msu external affairs report to sra oct 16th 2011

8/3/2019 MSU External Affairs Report to SRA Oct 16th 2011

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Dear Assembly,

This Report covers my activities over the summer and the

first month of this academic term. It also outlines priorevents, upcoming projects and long term direction of thecommittee for the rest of the year.

CASA (Canadian Alliance of Student Association) SummerStrategy & Policy Conference: McMaster University- July 2010

I attended a good portion of the conference despiterestrictions by my 12 hour full time job. A significant area ofcontribution was during the all-important Policy Debate

session where I was able to partner up with other schoolsand successfully push for and get approved a policy andlobbying focus on Parallel Importation Tax removal andunprecedentedly for CASA (given its traditional emphasis onaccess and affordability) I partnered with a delegate fromCalgary to approve an CASA emphasis towards PSE DataCollection, National Quality Assurance and PedagogicalLearning Enhancement. I was also elected to the BylawsCommittee.

OUSA Research Projects

I will be helping out OUSA for the Student Mental HealthResearch Project to be completed by next March alongsideSRA Health Sci Josh Weiner and an MSU member.Furthermore, in continuation from last year I will also behelping promote the upcoming focus groups on Aboriginal

.

REPORTFrom the office of the

External Affairs Commissioner

TO: Members of the Student Representative Assembly

FROM: Huzaifa Saeed, External Affairs Commissioner

SUBJECT: SRA Report, 11H

DATE: 16th October 2010


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Students and Access Categories. Similarly as a member ofthe Campus Research Council I have also been providing myfeedback for ongoing policy work.

Municipal Relations

Due to the Provincial Election, they took a back seat;however I will be renewing contact with City Stakeholdersand am also hoping to compile an updated analysis andpolicy statement on last years landmark Your City Survey.Also hoping to present survey results and studentperspective at Hamilton HiveX on 23rd October.

Transit & LRTOur committee is also going to be helping on thepolicy/research side member Mr Erl and the VpEd in their bidto push for Light Rail Transit within the city of Hamilton. TheETA for that is end of October. The Committee is alsointerested in investigating the concerns of a traditionallyignored group of students on campus aka GO BusCommuters and integrating that into a Transit Super Policynext term.

CASA ReviewAlthough we are now full time members of CASA, the SRAlast year tasked us with doing another review by January,work on it will start in November. Unless there is consensuswithin the committee for a different approach I wouldrecommend the same strategy as last year. Members willtake up sections of policy to review and evaluate andcompare with McMasters needs. They will also be contactingall member institutes to gain their opinion and insight on

CASA membership. It will essentially will be a comparativeanalysis from last years extensive review to see whatprogress CASA has made in various sectors.

Blog Posts & Website

Now that the Elections are over I plan on authoring a fewblog posts regarding various issues like the upcoming


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Drummond Commission Report, Future of Learning Report byCCL, Creation of a Knowledge Economy in Hamilton and soon.

MSU Advocacy Think Tank

The MSU Advocacy Think Tank an initiative I started lastyear. It is a research and policy institute for MSU members atlarge to become involved in externally focused advocacyprojects. I will be restarting further invites once thecommittee starts working on more research based projects.

Provincial Elections

Throughout the summer and early fall the committee wasdiscussing creating a grading scheme for the party

platforms, however after a lot of discussion there wasntcomplete consensus on the perfect model for an objectiveand failsafe end product and due to miscommunications wefailed to make headway. Subsequently the committeeinstead compiled a detailed analysis of all party platformsthat was featured on the MSU Portal. Members alsoparticipated actively in grassroots outreach, Overall I wasvery pleased our overall contribution as well as the overallMSU Campaign reflected indirectly by the comparativelystronger student turnout.

MSU PSE Policy Bank & Awareness Campaign

There was consensus within the committee that the MSUneeds to develop its own set of Flexible, Specialized andMcMaster Specific Policy on PSE issues. We finalized thefollowing topics:-Tuition (to be completed by Nov 13th)-Funding & Deferred Maintenance

-Student Housing (In possible collaboration with SCSN &OCRC)-Copyright & Academic Materials

Lastly, we are hoping to run an awareness campaign on thepitfalls of the student financial aid market as well as thealternate options available to them. This is partly in response


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to a report by the Ministry of Finance taskforce report thatsurveyed a 75% failure rate. We might be utilizing the CASACampaign support for the project.

I am also open to any ideas SRA or MSU members have. Therealm of External Affairs has endless potential for issues onecan conduct research or policy work on. Feel free to emailme!

Sincerely,

Huzaifa SaeedMSU External Affairs Commissioner 11/12SRA Social Sciences 11/12

msu external affairs report to sra oct 16th 2011

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