TANNARA YELLAND
Associate News Editor

Two speakers gave talks at the Oct. 22 meeting of the University Students’ Council: Christopher Bergen and Marion Van Impe.

Bergen began the meeting with an update on the status of the proposed Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre, an Aboriginal student centre that is planned for construction between the Murray Library and the Arts tower.

“We want to make sure Aboriginal inclusivity is an important issue this year,” said University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union vice-president external Chris Stoicheff.

Stoicheff remarked that the U of S has the largest Aboriginal student population of Canadian post-secondary institutions but that the drop-out rate for Aboriginal students between first and second year at the U of S is 47 per cent, “which is incredible.”

Bergen discussed the plans for the proposed student centre and said he hopes it will help the Aboriginal students on campus to create a community.

“We want to foster Aboriginal achievement,” Bergen said in an echo of Stoicheff’s worry over the drop-out rate of Aboriginal students.

Bergen explained that U of S president Peter MacKinnon wants half the funding for the project to be raised before ground is broken, which should amount to about $6 million. There has been approximately $1.5 million earmarked for the project since 1997.

Renowned Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal has signed on to the project. The building has been designed in the shape of a circle, which is an important shape in Aboriginal culture. As currently planned the building will also have tunnels connecting to the Place Riel tunnel and to the health sciences building currently under construction.

When asked about the likely groundbreaking date, Bergen responded that he had expected it to have happened already.

“Ideally”¦ this spring. But we’ve been saying that the last couple years,” Bergen said with a laugh.

Credit card controversy
After Bergen finished, USSU general manager Caroline Cottrell introduced Marion Van Impe, who works in financial services. Van Impe discussed the recent online survey about the use of credit cards in paying tuition. The U of S has been offering the service since about 2001 but the cost to the university has exceeded the amount budgeted for it nearly four times.

When the university initially decided to offer the service, the expectation was that 25 per cent of students would make use of the service and a budget of $250,000 was allotted to the service. Last year, though, 40 per cent of students paid by credit card and the university paid about $730,000 in banking fees.

Given the university’s current budgetary issues, Van Impe and others have been working to find a solution that will relieve the stress of this added expenditure without upsetting too many students.

“Most Canadian universities don’t accept credit cards for tuition,” Van Impe said. Among the universities that have moved from accepting credit cards to not accepting them are the University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta. Some schools in Ontario and Quebec have never accepted credit cards.

The response from students to the idea of abandoning credit card payments has been overwhelmingly negative, but Van Impe reminded members of the USC that students can also pay their tuition using online banking, which offers some of the benefits of credit cards without costing the university anything substantial.