Dear Sisters and Brothers,
The end of the semester is upon us and I hope your exams and final papers have been going well.
In my previous message to you, I called on you to come to Senate where they would be discussing increasing tuition fees. Despite the (very) short notice, a couple of dozen students were present and packed the Senate room. We really shook things up by pointing out discrepancies in the upper administration’s budget plan and their insistence on using erroneous numbers that misrepresented the tuition increase as smaller than it will be in reality. The Board of Governors vote for the tuition increase takes place April 28, 2015 at 4pm in the board room of the Assumption Building. Obviously, the administration’s plan is to hold this meeting at a time when there is a low chance of student protests (after all, most of us are gone at the end of April). It’s a sneaky plan, but I call on you to put a dent in their plans and make intense effort to be at the meeting with your fellow brothers and sisters! The upper administration has made budget cuts and revenue increases on the backs of every labour union on campus, but mostly on the backs of students….some of us are those who have been too tarnished by their game-playing to think anything can be changed. But it can. And it starts with us all working together. Mark it in your agenda, put it in your phone, shout it on Twitter-verse, post it on Facebook….April 28 is the day we show the administration what the students are made of and what solidarity looks like. Tell the voting body, the Board of Governors, that we cannot afford another tuition increase. See you!
Sidenote: The Board of Governors has overwhelmingly voted in favour of tuition increases the past few years. That is, until last year when students at our school showed up in droves to the meeting and spoke out against the increase. Check out what Guelph did, too: CTVnews. If you would like speaking rights regarding the increase at the upcoming meeting, please e-mail Renee Wintermute at reneew@uwindsor.ca with the request by April 23.
In solidarity and on behalf of the executive,
Mia