Executive Blog

Dear AUSU Members,

I am writing today in regards to recent circumstances surrounding AUSU and The Voice. In the absence of both an Executive Director and President, I am currently (Acting) Editor in Chief of The Voice and (Acting) President of AUSU.

After the release of the April 17, 2015 issue of The Voice, our office received a legal complaint regarding the content in one of the articles. As (Acting) AUSU President, per Bylaw 6.5 (d), I am responsible to protect AUSU and The Voice from legal and reputational threats. At the same time, I fully realize and respect that per AUSU Bylaw 7.5.3, The Voice is an autonomous publication and is to operate without interference from Councilors or Executives. Due to these conflicting interests, I made the decision to temporarily suspend the issue of the magazine while I sought legal advice on how to proceed.

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Hello fellow AUSU members,

If you are following Alberta news at all, you will have noted that because of the decreasing price of oil, Alberta has been making changes. It was widely thought that the government would cut AU’s budget by as high as 9%. In the end we know the government chose to cut AU’s funding by 5% over the next two years. During this process AU tried to submit a budget for this fiscal year that ran a deficit. The government made it clear they would not accept it. That triggered a lot of work by stakeholders throughout the university to put together a balanced budget. Our own VPFA, Corrina Green, worked tirelessly on the budget committee as our representative. The budget has now been approved by AU’s Board of Governors and AU is moving forward this fiscal year under the approved budget. However the budget, budgets for deficits for the next 2 years. The Alberta Government will not accept these kinds of deficits going forward, meaning something needs to be done about AU’s financial situation.

AU’s President Dr. Peter MacKinnon has made it clear that AU has a sustainability problem and under the current funding model adjustments must be made. This is something, in my 3 years on AUSU’s Executive and as a member of AU’s Board of Governors that has concerned many of us for a while. Dr. MacKinnon has made it clear that he will be addressing this issue and I have every confidence that he will.

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Happy New Year AUSU members!!!

I have a few exciting things to talk about this month.

The first is AUSU’s 2015 Planner/Handbook. The AUSU planners arrived at the AUSU office on January 5th and staff are busy filling all the pre-orders we received through our website. As always, the AUSU planners are produced entirely by AUSU for you, our members. Not only will you find a handy calendar with notable dates to help you plan your studies, but there are also a lot of useful links and information about services offered by AU and AUSU.

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If you have been following our blog entries you will know that this is the third installment from our current executive team. You will also notice that it is late!

AUSU’s team changed at the end of October and as a result we have been in stabilization mode. As a result, things like this blog have had to take the back burner, while we were ensuring that services to our members went uninterrupted.

We currently are back to running as we were before. The only exception to that is Jason Nixon, our current President is also filling the Executive Director role. He will continue to fill this role while we start the process of deciding what direction we want AUSU to take and what structure will best represent AUSU’s needs into the future.

What does change mean? What does it do to propel organizations forward? Why are people so reluctant to change? Should change be looked at as opportunity? These questions and many more come forward when change is in the air! They are very difficult ones to answer.

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If you have been around AU for any length of time, you will have likely heard about the ongoing discussion and often arguments about the “Call Centre” or the “Tutor” model. This debate has been ongoing at AU since I was first elected to AUSU Council (almost 3 years ago) and from my understanding has been going on long before that. Both sides of this debate can often be passionate about their views and arguments on why they think one model is better than the other. Spend time with either proponents of the Call Centre or Tutor model and you can quickly become overwhelmed and confused on what is fact and what is fiction. However, AUSU’s primary concern has been, and will always be, what is best for our 40,000 members who attend Athabasca University. For most of us, issues of Academic Jurisdiction, Pedagogy, and who stands to win and lose within the AU political spectrum mean little. What we are concerned about is our education, specifically, the quality of our education, the credibility of our education, and our overall educational experience.

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Hello everyone and welcome to the first AUSU Executive Blog!!!! The AUSU Executive plan to put up a new blog entry each month to keep you informed of what AUSU is working on.

I have foolishly volunteered to write the first entry. I am not an experienced blogger. In fact, I have never even kept a diary or written in a journal. So, this is a very new experience and hopefully a great learning opportunity for me.

Since this is the first entry, I guess I will just start with a little summary of our current council.

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