Report of the Executive Committee to the General Assembly
March 13th, 2018
Student Federation of the University of Ottawa
President:
●Relay For Life: This year, we celebrated our 16th Annual Relay For Life at the University of Ottawa to raise awareness and collect donations for the Canadian Cancer Society with the goal of finding cure to cancer and beyond. The event took place between March 3rd at 7:00pm to March 4th at 7:00am in the UCU Building and Morisset Pavilion. With the hard work of the RFL Committee and the support VP Philanthropics of Federated Bodies, we were able to host multiple fundraisers throughout the past few months. Moreover, this year’s Relay had multiple sponsored and partners and witnessed (33) teams and (206) participants in total. With a lot of dedication and belief in the great cause, we were able beat our goal by $5,000 and raise approximately $35,000.00. Many thanks to the RFL Committee, the sponsors, donors, partners, participants, and everyone who made this success possible.
●FEDTalks 2018: The SFUO will be hosting its second FEDTalks conference on Thursday, March 22nd, 2018 in the UCU Alumni Auditorium. The event will be similar to TEDx except that we do not have to abide by TED rules, which makes the event more accessible and inclusive to students. As a result, we would not be restricted to only (100) attendees and the speakers would be able to present their talks in the language of their preference, be it French or English. The event will feature students, faculty, and community members sharing ideas and experiences on a number of different topics with the goal of sparking and contributing to important discussions on our campus. Tickets are currently being sold for $5 at the SFUO Reception, and the full event will be livestreamed, filmed by Zoom Productions, and published online on their YouTube page, so that all SFUO members would have the opportunity to access and enjoy the event.
●Poutine Festival: The SFUO will be hosting its fifth annual Poutine Festival in collaboration with Community Life Service from March 26th to March 29th. There will be various food trucks parked on University Square in front of FSS serving different types of poutine. We encourage everyone to participate and enjoy a week full of delicious poutine.
●Justice for Soli: SoleimanFaqiri was a mentally-ill man who was killed under government care by over 20 guards while in custody at an Ontario correctional facility in Lindsay. In solidarity with the Faqiri family, the SFUO hosted a panel discussing Mental Health, Prison, and Segregation on February 16th at the UCU Agora. This event was organized in collaboration with the Carleton University Muslim Students’ Association and featured Yusuf Faqiri, the bother of Soli, and prominent human rights lawyer, Paul Champ. The event was a success, the attendance was good, and the livestream could be found on the SFUO Facebook page.
●SFUO Gala: The SFUO will be hosting its annual gala to appreciate volunteers on Saturday, March 31st, at The Ottawa Westin Hotel. The attendance will include Federated Bodies’ execs and volunteers, SFUO services’ volunteers and staff, SFUO volunteers, and the Directors of the Board of Administration. Like every year, the SFUO and University of Ottawa Alumni Association (UOAA) awards five (8) scholarships to deserving on-campus student volunteers. Deadline to submit applications is March 22nd by 6pm, and then finalists will be decided and announced. We will have to wait until the gala to know who the recipients are.
●Leader Action: Leader Action is the SFUO’s transition weekend to all incoming executives of the Federated Bodies. This year’s Leader Action will take place on Saturday, April 28th, on the University of Ottawa campus. The transition will include various workshops and team-building activities that will help establish positive relationships between the SFUO and its Fed Bodies and among Fed Bodies, and set working plans for next year.
●Senators Tickets Program: This year, the SFUO had a very successful collaboration with the Ottawa Senators Hockey Team to promote specific games at a reduced price to uOttawa students. These games took place on October 17th, November 18th, January 18th, February 6th, and March 20th and featured the Ottawa Senators versus Vancouver Canucks, Arizona Coyotes, St. Louis Blues, New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers respectively. Tickets for these games were sold for $30 to students (instead of $55) and were available at the SFUO Reception. This partnership has continued for three (3) year and the SFUO is proud to have been able to sell around 1000 tickets this year solely. We aspire to continue doing that for years to come.
●South-End Office: After a few months of negotiation with the Faculty of Engineering, the SFUO finally has a little booth at the SITE Building to open up its office at the south-end of campus. This will make it much more accessible for students in their day-to-day matters related to the SFUO. The agreement includes the use of the space by the SFUO between the months of September and April, and by the Faculty of Engineering between May and August.
●Indigenous Mural in UCU: The SFUO has been working in consultation and collaboration with the Indigenous community at the University of Ottawa to introduce a mural in the UCU highlighting the history of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people on this land. This mural is a reminder to all of us that this University exists on the unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory and our duty to stand in solidarity with our Indigenous siblings and be better allies. The mural is expected to be revealed before the end of March 2018.
●Student Spaces: The SFUO was successfully able to negotiate and obtain more space in the UCU building. The space allocated for SFUO for tabling in the UCU has been extended to include 3 extra spots. The SFUO fought for more accessibility to spaces for Fed Bodies. As of now, each Fed Body will have free access to fifteen (15) room bookings and fifteen (15) table reservations per semester.
Referenda: The SFUO had four (4) successful referenda this year - two (2) at the By-Election in October 2017 and two (2) in the latest General Election in February 2018. These referenda include the creation of a Multi-Faith Centre; introduction of a winter levy for UOSERT; the creation of a Racialized and Indigenous Student Experience (RISE) Centre; and the Increase of the fund for the Student Refugee Program (WUSC). Since election results have been officially ratified by the Board of Administration, the SFUO is currently working on the implementation of these referenda, so that students are able to take advantage of their mandate as soon as possible. A space has been successfully negotiated and obtained for the Multi-Faith Centre. Discussions with the WUSC club and UOSERT have already taken place. Currently, the SFUO is working on implementing the RISE Centre.
VP Services & Communications
Communications:
I have been thoroughly reviewing the SFUO’s brand, including its social media presence, website, visual brand identity, and promo materials. I’ve reviewed what we have done so far on the rebrand and noted what we still have left.
We have created a new governance branding, which includes the promotional materials for the General Assembly. This can be used across all digital and print mediums for the next several years. Using the same branding for BOA and GA’s will allow the SFUO to build brand recognition. We need students to scroll past an event in their newsfeed and immediately know that it belongs to us.
We also released a new branding for the SFUO election. This was printed onto index cards, posters, and stand banners. It was also put onto approximately a dozen pieces of digital content, including Instagram posts and Facebook cover photos.
The SFUO Facebook page nearly 5k likes, the Instagram has 2.2k followers, and the Twitter has 4850 followers. This is significantly more than we had when I started on May 1st.
We have held frequent live streams this year, which is a first for the SFUO. Over the past year, we have invested a lot of time into developing livestream setups that work.
Our frequent live streams have reached thousands of students and grown our Facebook page. We also run the occasional Instagram livestream.
We live streamed both SFUO election debates at a higher production quality than the previous year. The debates reached far more students in 2018 than in 2017. We have continued to live stream all board meetings and General Assemblies, which is a new initiative taken on this year for the first time.
We have created more Facebook events this year than the SFUO has ever previously created. We now make Facebook events for things that weren’t necessarily well-advertised in the past. Our increased emphasis on events is paying off because we often received 10’s of thousands of views on our Facebook events. For example, we hit 35k reach on the Black History Month Gala event (with zero paid advertising).
Therefore, due to a more constant posting schedule, better branding, more Facebook events, and more live streams, our organic reach on Facebook is much higher than 2016-17.
We also have taken out paid Facebook ads to promote important SFUO events or to amplify important messages (such as the anti-sexual harassment video).
Zoom Productions has more videos directly for the SFUO this year and their content is integrated into the main SFUO marketing strategy.
Services:
Food Bank: increased number of food donations, held a huge Mac & cheese event. Has an upcoming tacos event. Has recruited tons of new volunteers and recruited many new clients.
SDC: there was a successful Green Week with an event with PRD. There was also a free smoothies event with free coffee and mugs and a demonstration by NU Grocery. There was a waste-free snacks event by the Food Bank and an event by Foot Patrol.
Foot Patrol: they are organizing a volunteer fair at the end of the semester. They collected batteries to recycle during Green Week. The have approximately 70 volunteers that regularly contribute to the service, which involves a lot of internal HR work.
Peer Help Centre: this service has the peer support phone line, a mentorship program for high school students, drop in listening services, and a tutoring referral program. They held a successful study session event in December that they will repeat in April.
Bike Coop: the Coop operates all winter, hosting workshops and teaching students how to repair bikes. The Coop has taken in new volunteers and the staff have shown countless clients how to fix bikes.
Vice-President Equity
Hi, everyone my name is Leila Moumouni – Tchouassi and I am your VP Equity. This year I have been attempting to juggle what are 3 most important pillars of my role, the clubs system, my 5 equity services, and the general equity work in the many forms that it would have to be performed.
First for the club’s system, there have been and continue to be a lot of issues with the registration portal. As the year has gone on, we have been slowed down tremendously by these issues, trying to solve them and predict them. At this point in the year we are focusing on keeping the club’s system active by dealing with subsidy requests and club inquiries as they come up. There are currently around 350 clubs in the system. We are extending the winter clubs registration period into the summer to allow clubs to continue to build themselves up and be ready for next year. This period will have an end date set out by the fall registration start date which will be set out by the next VP Internal.
For my 5 services which I outlined as the Women's Resource Centre, the International House, the Bilingualism Centre, the Pride Centre, and the Centre for Students with Disabilities we have had an eventful year learning how to best serve students. One of the ways we have done this, is by implementing consistent programming and ensuring that there is planning and promo with enough time allotted in advance.
Women’s Resource Centre events:
-Self Care Mondays and Wednesdays
-Black Femmes Group Up: Tuesday
-DGDs : Wednesday Bi-Weekly
-Muslim Feminist Thursdays
-Black Hair Care Workshop: Tuesday 1 PM
-Games Night: Friday 4 PM
International House
-Pizza and Games: 4-7 PM - Wednesdays
-International Gala – Saturday, March 17th
Pride Centre
-Pride Panel – Thursday, March 15th
-Queer and Indigenous Cultures – Tuesday, March 20th
-Sex Positivity with Bike Coop – Thursday, March 22nd
-Queer/Trans Job Fair – Tuesday, March 27th
Bilingualism Centre
-DGDs Tuesday and Wednesday
-Gala du Mois de la Francophonie – Saturday, March 24
-Linguistic Happy Hour: Wednesdays
Centre for Students with Disabilities
-Weekly DGDs: Mondays
-Game Nights: Tuesdays
Black History Month
We held 5 events throughout the month to ensure that we created as much space for black students as possible. The Black Hair Care Workshop, the Comedy Night, the Get Out Movie Night, the Gala, the Black in Academia panel. The events were very well attended. For the events we partnered with Community Life Services for promo and bookings, and it helped with the cost. This month of events showed clarity on the lack of space that has been given to black students and our need to constantly and consistently create diverse spaces for black students on campus.
Miscellaneous
-Indigenous Students Conference
-The RISE Centre
-Changes to the portfolio
-SUAC Committees
Vice-President University Affairs
StudentRights Center
- Since May 1, 2017, the SRC has offered 554 confidential consultations to students;
- January and February are the busiest months for the Center because of many records related to the December’s exams, requests for grades reviews, allegations of academic fraud filed by the professors at the end of the semester, and mandatory withdrawals that take place following the assessment of each student’s academic performance at the end of January;
- SRC has received a lot of positive feedbacks concerning faculties’ report cards from the University administrators. Some faculties contacted us to ask how they could improve;
- Several nursing students at the Pembroke and Algonquin campuses contacted the Center following the fallout from college strike, which prevented them from continuing their studies for 5 weeks;
- SRC takes steps with the central administration so its Director can have a seat on the Council for Undergraduate Studies, the committee that is responsible for drafting school rule;
- SRC regularly undertakes systemic work with faculties that do not respect certain sections of the university regulations. For example, the SRC lobbied the Faculty of Engineering because the Faculty refused to recognize that students have the right to submit their medical certificate directly to their teacher to postpone their exams. Following the SRC representations, the Faculty of Engineering agreed to respect the school rule and to inform the staff of its office of the undergraduate studies of students’ rights;
- SRC would like to remind all students who submit a medical certificate to justify their absence from an exam or hand in their work at a later date, so that they can obtain a medical certificate from any clinic. Students are never required to attend the University of Ottawa Health Clinic. See Rule 9.5 for more information;
- SRC would like to recall that there are resources on academic offered in Mandarin on its website.
Campaigns
Sexual Violence Awareness Video
The Student Federation of the University of Ottawa launched an anonymous survey for students to share their experiences about sexual violence on campus to help implement sexual violence prevention on and off campus, in support of the brave students that filled the survey. The campaign department invited student leaders across campus to read the experiences of their peers on their behalf in a video. The objective of the video was to raise awareness by educating the student population as well as the administration of the University on this prevalent and often undenounced issue by effectively communicating what steps can be taken to prevent sexual violence, support survivors and advocate for change on campus. The video was viewed more than 9,000 times in less than 3 weeks.
Ball for The Cure
Ball for the Cure is a philanthropic basketball tournament that the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa hosted on December 4th at Montpetit Hall. All proceeds raised at the basketball tournament were donated to the Aids Committee of Ottawa. This tournament will be an annual tradition to unite Sport Services, students, and as well as members of the community towards a charitable cause as sports help build community. This event was free so that it could be accessible to all students, and all money raised through funding went towards supplies for the tournament such as trophies, jerseys, food and equipment. The goal of this event was to raise awareness and erase the stigma attached to those affected by AIDS by having as many students come out to support the cause as possible. We choose to donate to the Aids Committee of Ottawa(ACO) as their values coincide with those of the SFUO. The Aids Committee of Ottawa “provides support, prevention, education and outreach services from an integrated anti-racism anti-oppression social justice framework that promotes the holistic wellbeing of those living with, affected by, impacted by and at risk of HIV/AIDS in Ottawa”