UWindsor's biggest newsmakers of 2008
By Hannah Larking and Carly Moulton
News Editor and Lance Writer
January 14, 2009
 It was a tremendous year for the University of Windsor bringing with it new faces, new challenges and new commitments that all will figure heavily in the future of not only the academic institution, but Windsor-Essex region as a whole.
With the opening of the medical school, commitment to the Centre for Engineering Innovation, and the arrival of Alan Wildeman as the school’s new president, they were challenged with faculty strikes, a collapse in the local economy and rescheduling semesters.
Budget slips during balancing act
In January of last year, an error in a University of Windsor Students’ Alliance’s (UWSA) computer program added up to a smaller opening balance for 2008. The mistake occurred in the UWSA’s 2007 year-end balance report, which consequently made the 2008 opening balance inaccurately sit at -$32,000. However, once the error came to light, it was revealed that the 2008 opening balance was actually -$70,000.
The software responsible for the error, Crystal Reports, is a business intelligence program used to design and print reports from database programs such as Microsoft Access.
Vice president of finance, Jennifer Collucci, claimed software malfunction was at fault for the 2007 year-end mistake.
Despite the error, student fees did not go up and no services were affected.
In light of the financial situation, the Board of Directors granted $34,261.03 from the UWSA capital fund to central administration to cover the capital costs for the remainder of the year. The UWSA hoped to end 2008 with a balance of -$17,000.
Engineers get to stay on campus
A vote by the University of Windsor’s Board of Governors declared the school’s Centre for Engineering Innovation would be built on campus.
Total votes from the closed-door meeting were not made public. However, former university president Ross Paul said that the university’s 31-member Board of Governors voted “pretty strongly” in favour of the $110 million building being erected on campus instead of downtown.
Before voting took place, University of Windsor Students’ Alliance representative, Gary Kalaci, consulted both engineering students and students-at-large about where they thought the building should be constructed. He found that the vast majority of students wanted to see the facility set on campus.
Students seek answers for alleged police brutality
Students became upset over Windsor Police Services’ conduct during the Jan. 19 arrests in the CAW Student Centre, as they claimed that racial profiling had a great deal to do with the severity of force used by police.
Several witnesses alleged that a fight broke out between two female patrons as people were leaving The Basement at the end of the night after the event, Passa Passa.
First-year drama and communications major, Nadine Fearon, claimed she witnessed a male police officer punch one of the scuffling females in the face. Fearon also alleged that Windsor Police officers were hitting and beating up people as they exited the bar.
Police officers attempted to direct the crowd to the upstairs exit, but congestion by the coat check area outside of The Basement made the task more difficult.
Many customers also remained on the main floor of the CAW Student Centre despite police orders to leave the building.
Disagreements upstairs between police officers and bar patrons eventually resulted in violence and the arrests of six individuals.
Students Against Anti-Black Racism led a march by the Human Rights Office and both university president Ross Paul’s office and home, in hopes of gaining more attention from the university’s administration.
New name in the Ivory Tower
Alan Wildeman, vice-president research, for the University of Guelph was announced as the replacement to Ross Paul’s position as University of Windsor president on July 1.
Wildeman was announced as the new university president by the Presidential Search Committee headed by former Board of Governors chair Marty Komsa. In his seven years as vice president research at Guelph, Wildeman actively raised funds for various research initiatives.
Notable accomplishments in this area include $26 million raised for agricultural and genomics research, and $100 million in financing for facilities renewal. Komsa noted some of the challenges still facing the University of Windsor, including reputation, research, enrollment and revenue, labour relations, campus infrastructure, and academic quality.
He also outlined the priorities for Wildeman such as the need to focus on the mission of the University, collaborative environment, reputation, research, infrastructure, and morale.
UWSA electoral committee members resign in disgust
Three members of the UWSA’s Electoral Monitoring Committee (EMC) resigned Friday, March 7 after a week of turbulent affairs that resulted in the election of a new EMC.
The resigned included Viva Dadwal, Raed Kadri, and Andrew Langille who cited eight areas of misdirection with the UWSA elections, raising alarm over by-laws and policies that were not followed.
The UWSA-appointed EMC as comprised of three council members Dadwal, Kadri, and Whitney Manfro, one student at large, Langille, and the chief returning officer, CRO, Justin Teeuwen.
The EMC monitors the election process to make sure things run smoothly and according to the by-laws, but hold no voting power to change procedures.
VPFO winner disqualified, but then requalified and announced winner
UWSA elections were held in the second week of March despite concerns about policy infractions and one winner was disqualified as a direct result.
UWSA president elect Tiffany Gooch was surprised by her landslide victory and some voters were even surprised to see a referendum question regarding control of the Lance. However, the biggest surprise came over the weekend when VPFO winner Tosin Bello was told he was disqualified.
Bello was disqualified based on the discretion of the Electoral Monitoring Committee even though he did not exceed the allowable limit of demerit points outlined in the new system.
The new demerit point system was a point of contention for the original EMC, which resigned after its concerns fell on deaf ears. The EMC cited eight different policy infractions, including complaints regarding preferential treatment, prior to the elections and then resigned when they weren’t addressed.
Bello filed an appeal alleging that complaints were brought forward by another candidate for the same position, Avneil Yashpal.
$10 million deficit cripples university budget
In the last week of March, the University of Windsor announced it would be attempting to eliminate its $10 million deficit over two years through budget cuts of four to six per cent across all departments.
The budgetary changes were the first of its kind since the mid-1990s.
“The Board [of Governors] gave us two years to balance the budget because if you cut too much too soon you end up with a downwards spiral,” explained Ross Paul, then-UWindsor president. Similar budget reductions are also expected for the 2009/2010 school year, but will depend on enrollment numbers and base funding from the government.
The 2007/2008 budget predicted an increase in base expenditures of 8.1 per cent over the previous year.
Last call for campus pub
Although the pub is a separate corporation within the UWSA, the bar’s operating budget relies on an annual loan from the student association. If the pub cannot pay the UWSA back, the debt spills over to the student association, which has happened seven out of the last eight years. The vote was made by the UWSA Board of Directors under the advisement of the UWSA executive.
The pub lost $80,000 last year and was in constant financial trouble. The student-run facility has never made more than $3,000 in profit since being renovated in 2001, said UWSA vice president of finance, Jennifer Collucci.
In the pub’s second-best financial year it was seen as a break-even operation. UWSA president, William Ma, says despite this year being one of the pub’s best, losing only $50,000, it is in students’ best interest to shut the bar down. He said that the pub was losing so much money that it is better to put a cork in active financial losses and keep paying off renovation debts than to remain open.
In that final pub night, vandals kicked, smashed and stole $1,200 worth of pub property.
Just kidding - pub is back
After students demonstrated their contempt for losing their pub, the UWSA swiftly found a way to reinstate the establishment once again.
By combining their purchasing power with the University of Windsor, the pub stands to save money on their food costs, affording them to reopen the bar/restaurant.
As for getting out of debt, Gooch’s outlook was positive: “I’ve always said I wanted [the pub] sustainable, and I think we now have the best partner we can for a sustainable solution.”
WUFA strikes
On Wednesday, Sept. 17 just after 2 a.m., the Windsor University Faculty Association and the administration of the University of Windsor met an impasse in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, and the WUFA exercised their legal right to strike, cancelling all classes and labs.
UWindsor sent out a notification to all students that classes were cancelled. The usually busy student traffic around campus came to a standstill.
On the first day of the strike, University of Windsor President Alan Wildeman released a statement highlighting some of the issues that were holding the negotiations up. The letter indicated, “It is … essential that we address rumours that persist and that detract from everyone’s goals of reaching a settlement.”
Wildeman indicated that a “matter of concern to WUFA members regarding research was that one of the consequences of them withdrawing services would be that while they are on strike the University would not sign applications for research funding.”
On these issues, the letter indicated that the administration would “re-evaluate its position on this and any other issues related to its operations during a strike.”
The matter of not allowing professors to get their grant applications signed without crossing the picket line was a major point of contest from the WUFA.
Picket signs called for the resignation of University of Windsor, provost and vice-president academic, Neil Gold.
Gold sent out the email which stated, “Research grant applications must be signed by your Dean (whether or not required by the application) and Vice-President, Research or Office of Research Services (as required) and will only be signed if you have signed the ‘Notification of Intention to Continue All Normal Duties in the Event of a WUFA strike” form, have reported to your Dean and are performing duties assigned.”
The CAUT Defense Fund organized a flying picket and presented a $1 million line of credit to support WUFA at a rally held on Friday.
Representatives from many faculty associations across the country also joined the rally and donated thousands of dollars in support of the WUFA.
The strike lasted 17 days, leaving students caught between the administration and the faculty for almost two weeks.
The aftermath of the strike led to syllabus restructuring, extended exam schedules, shortened winter holidays, and deleted a fall-break that students scheduled into their lives.
Professors and librarians will receive a nine per-cent pay raise over the three-year agreement.
The doctor is in
The University of Windsor officially welcomed community members to celebrate the opening of their Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry branch on Friday, Nov. 7 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The new medical building is equipped with two multimedia classrooms for video conferencing with medical students in London, Ont. Each holds 50 students.
In addition to the two multimedia classrooms, there are 10 small group learning suites, a gross anatomy lab and a virtual anatomy lab.
Several elements of the building have been designed to qualify it for certification in Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED), making it the first building on campus to have that qualification.
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