmons said that he attended several big meetings in March, but many were in camera so he is not at liberty to say too much about them.  He had a productive conversation with Elain May regarding exam times, specifically with ProctorU timelines in relation to other exam times.  AU continues to make some progress on accessibility for students and on ProctorU being made more of a valid option for exams.

The VPEX report noted that she also attended many meetings, especially related to AU’s Board of Governors meetings.  Vice President Goertz also highlighted another positive initiative for AU, the  Idea  Lab, endorsed by AU President Neil Fassina.  Essentially, this acts as a kind of “digital sandbox,” or a way to test out pilot programs before they go live.  This functionality within AU is currently limited, especially in a highspeed internet setting.  VP Goertz also attended an IT department meeting to push bringing Improvements to AU’s gradebook so that students can access their course grades as well as DegreeWorks much faster.

The VPFA report highlighted Vice President Donahue’s attendance at several meetings, notably the General Facilities Council—which was a marathon seven hours long and recessed.  The outcome of that meeting was to note that AU is much too dependent on tuition dollars in comparison with other Alberta universities.  It was noted that to be receiving similar government funding per student as other Alberta universities, AU would need to cut learners by 70%.  This is a topic that will be discussed by AU and AUSU in the future.

Additionally, the Amazon Web Services partnership to move data to cloud is progressing and will free up a lot of bandwidth that is currently stored on servers for other projects.

Visitors to the AUSU website will notice a fresh new look and a new AUSU logo! This project is the result of a lot of hard work by the Member Engagement and Communications Committee,  and especially by Donette Kingyens and Jodi Campbell.  The final product is a result of a lot of edits, revisions and tweaks to get the new website in a good place,  but getting the website “just right” is an ongoing process.  Students are invited to let AUSU know what they think of the revamped website.

Finally, the Communication and Members Services Cordinator’s Report extended a special thank you and farewell to Emamnauel Barker, who  is leaving his position at AUSU to join the Alberta Students Executive Council (ASEC).  AUSU councillors expressed how much they will miss his hard work, his ability to relate fun facts on just about any topic, and his humour, not to mention his ability to work wonders with the technology that launched the AUSU podcast.  All of AUSU Council and staff wishes him well in his next role and he will be missed.

As the meeting drew to a close, AUSU wishes to remind students to check out the new podcast, Open Mic, which links in with the overall theme of AU as an open university.  A new episode will be recorded and launched soon, so stay tuned.

The next public meetings will be held on Thursday, May 9^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST.  The details of the June meeting are To Be Announced.

After the usual protocol of calling the meeting to order and adopting the agenda and last month’s minutes, Council got down to work.  There were no action items to review this month, but Council has been compiling its annual report.  President Brandon Simmons expressed his gratitude to Donette Kingyens for her work in compiling the report.  This year’s report is a bit different, as it used photos taken by AUSU and more graphics to put more of a “human” face to the report, to make it more visual and more appealing, and not just facts and figures on the page.  Council acknowledged that this year’s report is only a start of what is possible going forward, and hopefully next year will improve on this format.  Executive Director Jodi Campbell commented that this year’s report looks great, and is a professional looking document that contains more infographics that enable the reader to see the organization at a glance.  Councillors voted unanimously to accept the report, and if you have a few moments, you should consider taking them to check out the 2019 AUSU Annual Report yourself, to see what Council has been doing and is planning to do in future.

There were few policy revisions this month, with the Administration: Professional Development and Administration: Annual Timeline and Executive Workplan policies being on the agenda.  These were not substantive changes to the actual policies but were general language changes that tightened up the policies for clarity and to reflect the current practices of council.  These changes were approved unanimously.  The next motion was regarding the policy, Policy Administration: Membership in Good Standing – Removal and Reinstatement.  The two policies these directives used to be in have essentially remained the same; however, they have been combined into one policy and the revision was to include gender neutral language.  There was no further discussion by Council and was carried unanimously.

The bulk of this month’s business was to discuss the AUSU Policy Manual and AUSU Policy Handbook.  This project was a huge undertaking by council.  Vice President Finance and Administration Natasha Donahue updated the rest of Council.  In past months, there has been much discussion and debate of the form and function of the manual and handbook, and how it will  be used.  It was decided that the full, detailed manual will exist within council and not be a public policy document as per the guidelines and examples of other post-secondary student unions. But the resolutions of the policies would still be publicly available on the AUSU website as the AUSU Position Policy Handbook.  If anyone outside of AUSU council were interested in reading the detailed notes around the policies, contained in the full AUSU Position Policy Manual, they could request the full document.  Julian Teterenko asked why can’t AUSU just make the Policy Manual public in the first place.  The answer is that the AUSU Executive felt that, after discussion and consultation, that the public document would be more concise, versus the verbose policies.

It was noted that if council wanted to vote to put it all online, they could, but the decision to put the full AUSU Position Policy Manual online was a result of discussion and evaluation of best practices both within AUSU and other student unions.  Vice President External and Student Affairs Melinda Goertz acknowledged that there are various levels of information for other organizations including councils; there is the behind the scenes information all the way down to end user information, and Vice-President Natasha Donahue said that the handbook is for the casual user; for instance, if someone isn’t familiar with AUSU they would be bombarded by info if they were to read the entire policy manual.  Emmanuel Barker also noted that not having the entire manual online takes the pressure off AUSU by not leaving Council open to being misquoted and misinterpreted by the media.  If someone wanted to quote AUSU policy on a certain matter, they could contact AUSU directly for explanation or clarification, especially in the heat of the moment when an emergency issue occurs. However, Executive Director Campbell noted that overall, the risk is very low for misinterpretation, even if AUSU decides to put the manual or handbook online.  It’s more about a presence and transparency.

President Simmons asked Council how they would like to proceed with this issue, whether to amalgamate the two documents or display them publicly.  Councillor Mark Teeninga responded by proposing an alternative way forward, about how to make the document transparent for membership but not for the wider internet.  Perhaps technology can help by creating a form of a “firewall” where the security for these sensitive documents might be really important so free and open access to them may be not the best practice.  He suggested that perhaps AUSU could use a sign-in protocol that limits viewing the documents to certain people such as AU students.  Emmanauel Barker liked this idea and noted that AUSU maintains a member list so any access requests can be double checked against the list.  After the lengthy discussion, Council remained split on the issue and needs more discussion going forward.  Therefore, this month’s motion was carried, with Councillor Teterenko opposed, only to acknowledge that Council needed to get further clarity.  President Simmons said that AUSU will hold off posting these documents in whatever form until the launch of the improved AUSU website, which is currently in the works, and noted that, regardless of this, AUSU wants to do more press releases in the future to respond to issues as they arise.

The meeting moved on to the monthly reports.  The President’s report discussed the recent Town Hall meeting with AU President Neil Fassina.  President Simmons said that the experience was positive, even though the number of attendees was unpredictable due to the parking situation in Edmonton near the AU office as well as the timing of the Town Hall, which was in the middle of the day.  However, it was well attended both by those physically at the gathering and also who listened in by telephone.  President Simmons said that for him, the highlight was meeting the very first AUSU president.  He enjoyed chatting about how things were done in 1992 versus now, with technology such as Skype and Zoom.  President Simmons said that he wants more face to face interaction and AU wants to do the same with their meetings so they can visually bring people together.  He feels the new format will do wonders for AUSU’s working relationship.

Also of note, the Vice President External report focused on the recent Faculty of Business meeting and the many initiatives that AU is working on, including a virtual Co-op placement that will see AU Business students working through various scenarios to give them practical soft skills as they exit AU and enter the workforce.

The rest of the AUSU Executive are also working on many different initiatives that will make the AU student experience better, especially in forging connections between students and AU.  They also noted that the new AUSU podcast has launched, and Council invites everyone to listen to the first episode.  It’s only thirty minutes long, so it would be a great student study break! Council is excited that it is up and running after a lot of planning.  But the podcast does not yet have a name.  Hopefully it will soon! The next episode will be recorded at the CASA Annual General Meeting.

Finally, there was a question from the floor regarding concerns for the cuts to post-secondary education in Ontario under the Ford government.  AUSU has had some developments here, notably getting together with many Ontario schools to create a document to send to the Ontario government, but the cuts will be a major part of the discussion at the CASA Annual General Meeting in Halifax.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM.

The next meetings of council will be on Thursday, April 11^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST, and Thursday, May 9^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST

The first order of business was a review of current action items.  The only item on this month’s agenda was to relate to council that the final auditor copy of the budget had been signed and completed, and an email vote by the AUSU Executive was completed, which concluded the ratification of the AUSU budget.

Council then moved to its new business.  President Brandon Simmons noted that the upcoming Executive election will take place at 5 pm MST on Thursday, March 7^th, 2019.  The Executive Election is held just among council members, where all of AUSU Council will vote on which three members will be their leaders.

The next major section of new business was a motion to move the meeting in-camera to discuss some sensitive business regarding a member of the council.  During an in-camera session, those attendees at the meeting who are not on the current council will be asked to leave the meeting during the discussion and will be invited to rejoin the meeting to observe the decisions and any motions arising from the closed discussion.

The motion to move in-camera was defeated unanimously, with it noted that councillors felt no need to discuss the upcoming motion further.

The subsequent proposed motion, which was to respectfully dismiss councillor Darcie Fleming from AUSU Council for accruing two or more full absences from council and committee meetings without sufficient notice in a twelve-month period, by being absent from the November 14th, 2018, and February 5th, 2019, Finance Committee meetings, was then brought forward and voted on by secret ballot as per AUSU policy.  This motion was defeated by the secret ballot vote, with 1 aye, 11 nay ballots received.  There was no further discussion by council.

The meeting immediately moved to its next piece of business, which was regarding policy changes to several awards and bursaries.  The “#IGoToAU” award has been made a permanent award after its initial trial.  Executive Director, Jodi Campbell, noted that this award was designed to reflect the current culture and work that AU is doing now.  President Simmons asked for clarification about the “#IGoToAU” permanent award name when this was also the title of a previous AUSU contest.  Jodi Campbell said that the awards committee decided to keep the award name as well as the hashtag.  They wanted the award to have an online feel to it, and the video component to the award would give it a relevant and ‘trendy” feel.  This award is very much a student engagement award.

The awards committee has started to use the hashtag more to engage students more and create a feeling of AU pride which would hopefully lead more student involvement.  Communications and Member Services Coordinator, Donette Kingyens, also noted that this award was different than the awards associated with “professional” faculties and occupations and so the hashtag gave this award a more modern vibe than professional awards.  Jodi Campbell added that this award also takes advantage of the branding that AU and AUSU has undertaken in the past two years.

In other award news, the computer bursary was changed from a possible twelve to fourteen awards but with a slightly decreased amount available per award, as computer bursaries are the highest used awards.  Hopefully, this change will mean that more AU students can be helped by this bursary.

Additionally, the amount of money available for Emergency Bursary awards was reduced from $6,000 to $4,000, however it was noted that applications for the Emergency Bursary have never topped $3,000 in a year, so it was felt that reducing the total available to $4,000 left in enough room for any applications that might come forward, while freeing up money for other uses in awards, such as the now permanent #IGoToAU award.

The next section of the meeting were the councillor reports.  President Simmons highlighted the recent Executive retreat that was very successful with goal-setting and planning.  He also highlighted AUSU’s role in helping Ontario advocacy, which took the form of participation in a letter signed by many post-secondary student councils across Canada which was sent to Ontario Premier Doug Ford listing concerns to changes of post-secondary funding in that province.

The Vice-President and External Affairs report discussed AU’s comprehensive course review that is underway.  Some courses have been dropped and some will be dropped in the future, and some new courses are in the process of being created.  However, the course review and subsequent course creation process will happen over a long-time frame.  It was also noted that AU is seeking to open up new programs, with both the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Faculty of Science in the process of creating or submitting proposals for new programs and courses, but no results should be expected from this process before 2020.

VPEX Melinda Goertz also noted that AUSU is in the process of revamping its website and logo and that council should stay tuned for developments.  AUSU’s new Podcast is under production and new episodes have been recorded and will be released when they are ready.

Executive Director Jodi Campbell’s report affirmed President Simmons’ pride in the recent retreat, saying that he was really happy with outcome and positive intention.  AUSU is making improved communication with students a priority and is creating many new initiatives to reach that goal.  He also noted that AUSU has now received its first new members list. This is something with a long history at AUSU, as the lists that AU has been willing to give to AUSU previously about its own members have been lacking in a lot of detail that AUSU could use to personalize how they deal with various members. One example was that the new list will let AUSU see what students are new to the university but are not just visiting students, so AUSU can provide them with more information about the services they might want to access from AUSU.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 PM.

The next AUSU meetings are:

Thursday, March 14^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST

Thursday, April 11^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST

All of the AUSU Councillors were in attendance, with the exception of Lisa Oracheski, who was ill.  After the initial meeting protocols, including acknowledgement of the land, adopting the November minutes and January’s agenda, the meeting’s discussion got underway.  The first major part of Council business was to announce the findings of the recent audit of AUSU’s finances.  Chad Knippel, a partner of accounting firm Kingston Ross Panak (KRP), presented a detailed summary of the audit findings.

AUSU worked hard during the past few years to get its finances to a stable position and the recent audit showed that this goal was achieved.  Knippel gave a thorough explanation of the auditing process, and explained that the audit was comprehensive and looked at every aspect of AUSU’s finances.  While the mandate was to look for any risky situations that would indicate a possibility of fraud, the scope of the audit would not home in on individual fraudulent transactions.  To get the audit process underway, Executive Director Jodi Campbell signed off on a full disclosure document that agreed that AUSU would hold nothing back and provide all the required information to the auditors.

The overall result was that AUSU’s financial picture is in great shape and is in a healthy position for the future.  In fact, the increased enrollment at AU means that AUSU will have increased future revenue and projected income.  The only risk that was flagged was regarding any issues that Athabasca University was having because AUSU is dependent on AU and are tied together as organizations.  This interdependency required a disclosure statement.

The audit findings were moved by Amanda Lipinski and seconded by Joshua Ryan, with a unanimous vote passing the motion.  KRP was then appointed AUSU’s financial auditor for the 2018-19 financial year, with Sarah Blaney Lew and Amanda Lipinski moving and seconding the motion.

The next point of discussion was regarding the ratification of the contract with LinkedIn Learning for the Lynda.cm service.  In the past few months, there had been some concern about renewing the partnership with Lynda.com because of the escalating costs of the subscription.  However, both AUSU and AU recognized the value of Lynda.com to AU’s learning community and both want the subscription to continue while finding a way to fund it in light of the cost increases.  It was noted that perhaps one direction that AU could take was to find a way to better utilize Lynda and incorporate it into more of AU’s courses to benefit more students.

Melinda Goertz shred some exciting news with the rest of Council regarding AUSU’s proposal to host a regular podcast.  The idea for a podcast project came about because Council realized that it would be a fun, flexible communication tool to share information and build a relationship with AU students.  Since AU uses technology as a primary means to provide its courses and services, a podcast ties in with this mindset and will let the AU community get to know AUSU.  Another goal of the podcast is to build a rapport between Councillors and the AU community.  Councillor Goertz said that podcasts are incredibly versatile and can be listened to remotely whenever the listener finds it most convenient, much like studying with AU itself.  AUSU is in the process of finding out how to best implement this project, including the initial equipment and software costs.  Setup costs were estimated to be around the $1000 mark, with monthly costs being about $30/month. Council unanimously approved going forward with this project, with Councillor Goertz emphasizing that there will be advertising before the initial episode airs to get students interested in listening, and Council will monitor and evaluate its success after it has been implemented.  Stay tuned for the launch, which is currently planned to happen during the next Executive retreat!

Another piece of good news was to announce the appointment of several AU students to the new AUSU Student Advisory Committee.  The successful candidates are: Jennifer Bouley, Jon-Paul Hare, Christopher Hinbest, Landon King, Katy Lowe, Michele Mrkvan, Lionel Pinkhard, Giovanni Serebro, Zdenka Slavikova, and Raphael Ugobi, with AUSU President Brandon Simmons as the committee chair.  The candidates come from a variety of faculties with representation from each.  The term begins immediately and ends on September 30^th, 2019.  Congratulations to all the committee members!

Although Councillors had a lightened workload due to the break, several important points were raised during the presentation of their reports.

President Simmons related his experience of advocating for AU students at the recent CASA conference held in Ottawa.  Another issue which is looming large for both AU and AUSU is the Alberta Government’s Bill 19, the bill that changes the Post-Secondary Learning Act.  AUSU is still working on unpacking and analyzing how the bill will affect students.  There were lots of presentations and discussions about the bill at AU’s most recent Board of Governors meeting.  However, one bright spot in the legislation is that Athabasca University is now the only Alberta university specifically named in the legislation which is very good, as this works to safeguard AU’s future as a separate and distinct entity from the other Alberta post-secondary institutions, an issue that was previously a concern since there were rumors during AU’s troubles that some consideration was being given to folding AU into one of the other universities in the province.  President Simmons noted that this will also help to maintain AU’s research status.

It was also noted in the report of the Vice-President External and Student Affairs’ Melinda Goertz, that the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science is looking toward establishing programs for a research based Master’s of Psychology, a Bachelors of  Philosophy, and a Bachelors in Environmental Science, and that AUSU will be updating their website once again, this time with the help of the same firm that recently upgraded The Voice Magazine.

The meeting wrapped up at 8:01 PM.  February’s meeting will include the results of AUSU’s annual survey of services.  This year’s survey had 1123 responses, which is the most responses ever received by AUSU for a survey.

Tuesday, February 19^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST – Public Meeting

Thursday, March 14^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST – Public Meeting

But people’s relationship with alcohol goes back further than one might imagine.  In fact, it starts at the earliest point of human civilization.  The theory goes that if it wasn’t for alcohol, we humans wouldn’t be who we are today, because the fermentation of grain or fruit made water safe to drink, free from the pathogens that would kill us otherwise.  Alcohol also created an efficient source of calories in early diets, which helped humans develop the brain and body power that gave homo sapiens an advantage over other species.  Another theory is that early on, people recognized that alcohol made them happy and helped to create a shared experience that forged close societal bonds.

Nevertheless, the patterns of alcohol consumption throughout history show that there has always been both positive and negative perspectives about it.  The positive aspects of booze range from being associated with artistic inspiration, happy celebrations, and even an integral part of cultures themselves.  Just imagine the Scots without whiskey,  the Caribbean without rum, or the French without Champagne! Conversely, drinking alcohol—especially to the point of becoming drunk—has been viewed throughout history as a vice, not a virtue, and much research has been devoted to the subject.  The attitudes that looked down on the notorious drunken feasts of ancient Rome carried on through the ages in some form or another and persist today.  Drunkenness in women was something that was especially frowned upon.  Various religious groups throughout the world, from Muslims to Mormons, also condemn alcohol, and the scourge of drunkenness was behind the Prohibition and Temperance movements.

This doesn’t mean we have shunned alcohol.  Far from it.  Unlike the vice of smoking, which has become the pariah of habits in western society (thanks to government and health campaigns making it far less attractive than it used to be) similar measures have not been applied to alcohol.  In fact, the availability of alcohol and the amount of advertising for booze has significantly increased from the late twentieth century until now, most notably a large increase in stealth advertising for alcoholic beverages through sponsorship deals for cultural and sporting events.  It is almost unfathomable to think that Big Tobacco would be allowed to sponsor such events these days, but, somehow, alcohol has become more normalized than it ever was, and this trend shows no sign of stopping.

Because alcohol is an easily obtainable and legal drug, it is seen as an acceptable way to self- medicate for busy and stressed people.  From the harangued mother who needs a glass of wine after the kids are in bed, to the career professional who sees cracking open a cold one a necessary part of networking—and yes, this includes the phenomenon of “patio season”– alcohol is the drug of choice for many, and its acceptance seems to be growing in popularity with the widespread use of caffeine.  Even the internet is full of memes glorifying alcohol, typified by the jokes about “wine o’clock” or “beer-thirty.”

But this is not to say that the consumption of alcohol is without its cautions.  According to studies by the Social Institute Research Centre and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, binge-drinking is increasing at an alarming rate, especially  among women and youth.  Even the perception of alcohol is changing dramatically: to where most people feel no shame at all at consuming alcohol either in public or in their home.  Despite the studies warning people against the dangers of over-consumption, there is a lot of confusing research. Some is about how much is too much, with another equally large body of research saying that regularly imbibing has a lot of health benefits.  So, who do we believe?

Again, there is not an easy answer.  It all seems to boil down to personal choice and personal values.  The general advice seems to be to stick within the medically accepted guidelines for weekly units of alcohol and try to have more days per week that you are alcohol-free versus those days where you do have a drink.  The generally-accepted advice tends to agree that if you feel that your alcohol consumption is getting out of control, making you feel like you’re having health, financial or relationship issues directly caused by your drinking, you should seek professional help.

Of course, this all seems like common sense—we should automatically know this.  And yet, somehow, sensibilities get overridden by the allure of alcohol.  But let me ask you this; could you go for an entire month without drinking? That may just be a really huge ask—and for many people, it seems almost impossible without a great deal of difficulty.  But having a dry month is behind a campaign by the UK charity Alcohol Concern, that calls for people to have a break from the sauce for thirty continuous days.  Although this might seem like just another marketing campaign by a charity, it is gaining momentum partly due to national print, radio and television ads in the British media.  Medical professionals are also giving wholehearted support to the campaign because they are seeing an alarming increase in liver problems and addiction.

But is this campaign really necessary?  Or is it just another tactic designed create a lot of guilt about the lifestyle choices that people make? The short answer is: it depends.  The problem with alcohol (pun intended) is that prevailing attitudes toward it depend on the society and culture that one belongs to.  But no matter how you personally view alcohol, the fact remains that it is still mainly identified as a drug with side effects—not just a beverage.  If you are going to drink alcohol, please do so responsibly.

[Still looking for a New Year’s resolution?  This student-voted article, first published at the beginning of August, might be just the idea you were searching for!  A somewhat deeper dive into a topic, I enjoy getting this type of article in my mailbox, and so it’s great to see that they resonate with Voice readers as well.]

After the adoption of the last month’s meeting minutes and this month’s agenda,  Council began to discuss the current action items.

The first item was the cancellation of the current proposal for the AU student bookstore that had been in the works for the past several years.  AUSU had been working closely with the staff and administration of AU and was a major contributor to formulating the policy that would give AU students more choice in how they would purchase their course texts and in what format, something that AU students have been anticipating for a long time.  AUSU President Brandon Simmons related the news that the original way that AU was looking to create the bookstore was not going to work, according to AU, so the student bookstore plan has been shelved until another viable solution can be reached.  President Simmons said that a meeting with AU’s Provost was scheduled for the Friday following the meeting, and both Council and AU’s working group will be continuing to work hard to find a workable plan to implement a student bookstore.

The next items were the second reading of the bylaw revisions as well as the fiscal policy revisions that AUSU has been undertaking during the past several months.  Past Council meetings have enabled people to share their views, so no further thoughts or issues with the current state of the bylaw revisions were brought forward at this meeting.  Natasha Donahue, the VP of Finance and Administration, gave an overview of the improved financial policy and President Simmons highlighted one particular point of the policy, regarding what restricted funds are and how they are used.  He said that reserves are not defined only as investment accounts, but instead refer to any funds not expected to be needed for normal operations over the year.

The bulk of AUSU’s excess funds are in investment accounts but they are also held in restricted funds, and some also function as operating accounts.  Reserve funds exist to make sure the funds go to where they are needed, such as to The Voice, but also maximise the use of funds.  If loss of revenue or changes from AU should occur, then these funds serve as a cushion.  Spreadsheets will keep track of these funds and where they are designated to.  It is up to council to keep these spreadsheets up to date.  All councillors were in favour of the fiscal policy, and both revisions were adopted with no objections.

The next section of the meeting led to the bulk of the meeting’s discussion time.  AUSU council sought to approve the removal of all position policies from the AUSU website and also approves the development of an internal position policies document.  VP Donahue provided some background to this action item, noting that Council have been in discussions about this matter since last summer.  The alternative to public position policies are press releases, which are used by other schools to, in part, eliminate having to maintain position policies.  Position policies would still exist but would be only internal, which would give perspective to council, as well as inform advocacy and hold the research on background information.

AUSU researched other position policies as well as CASA policies.  Council’s ultimate goal is to create an actual, formalized policy manual.  Voice Editor Karl Low brought up a point at the beginning of the meeting, during the new open question period that Council has added for students and other members who want to bring up their thoughts about items on the agenda before the actual meeting takes place, that public documents can provide bargaining leverage.

Councillor Julian Teterenko noted that he felt the policies should not be removed from website until there is something to replace it, as the initial motion suggested removing it while the new policy manual was developed and agreed that students also need to be able to see the positions of AUSU.

Councillor Alice Namu gave her view that she does not support the move in the interest of transparency and access to information, and pointed out that because of AU’s distance learning format, it has enough barriers already when it comes to the access to information compared to other institutions, especially when thinking of AU’s student demographic.  However, Executive Director Jodi Campbell noted that they had heard in their investigations on this issue that position policies can be misinterpreted and can put a student union at risk when it is questioned about what a position really means.  Another point he noted is that “Part of the concept of best practice is also mitigating risk.  We don’t want to have a differing policy from CASA as it can cause issues too with that conflict.” He went on to say that best practice, and what AUSU strives to do, is also responding to situations in the moment as they arise.  He summed up his position by saying, “The decision that AUSU is taking is based on industry best practice and with lots of consultation as to what is happening across industry.”

VP Student and External Affairs Melinda Goertz assured the rest of Council that Governance and Advocacy Coordinator Emmanuel Barker, working with the AUSU Executive, has done due diligence in researching the stance that Council is attempting to take, and reiterated that most student organizations are not publicly posting these documents, which are designed to be internal.  The question was again asked whether it’s necessary to open up any council to possible external scrutiny.  However, many other Councillors were not satisfied with this approach.

The discussion between Councillors continued for some time and debated the merits of position policies versus any replacements such as press releases or other public disclosures.  Some of the points raised were that press releases on their own can lead to confusion, and whether CASA policy itself can be misinterpreted.  Another point said that removing the policy from the website could lead to accusations of non-transparency.

Despite the conversation around this issue appearing to not make any headway among Councillors, this was not the case.  Executive Director Jodi Campbell said that he was pleased to see so much engagement and discussion, and that this issue reflects the larger one of community engagement and the necessity for any organization to build robust policy.  On the whole, Council executive was hopeful that a suitable solution will be found.  One solution that was put forward, that seemed to meet the agreement of most Councillors, was to develop the fuller policy manual, with the research and reasoning included as suggested, but to limit what was placed on the website to final action point of the policy, the “Be It Resolved That” section, as this would address the points of mitigation of risk, availability to students, transparency, and others.  The current motion, which had to be voted on as it was written on the agenda, was unanimously voted against, and Council agreed to revisit it in future.

November’s executive reports also resulted in discussion and many points raised, in part because the timing of the meeting meant that reports had to be in before the last few days of the month, and a significant amount of work happened in those few days. The President’s report highlighted the Alberta Government’s recent announcement of Bill 19, where President Simmons was able to attend.  Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt recently announced that there was going to be another year of academic tuition freeze, where tuition for domestic students cannot be raised higher than the consumer price index (CPI).  This will be put into legislation.  Another piece in the government’s legislation is that international students will receive the quote for their fees up front.  The government has not typically applied the terminology of “domestic students” to mean non-Albertan students.  He noted also that what happens to Alberta tuition helps to set the standard for what happens for out of province students in other regions as well, meaning that this legislation was of significant importance.

In addition, President Simmons highlighted the work in getting a replacement for Student Lifeline, especially with Mental Health support.  A lot of work was done to try to ensure that AU was ready for the release and was able to get all that in place and do a Facebook live event to go over everything happening with the new program.

Vice President Finance and Student Affairs Melinda Goertz attended the Alberta Student Executive Council (ASEC) conference as a visitor, ASEC is primarily colleges and polytechnic institutes rather than full universities.  Two priorities emerged from the conference: an increase of funding for open education resources, and, transparency of government funding and spending.  She noted that she had a few concerns with the operational functionality of ASEC, but she needed to gather more information so couldn’t make an official recommendation yet.

VPFA Natasha Donahue highlighted the need for Indigenous student support at AU.  She was working with the transition to AU’s mental health program from AUSU’s and provided input to their student guide and marketing materials, and noted that it hasn’t been the smoothest initiative.  She also was involved with a project to make a video for the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services about dealing with sexual violence.  She was able to share thoughts on questions the association was talking about as a representative for AUSU.  She was glad that AU got to contribute.  The #IBelieveYou campaign is funded by the government of Alberta, and in 2018 AU was the last organization to join in as the others did the year before.  She also noted that this was an initiative pushed first by Councillor Lisa Oracheski, and it was great to have been able to carry it to AU so that they can be directly involved in the coming years.

The meeting was then adjourned.

There is currently no scheduled meeting for December, and it is expected there won’t be one unless something urgent arises, so the next meeting is currently scheduled for Thursday, January 10^th, 2019, 6:30pm MST.  All students are invited and can go to https://www.ausu.org/event/january-2019-council-meeting/ or contact ausu@ausu.org for more information.

There are two other unions at AU; the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) represents support staff, and the Canadian Union of Provincial Employees (CUPE) represents tutors and academic experts.  CUPE recently settled a new agreement, and AUPE contract talks are ongoing.

In the past, when AU and AUFA negotiated and could not come to agreement, the matter was referred to arbitration.  A neutral third party, the arbitrator, would look at the offers and decide which would be incorporated into the new agreement.

According to Dr. Bob Barnetson, AU’s Labour Relations professor who has been heavily involved in several contract negotiations at AU over the years, AUFA has had its offer—not AU’s—chosen by the arbitrator as the more reasonable offer the last three times that contract talks reached arbitration.

In 2017, the government changed Alberta’s labour laws in response to a Supreme Court ruling on the freedom to associate.  One change is that any bargaining impasse between AUFA and AU is now normally resolved through strike and lockout.

For those who are not familiar with what happens with aspects of union negotiations, a strike is when workers refuse to come to work to pressure the employer to accept the union’s offer.  On the other hand, a lockout is when the employer says workers cannot work (and so won’t get paid) to pressure the workers to accept the employer’s offer.  It is possible to have either a strike or a lockout or both a strike and lockout at the same time, but it is a difficult and complex dynamic to explain.

Dr. Barnetson told The Voice that collective bargaining between AUFA and AU has been going on since late April, before the current contract expired, but talks have not progressed to the point of finding a resolution and ratifying a new contract.  AUFA is seeking a small wage increase, mostly to offset inflation, as well as better protection of professionals’ freedom of expression, a spousal hiring clause, and reducing the use of contract workers.

However, Dr. Barnetson said that AU is seeking a two-year wage freeze and roll backs such as appeal committees being stacked in favour of the employer (which is AU), the elimination of most professional freedom protections, and new provision which will give the employer the ability to send sick members to company doctors for assessment.  He notes that these proposals are viewed by the faculty as provocative, especially since AU’s revenues are up and the university is in a healthier position now than it has been.  Dr. Barnetson said that AU’s attempt to weaponize sick leave is particularly contentious because of the underlying implication of questioning when and why employees take time off work and setting limits on sick leave.

Dr. Barnetson notes that the current status of contract talks is that bargaining has gone on throughout the summer and is not producing any real results.  AUFA’s assessment is that AU is stalling in the expectation that AUFA won’t strike and will eventually cave in.  Other settlements with contracts in the public sector are two years of zero wage increases but improvements in the language within the contracts, according to Dr. Barnetson.  He notes that these other contract examples should form a template for a contract settlement deal at AU but he says that finding a settlement resolution seems to be difficult because of what he calls “totally unrealistic wage freezes and major language rollbacks.”

To get bargaining moving, AUFA members are engaging in “days of action,” such as hallway posters and social media postings.  This is designed to attach costs, mostly reputational and social, to the employers stalling on finding a resolution.  As the costs to AU escalate, the Faculty Association hopes to pressure AU to negotiate instead of the “surface bargaining” or going through the motions, that Dr. Barnetson says they have been engaged in up until now.  He notes that “So far we’ve been pretty polite and low key about this.”

The Voice also reached out to AU President Dr. Neil Fassina and asked about his perspective on negotiations.  In a lengthy emailed response to The Voice’s questions, President Fassina says that:

“The bargaining process is progressing as AU had anticipated. The University has designated a bargaining team and has given them a mandate and the full authority to make decisions on behalf of the University. I can speak with confidence in describing the University’s team as willing and empowered to negotiate fairly, transparently, and in good faith on all issues at the table. To this end, the University’s team continues to approach each session of bargaining well prepared and proactive in adapting and amending the University’s proposals during each bargaining session. The University has been fully transparent about its in-going proposal and the rationale behind each item. So much so that the University shared its proposal early in the bargaining process. In all cases, the University has put forward proposals that it believes are in the best interest of the members of the Faculty Association and the University, but more than anything in the best interest of our learners.”

Dr. Fassina also says that “[Voice] Readers should know that the bargaining environment is different now than it has been in Alberta’s history. The introduction of Bill 7 in 2017 created an environment in which a strike or lockout is a possible. As a result, it is anticipated that this would weigh heavily on the minds and shoulders of all members of the bargaining team.”

The Voice asked Dr. Fassina about whether the current political climate in Alberta, as well as the distance learning format of Athabasca University, has any bearing on the negotiation process. Dr Fassina said that “I do not believe that our Open environment has a direct impact on the bargaining environment other than recognizing that some of the things the University and Faculty Association talk about in bargaining might be different than you might expect in a place-based university environment. AU is thankful for the support given to us by Minister Schmidt and the other members of the Government and Alberta Public Service toward our very positive future. With each step and decision, the University endeavors to allocate the resources provided to it by the Province and through student tuition in the most effective and supportive way possible toward achieving learners’ personal goals.”

Dr. Jolene Armstrong, who is president of the AUFA, and a key negotiator, echoed this sentiment. “I’m not sure about the distributed workplace necessarily being a barrier to effective bargaining, but since this is the first time bargaining under the new legislation, I guess we’ll find out. I think that over the past few years, AUFA has worked very hard to cement the solidarity of the membership, and more recently members have really come out in support of its bargaining team. It’s an exciting time, as we’re basically inventing how to collectively bargain in a brand new lockout/strike regime in a distributed work force. There really aren’t many models to look to. I think there’s a tendency to feel rather singled out in terms of the various pressures that faculty face at AU. But then you attend other labour conferences and you talk to people from across Canada and you realize that the pressure and challenges we are facing are pretty much universal.”

Dr. Armstrong also felt optimistic about the current political climate in Alberta, which affects university funding, but noted that AU will take time to recover from years of post-secondary cutbacks. “I think that the funding troubles that we are experiencing are due to a legacy of unstable, unpredictable funding under forty years of conservative governments. The cuts were brutal, and the damage is still felt today. I don’t think institutions ever really recovered, even when things became more stable. So many people were laid off, and worse than that was the inability of institutions to be able to plan because the funding was so unpredictable. The last couple of years under the NDP have been a bit of a relief, but it will take many more years of stable and incremental funding increases to recover what has been lost due to those bad years. AU has unique challenges dues to its heavy reliance on IT, and the fact that a larger proportion of our students are from out of province and, to date, no government  has been willing to address these funding challenges that are specific to AU  despite numerous attempts on the part of the university administrations to find a sympathetic ear and convince the government to address what amounts to a pretty serious inequity in the funding for AU.”

For those who don’t know, what Dr. Armstrong is talking about is how the Alberta government allocates funding to universities in part based on how many Alberta students that university serves.  The government does not provide funding for out of province students, but rather allows post-secondary institutions to charge whatever fees they feel appropriate. However, AU has, in the past, felt that increasing these fees to the full cost of delivering the course would make them uncompetitive.

While Dr. Fassina is unable to discuss specifics about the process, citing confidentiality and  respect for negotiating in good faith, he  wishes to highlight that “the current negotiations have given me and other members of the University’s leadership team a chance to continue demonstrating our willingness to be as transparent as possible as we respond to many of the tough questions that come out of bargaining. As we transform our university for the betterment of learners and society overall, transparency is and will continue to be paramount.”

Dr. Barnetson said that at present, bargaining is continuing and there is no talk of a strike or a lockout. If there is no resolution to contract negotiations, eventually there will be an impasse where further bargaining is pointless. The worst-case scenario for the AU community is that a strike or lockout takes place. This would affect employees but would also trickle down to students as many AU services require AUFA members to function. The process of a work stoppage is laborious and only occurs after all avenues of mediation and negotiation are exhausted and a strike vote and notice to strike are issued.  Dr. Fassina noted that in the unlikely event that negotiations are not successful in creating a mutually agreeable result, the Labour Code provides for the potential for a strike or a lockout. In either of these cases, the University would go out of its way to continue supporting students in their learning journey. Before either a strike or a lockout could take place, there is a series of steps that must be taken by each of the parties involved.

Dr. Armstrong also hopes it doesn’t come to that [a strike or lockout], and says that AU’s faculty bargaining team is working very hard to achieve a fair agreement.

But if a work stoppage should occur, will students be affected? “In the short term, yes. But in the long term, they will benefit from the types of gains, or protections that faculty might be willing to walk over—consider that if a labour dispute occurs, it will be over something really serious, and often over protecting core academic values or about attempts to improve working conditions that have degenerated so badly that it is difficult for effective teaching and research to take place. I think that what needs to be avoided at all costs are wedges between bargaining units, and this includes the students’ unions. After all, the faculty’s teaching conditions are the students’ learning conditions. How close are we to a labour dispute at AU? Without a crystal ball, it’s hard to say, so while things have not been going particularly well at the table, there is still a lot of time left, and anything can happen that would bring the parties to an agreement.”

Dr. Fassina’s response was also optimistic about the outcome. “While the worst case is difficult to define due to the complexity of the bargaining process and potential outcomes, is important to highlight that the University continues to approach bargaining proactively, transparently, and willing to find a mutually agreeable settlement in the best interest of the students, the faculty association, and the university. Given our current context, I do not see us moving toward a work stoppage.”

How can AU students show their support for the teaching faculty and other university staff who are engaged in contract negotiations? Dr. Armstrong said “We would love to hear from the students’ unions and create opportunities for discussion and support. I think it’s too easy to say that the staff’s concerns are divergent from the students’ concerns, but I think that is an oversimplification of the issue. I think students do care about the working conditions of their professors, tutors, and the professional staff that provide various supports for students. I think that they do care about the kind of institution that they are earning a degree from. I think that once the students connect to the idea that if faculty are being treated poorly, or if academic principles are being compromised, then their learning is compromised, the students will see that that has a direct effect on their learning goals. I think it could be empowering to students to support the learning environment that their professors work within, and this includes the many professional staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes.

Dr. Fassina also gave his assurances to students by saying “The best perspective I can provide is to be patient during what is a fairly typical bargaining process. Moreover, integral to the University’s commitment to transparency is the premise of responding to facts and not rumours; therefore, the University is committed to open and honest communication within the confines of the collective bargaining process.  Therefore, if learners hear rumors or facts that are concerning, feel free to connect with the University and we can seek to confirm, clarify or dispel any information floating around.”

The latest update to the bargaining process from Dr. Barnetson is that bargaining has gone on for five months and the teams have met for 10 or so days of bargaining and, in his words, “There has been basically no progress.” He goes on to say that every other public sector agreement is coming in with two years of wage freezes, a wage re-opener for year three, and language improvements for the workers. AU continues to offer a two-year freeze and massive language roll backs, which are unacceptable to AUFA members. If there is to be a work stoppage, the likely timeline for it would probably be next spring (April or May) which reflects the necessary steps to get to that point and is also during the next provincial election.

The Voice hopes to provide updates to this story as they occur.

Beginning with this meeting and continuing forward is a change of format to the agenda.  Meetings will begin with a question and answer period so that observers to the meeting, especially those from outside AUSU, can ask for clarification on agenda items.  This change will hopefully increase engagement and communication in the monthly meetings.

The next section of the meeting was the review of action items.  President Brandon Simmons and Executive Director Jodi Campbell noted that the Voice website was not capturing analytics with the “clicks” received each week.  The error was noticed fairly recently, but steps are being taken to correct it.  Capturing the all-important analytics has turned into a more manual process by Voice editor Karl Low, but the process will be corrected.  Overall, downloads of the Voice pdf were down, but Jodi Campbell noted that “This is because the new Voice website is now so good that it makes it easy for people to read it online without having to download it.”

The continuing process of bylaw revision encompassed the bulk of the meeting.  AUSU hosted a student consultation on the bylaw revisions but a communication glitch meant that the teleconference was not as publicized as much as it could have been.  Councillors have had some interesting discussions on the bylaw revisions during the course of this process.  Most of the revisions have been around editing and simplifying the wording.  In general, the procedures themselves were considered solid.  Councillors thought that the revisions looked good and left the bylaws in a positive position for future councils.  During the November meeting, the bylaw revisions will have a second reading and with a successful vote, will be successfully passed.

However, the policy regarding reimbursement of travel and related expenses for councillors required more revision and clarification, especially regarding legal ramifications for alternative arrangements and extended travel.  AUSU sought legal advice about this policy to make councillors aware of their obligations with travel for council and compensation for official AUSU business.  All councillors agreed with the revised policy.

An exciting development for AUSU is the creation of a Student Advisory Committee, which is an entirely new initiative.  AUSU wishes to seek out the broader opinion of its members to provide input and feedback to council on its policies and operations.  Membership in this new committee would be entirely voluntary and without honorarium.  As President Simmons noted, “There will be work with the committee but hopefully there will be a lot of interest and people will get involved.” However, Alice Namu asked whether there should be some kind of compensation for members’ time and effort.  President Simmons said that this would be difficult, as an honorarium is normally based on meetings and it is difficult to predict how much work the committee will do.  He said that the work will not be as demanding as what is involved with being a councillor but will be a great experience and great to put on a resume.  The SAC is going to be designed to be less work than a regular AUSU committee.  Jodi Campbell added to these points by saying that in designing the SAC, council spent a lot of time discussing honorariums but, with this committee, the workload and commitment is very low, perhaps four times a year at most.  However, he pointed out that “volunteer appreciation is vital and AUSU will recognize that in some way because AUSU will be grateful for student participation and would still have access to student bursaries and awards.”

AUSU has also revised its social media strategy and goal-setting with the various platforms.  Councillors all agreed with the policy.

The next main section of the meeting was highlighting the Executive Reports.  President Simmons spoke positively about what he has been involved with over the past month or so.  He attended the Board of Governors retreat and had a much more positive experience this time.  The last time he attended, AU was without a permanent president but now AU is growing and the AU executive team is hopeful about the university’s future.  The executive team also appears to be more willing to listen to students’ concerns than ever before.  Melinda Goertz, Vice President External and Student Affairs, echoed the president’s sentiments.  She also attended the Board of Governors retreat and noted that there was a lot of brainstorming about provincial policies and their implications for Athabasca University.  AU needs to play a larger role in provincial advocacy because the largest part of the student body is based in Alberta, but the decisions that the Alberta government makes has a knock-on effect to AU students elsewhere.  Students can expect to hear more from AUSU on this matter, especially as the upcoming Alberta provincial election draws closer.  There has also been lots of discussion within AU regarding fulfilling the needs of Indigenous students.

Natasha Donohue, AUSU Vice President of Finance and Administration, attended AU’s first star party in September.  The weather was not great for star-gazing but two-hundred people showed up and there were lots of meeting and greeting and children’s activities.  AU hopes this will become an annual event that will draw more tourism to the town of Athabasca and highlight the Aurora study department.

Jodi Campbell formally welcomed back Donette Kingyens to her duties, and said that she really is the “backbone” of AUSU.  The new AUSU survey will be executed very soon.  Also, the new round of award applications is now live and are a great student benefit.  There was no real update to the replacement of Student Lifeline.  AUSU is still working hard at replacing the service and getting it going for students.

Donette Kingyens reported that there was low engagement with the AUSU LinkedIn page and Council was hoping to improve that.  However, engagement on social media was “really great” in some areas, but other areas’ engagement was very low.  The goal of council is to increase student engagement on all platforms.

Councillor Darcie Fleming asked about AU’s volunteer appreciation policy.  There is not policy currently in place, and thought it would be a good idea to have one.  AUSU, in conjunction with AU want to produce more volunteer opportunities and the recent star party was indicative of that.  It is something that AUSU should revisit in the future.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 PM.  The next meetings are on Thursday, November 8^th 2018 at Thursday, December 13^th at 2018.  Both meetings start at 6:30 PM MST and all are welcome to attend by teleconference.