Here’s what the university’s highest governing body talked about this month

By Alison Roach

Food Services

The board talked about recent improvements to dining services, noting that the renovations to Chartwells and its meal plan have been earning great reviews from students. The Dining Hall is now opened for meal plan holders for the first time ever during a summer semester, and expects another 30 per cent increase in meal plan sales this fall.

Board Chair Brian Taylor also spoke about SFU’s dealings for a Starbucks at the Burnaby campus, specifically the push that SFU has been giving the corporate giant to offer more Fair Trade coffee throughout Canada. The university sent a delegation down to Seattle this month to discuss this, and Taylor commented that the university may “be able to bring the big giant to its knees.”

Bookstore

The VP Finance report showed that the newly opened Spirit Shop inside the Burnaby SFU Bookstore has already seen increased sales of 43 per cent compared to sales this same time last year. The Bookstore has also decided to drop the retail price of used textbooks by 15 per cent to encourage students to buy used textbooks. It was also noted that the Harbour Centre bookstore location continues to face difficulties in traffic due to the summer renovations in the mall, and solutions are trying to be found.

Building

The SFU Observatory project is moving forward with a consultant selection in the works, and the location set to be just south of Strand Hall on the Burnaby campus, between the AQ and Cornerstone. SFU Burnaby is also working on a plan to develop an art gallery and intercultural centre, to be funded from private donations. In SFU Surrey, the university, TransLink, and the city are in talks to develop a plan for a new bus exchange to replace the current one, which is located on SFU property.

Academic Programming

The Academic Operations Committee has approved a few program changes, including two creations and one dissolution. The committee approved full program proposals for a graduate certificate in curriculum and instruction in the Faculty of Education and a concurrent Bachelor’s-Master’s program in the School for International Studies. It was also decided to dissolve the joint major and joint honours in computing science and philosophy. These changes will go into effect in the fall semester.

International Engagement

The external relations committee rolled out a new international engagement strategy for 2013-2016 that focuses on deepening SFU’s relationships with current partners and growing in areas where the university has begun to develop those relationships.

The areas the strategy focuses on in particular are China, India, Brazil, Chile, Western Europe, and the United States. The board spoke about the importance of diversifying the university’s own programming to ensure that international students don’t become too heavily concentrated in one faculty or department, as has been seen with Chinese international students in the Faculty of Business.

At the beginning of the academic year, over 65 per cent of all international undergrad students and 25 per cent of grad students were from China, a “concentration [that] limits the intercultural diversity of our student population, and presents challenges and opportunities for developing alumni engagements, language programming, intercultural connections, and student support programming,” according to the report.