One Fine Week
The past two weeks have certainly been a whirlwind of activities. After attending the Academic Support Committee meeting, and handling a continued grievance, I set flight for Montreal with the rest of the team. ihaveaplan.ca (your health coverage providers) invited us over for a stakeholder meeting. For the sake of avoiding redundancy, I will let you read Jared and Alex's blogs on this very informative trip! What I do have to point out however, is the opportunity we had of sharing unique projects on our campuses. My favourite by far, had to be University of Alberta's presentation. They currently hold the Guinness World Record for the largest dodge-ball game! In February of 2012, 4979 students engaged in an hour long game of dodge ball. This project obviously cost a fortune, but was funded by their alumni and well wishers. Even Bob Rae was in the crowd cheering on! Check this out!
Anyway, back to Saskatchewan. The rest of my schedule's been filled up with hearings and committee meetings. I've been wrapping up the committee meetings for the year, which will give me a great opportunity to focus on planning for the upcoming year. It's certainly been interesting, trying to keep on top of all the readings for the meetings. I think I may be learning quick though. I do hope to get a clearer focus on what I can and cannot share from the meetings, with you. You certainly would benefit from some of the discussions that take place.
Anyway! All registered for fall classes? Well, I hope you've started thinking about textbooks! Don't we just love spending all that money. I encourage you to contact your professors and encourage them to use materials from Open Access. Open Access is the use of scholarly research, made freely available over the internet. The use of free academic material is becoming more popular in university classes. This does not only provide cheaper alternatives for students, but helps instructors curtail copyright infringement. So contact your instructors right away! I also encourage you to check out this link: http://www.ussu.ca/bebooksmart/index.shtml to find more ways that you can cut those textbook costs.
So, you've all heard about the high increase in world population and the dismal prospects of feeding the entire world by 2025. Anyway, you also know how the UofS has led a great record of agriculture-related research. Well, why not put two and two together and try end world hunger! Well, thanks to some people that had their thinking caps on, we will soon see the establishment of a Global Food Security Institute, right here at the UofS! Through integrating science and policy research and innovation, this centre will find solutions to sustainably feed our world! Right here at the UofS! Pretty sweet. Looking forward to this. Congratulations to our our Vice-President of Research, Karen Chad and her team, on this initiative.
Till Next Time!!
Ruvimbo
