The University of Manitoba Students’ Union held their biweekly board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 9.

A large portion of the meeting’s open session was devoted to a presentation and discussion regarding the development of the U of M’s strategic plan. The first phase of the plan that the U of M is currently tackling is community consultation.

The community consultation entails visiting different groups in the U of M community to obtain feedback on what the U of M’s future should look like.

The following stages of the strategic plan will see the university running community surveys and gathering further community input, drafting the plan itself and then presenting the draft to the senate and the board of governors by fall of 2023.

Students and executive board members were broken up into groups to discuss a set of prepared questions.

Some of the issues discussed by the groups included improving the accessibility of student counselling services and improving the representation of Black people, Indigenous people and other people of colour in university faculty and health care, as well as tuition costs for international students.

Following discussion of the strategic plan, the meeting went into closed session.