Unvaccinated students to be excluded from in-person classes
Students that remain unvaccinated will be unable to register for in-person classes for winter semester.
At the Nov. 18 UMSU board of directors meeting, UMSU vice-chair of the judicial committee Jaron Rykiss raised the question, prompting UMSU president Brendan Scott to state that “as of right now, [winter semester is one] hundred per cent planned to be in person,” but clarified that he expects all classes that are currently online will remain so and speculated that there will be more online offerings than in recent years.
ACC students welcomed to provincial advocacy group
At the meeting, UMSU president Brendan Scott announced the Manitoba Alliance of Post-SecondaryStudents (MAPSS) has accepted Assiniboine Community College Students’Association as a member.
MAPSS came into being in2020 as a coalition between UMSU, the University of Manitoba Graduate Students’Association and the Red River College Students’ Association. On its website, it claims to represent over 61,000 students in Manitoba.
In April, the organization lobbied Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Immigration Wayne Ewasko to amend the controversial Bill 33 to exclude the fees set by student unions and associations from regulation by the minister.
The bill received royal assent on May 20.
Changes to board structure delayed
Changes to be made to the structure of the UMSU board of directors, which have been in the works since at least March 2020, have been delayed by approximately two weeks.
One of the major changes, which abolished the slate system for UMSU elections, was finalized earlier this year.
What remains to happen is the planned reform to the structure of the board of directors itself, which would see the removal of voting rights from all current board members — including community representatives and executives — replacing it with a smaller board to be elected independently.
Currently the board of directors consists of 59 voting members, although there are 17vacant positions. According to UMSU president Brendan Scott, the new board will feature 22 members.
Motions regarding the change are expected to be introduced on Dec. 2 and voted on in January.
