One-off comment lacks insight and knowledge
I'd like to address a comment made in the
last issue of the Interrobang. In Question of
the Week — Do you plan on voting in the SAC
election? section a student was quoted as
saying, "No, they make fake promises and
never follow through with anything said."
I'd like to address the comment by sharing with you the promises my team and I have made and the results we have delivered thus far.
Last March, in my campaign I promised to improve our community relations, communications and sustainable efforts at Fanshawe. Those were the three overarching initiatives I brought forward this year. Let's break it down.
Community Relations
Our community includes the college community, the London community and the province at large. Within the college, we are continuing our charity efforts, which included another successful Shinerama campaign. The United Way campaign is just starting up, and this year's goal for Fanshawe is to raise $100,000. FSU is involved in a few initiatives as part of this campaign, including the chili cook-off and the annual stair climb at 1 London Place. You will see many more campaigns coming this year, such as Movember, 1,000 Acts of Kindness and the Fanshawe Student Union charity ball.
We are also big supporters of Fanshawe's Sharing Shop, which helps students in need find food, clothing and many other items free of charge. This month I have also been in contact with Western's University Student Council and hope to meet their council sometime in October. We will be discussing how we may be able to work together in the future.
Our provincial community involves the other colleges in Ontario. We are part of the College Student Alliance and are heavily involved in the organization so Fanshawe students are proudly represented in the province. We have seats on three of CSA's five committees. Vice-president internal Veronica Barahona sits on CSA's board of governors as the representative for all southwest Ontario colleges, a position held by Fanshawe last year as well (myself, during my VP finance term). We are hosting a provincial conference here in London in a week's time, and are bringing over 100 student leaders from Ontario here to show them Fanshawe College.
(Side note: I brag about how Fanshawe is one of the best colleges in the province. How can I tell? By how envious the other college reps get when we bring them by.)
Sustainability
As students at Fanshawe we all pay nontuition fees. One such fee is the Campus Improvement Fee. This fee gives us some leverage in determining the direction of the college's building improvements. It amounts to $285,000 annually. This year, the FSU has successfully allocated this fee towards sustainable projects at Fanshawe.
We now have a green roof on main campus, between D and A buildings. Also in A building, you will find a bottle refilling station, the first of many to be installed around the campus. The station actually records the number of plastic bottles saved. Since its installation in September that number sits at over 2,000.
Internally, the FSU has developed an ecotakeout program where students can purchase reusable containers for their meals at the Oasis and Out Back Shack. This will greatly reduce the amount of waste that the FSU produces. We have taken the project a step further and have started charging a quarter on top of meals for the non-reusable take out containers, so the onus to be wastefree is now on the customer.
Our orientation kits this year featured a stainless steel water bottle as well, which was another effort on our part to encourage a waste-free life style.
Communications
This involves our interaction with the students we represent. This year we have been communicating with students in more ways than we have ever done in the past. We have even attracted the attention of other colleges because of how we are doing so.
Our social network, FSU.ca, gained 2,500 members in one month. This is a network exclusive to Fanshawe students and catered to give them a greater awareness of college life. It also gives them another avenue to contact the FSU when they have a concern. I'm always on the site checking and responding to student concerns. I'm also addressing Fanshawe students through a weekly video blog.
We have also created a digital signage network to get the word out via TV screens in the Oasis, the Student Centre, Gamesroom and outside the Out Back Shack. Along with that, we have developed a new poster policy that uses our paper form of advertisement more effectively.
Two weeks ago I tried something new — an FSU open public forum. Students met with my team, and we explained our goals and initiatives this year. We also took a lot of questions and concerns from students, and overall it was a great success. We will have more to come in the future.
We have also improved our class representative program. This allows us to better communicate with our students in the classroom. Student Administrative Council reps were just elected two days ago and we already have 100 class reps. At the same time last year, we had about four.
Then there are the articles I write every week for the Interrobang. Every article written is an effort to add to the communications being made between my office and the students at large.
That's what we've done so far. There's still over six months left in the year, so there will be much more to come. We're not politicians at the Fanshawe Student Union, we're business people. In politics, you produce enough friends to vote you in next term. In business, you produce results. I'm not writing this to blast a student for an uninformed comment that was made. I'd just like to reinforce a message I've been trying to get out to our students: don't make assumptions before asking questions and looking for more understanding.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
I'd like to address the comment by sharing with you the promises my team and I have made and the results we have delivered thus far.
Last March, in my campaign I promised to improve our community relations, communications and sustainable efforts at Fanshawe. Those were the three overarching initiatives I brought forward this year. Let's break it down.
Community Relations
Our community includes the college community, the London community and the province at large. Within the college, we are continuing our charity efforts, which included another successful Shinerama campaign. The United Way campaign is just starting up, and this year's goal for Fanshawe is to raise $100,000. FSU is involved in a few initiatives as part of this campaign, including the chili cook-off and the annual stair climb at 1 London Place. You will see many more campaigns coming this year, such as Movember, 1,000 Acts of Kindness and the Fanshawe Student Union charity ball.
We are also big supporters of Fanshawe's Sharing Shop, which helps students in need find food, clothing and many other items free of charge. This month I have also been in contact with Western's University Student Council and hope to meet their council sometime in October. We will be discussing how we may be able to work together in the future.
Our provincial community involves the other colleges in Ontario. We are part of the College Student Alliance and are heavily involved in the organization so Fanshawe students are proudly represented in the province. We have seats on three of CSA's five committees. Vice-president internal Veronica Barahona sits on CSA's board of governors as the representative for all southwest Ontario colleges, a position held by Fanshawe last year as well (myself, during my VP finance term). We are hosting a provincial conference here in London in a week's time, and are bringing over 100 student leaders from Ontario here to show them Fanshawe College.
(Side note: I brag about how Fanshawe is one of the best colleges in the province. How can I tell? By how envious the other college reps get when we bring them by.)
Sustainability
As students at Fanshawe we all pay nontuition fees. One such fee is the Campus Improvement Fee. This fee gives us some leverage in determining the direction of the college's building improvements. It amounts to $285,000 annually. This year, the FSU has successfully allocated this fee towards sustainable projects at Fanshawe.
We now have a green roof on main campus, between D and A buildings. Also in A building, you will find a bottle refilling station, the first of many to be installed around the campus. The station actually records the number of plastic bottles saved. Since its installation in September that number sits at over 2,000.
Internally, the FSU has developed an ecotakeout program where students can purchase reusable containers for their meals at the Oasis and Out Back Shack. This will greatly reduce the amount of waste that the FSU produces. We have taken the project a step further and have started charging a quarter on top of meals for the non-reusable take out containers, so the onus to be wastefree is now on the customer.
Our orientation kits this year featured a stainless steel water bottle as well, which was another effort on our part to encourage a waste-free life style.
Communications
This involves our interaction with the students we represent. This year we have been communicating with students in more ways than we have ever done in the past. We have even attracted the attention of other colleges because of how we are doing so.
Our social network, FSU.ca, gained 2,500 members in one month. This is a network exclusive to Fanshawe students and catered to give them a greater awareness of college life. It also gives them another avenue to contact the FSU when they have a concern. I'm always on the site checking and responding to student concerns. I'm also addressing Fanshawe students through a weekly video blog.
We have also created a digital signage network to get the word out via TV screens in the Oasis, the Student Centre, Gamesroom and outside the Out Back Shack. Along with that, we have developed a new poster policy that uses our paper form of advertisement more effectively.
Two weeks ago I tried something new — an FSU open public forum. Students met with my team, and we explained our goals and initiatives this year. We also took a lot of questions and concerns from students, and overall it was a great success. We will have more to come in the future.
We have also improved our class representative program. This allows us to better communicate with our students in the classroom. Student Administrative Council reps were just elected two days ago and we already have 100 class reps. At the same time last year, we had about four.
Then there are the articles I write every week for the Interrobang. Every article written is an effort to add to the communications being made between my office and the students at large.
That's what we've done so far. There's still over six months left in the year, so there will be much more to come. We're not politicians at the Fanshawe Student Union, we're business people. In politics, you produce enough friends to vote you in next term. In business, you produce results. I'm not writing this to blast a student for an uninformed comment that was made. I'd just like to reinforce a message I've been trying to get out to our students: don't make assumptions before asking questions and looking for more understanding.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
