ASHLEIGH MATTERN
Editor-in-Chief

October 8, 2009

The University Students’ Council was the shortest yet this year, lasting only 10 minutes.

There were no changes to the agenda, introductions and announcements were short and to the point, there was no council address, no changes to the minutes from previous councils and no new business.

Arts and science councillor Alexander Steffen brought up the issue of the “big five” universities, an issue the External Affairs Board dealt with during a meeting on Sept. 23.

The big five are the universities of British Columbia, Alberta, Toronto, McGill and Montreal. Earlier this year, these schools demanded a larger share of the federal post-secondary funding, arguing that focusing on the big five would boost Canada’s international competitiveness.

“It’s a legitimate concern,” said vice-president external Stoicheff. “You have five universities or five major ones in Canada advocating for basically a two-tiered post-secondary education system.”

After talking about it at the board level and with the Saskatchewan Students’ Coalition, Stoicheff said the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union executive and the coalition will be coming out with a statement on the situation within about a week.

“I think that public perception in Canada is strongly against that,” Stoicheff continued. “The big five came out with a statement that was, I think, poorly delivered.”

International students councillor Freeman Chimanga voiced concern over the upper level of the Murray Library closing at 10 p.m., pointing to complaints he had heard from other students.

USSU vice-president academic affairs Daniel McCullough said the problem is a staffing issue.

“They cannot afford to keep library staff on, so all the work is being done by safe walk student crews,” he said, adding that he would be looking to putting more volunteers on, depending on the security risks.