Final AA Recommendations

At the November meeting of the USU Board of the Directors, the amended Affirmative Action Review 2012 will be presented to the Board and the full list of recommendations within will be voted on by the Board. These recommendations have been formulated out of the internal research conducted as part of the Review, student submissions and the Affirmative Action Consultation Forum held at the end of Semester 2. The full list of recommendations to be voted on are as follows:

Recommendation (1): That this amended version of the Affirmative Action Review 2012 be accepted by the Board.
       
Recommendation (2): That the Board recognises the continued need for the Affirmative Action policy outlined in Section 10.2c of the USU Constitution and will uphold and endorse this policy as part of the USU’s commitment to ensuring women are actively participating as leaders within the USU.   

Recommendation (3): The Board recommends that another review of the Affirmative Action policies for Board directors be undertaken in 2016, ten years after the policy’s initial implementation.        
       
Recommendation (4): That the USU maintains the Affirmative Action provisions that already exist within the recruitment process for student leadership positions.
               
Recommendation (5): That the USU investigates strategies to increase female participation across the organisation, including (but not limited to) the introduction of further Affirmative Action provisions across student leadership positions that do not already have such provisions.
               
Recommendation (6): That the positions of Queer Coordinator, Charity Officer and Humanitarian Week Director be closely monitored during the next Affirmative Action Review.

Recommendation (7): That the USU strives to collect data surrounding female participation within the Clubs & Societies program, and the amounts of females who apply for and are appointed to Student Leadership Positions.
               
Recommendation (8): That the USU focuses upon forming a strategy of recruitment to attract more female applicants for the position of Women’s Coordinator and C&S Committee Members
               
Recommendation (9): That the USU develops processes for dealing with an inability to apply Affirmative Action.
               
Recommendation (10): That the USU develops procedure for implementation of Affirmative Action in student recruitment discussions.
               
Recommendation (11): That the USU develops a plan aimed at celebrating women’s participation in the USU community.
               
Recommendation (12): That the USU develops a plan for structurally encouraging women’s involvement throughout the students programs.
               
Recommendation (13): That the Electoral Committee, Programs Department and Marketing Department take this Communications Review into consideration when marketing and promoting the 2013 Union Board Elections.
               
Recommendation (14): That the Communications Working Party and Women's Portfolio develop a Comprehensive Communication Strategy around women's leadership and our Affirmative Action practices to utilize USU communication channels to be implemented in marketing. This will be done in conjunction with the Women’s Officers of the SRC and other relevant and interested parties.
               
Recommendation (15): That the USU endeavours to provide regular opportunities for women to network with and receive mentoring from female leaders within the USU community.  These regular networking and mentoring events would be organised by the Women’s Event Co-ordinator in conjunction with the Women’s Portfolio Holder.
               
Recommendation (16): That female representatives from the USU, together with the SRC, SUSF, Colleges, the University and other interested parties engage in regular dialogue about issues facing women on campus and collectively formulate ways to address these issues.
               
Recommendations (17): That the USU recommends affirmative action provisions be included in the C&S Model Constitution on an opt-out basis, where Clubs or Societies choosing not to adopt this Model Constitution must otherwise demonstrate their commitment to equity for women and women’s representation in other ways. The Clubs and Societies Committee would be responsible for formulating and implementing this recommendation.
               

The President of the USU and the Women's Portfolio Holder will be holding an informal open-door discussion this Thursday (29/11/2012) at 10-11 am in The Board Office, Level 5 Holme Building, for members to discuss any aspect of these recommendations with us before the Board meeting on Friday. Members can also feel free to email the Women's Portfolio Holder Hannah Morris a th.morris@usu.usyd.edu.au with any further questions or concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Board of Directors
University of Sydney Union

Summary: October Board Meeting

Last month's Board meeting saw a number of important decisions and some great reports from the USU departments. Here's what's happening:

 

Environment Portfolio

The Environment Portfolio was created and approved. Brought to Board by Tom Raue, the Portfolio will seek to oversee the environmental practices of the USU within all its functions.  The Portfolio will be held for the next year by Tom, who will be looking into the best ways to incorporate and investigate environmental best practice. If you want to get involved in the work of the Environment Portfolio contact Tom at t.rau@usu.usyd.edu.au 

AA Review

The AA Review was accepted by the Board as the 2012 annual review and the first step in a consultation process with staff and students around AA within the USU. The Review considered a number of different areas of AA including clubs and societies, Board membership, student leadership positions and women's mentoring. If you want to find out more about the review and give your thoughts on AA within the USU you can read more here http://share.pdfonline.com/af44f01b180c45308858a4fcc0aa4412/USU%202012%20Affirmative%20Action%20Consultative%20Paper%20final.pdf and contact h.morris@usu.usyd.edu.au to share your thoughts.

SCASS USU Art Gallery Working Party 

The formation of a Working Party between the USU and the Sydney College of the Arts Student Society was approved to continue collaboration discussions. The working party aims to look at the opportunities for students in curatorship, installation and extra curricular study. The working party will be made up of a mixture of USU students and staff, SCASS representatives and SCA representatives. 

What's going on in the departments….

• There's a promotion of $2 coffees during Exams at our USU Coffee Carts from 8-10am! (Comm/Ops)

• We're letting students know about our new coffee blend; starting in 2013 we will be using Rainforest Alliance blend. (Communications)

• The tender process is continuing for our new website.

• Verge was a huge hit! The dome went off and student programs is exhausted.

• C&S celebrated another great year at the C&S awards

• Hermes 2012 has been launched

• The USU is undertaking D&M Market research to find out more about what students want. Join the USU Hub to get involved!

• The Holme Redevelopment Project is well underway, students should expect to see changes from as early as semester 1, 2013

• Our student leadership positions for 2012 have been filled

• Plans for O Week 2012 (stalls, set up, events, sponsors) are well underway.  Directed by students Kristy Samal and Robby Magyer the theme is "Down the Rabbit Hole"! 

Board meetings are open for all USU members to attend. The next Board meeting will be held Friday 30th November.

That's a wrap up of your USU in October. If you want any more information or to get involved get in touch president@usu.usyd.edu.au.

Brigid Dixon

Vice President

Follow up from AA Consultation Forum

On Thursday 1^st November the USU held an Affirmative Action Consultation Forum that was open to all members of the University community. The purpose of the forum was to discuss the results of the Affirmative Action Review 2012, as well as to hear the opinions, experiences and ideas of the membership surrounding the USU’s affirmative action policies and how to encourage women’s participation and leadership within the USU and in broader campus life.  

The forum was split into two sessions- an autonomous session held in the Women’s Room in Manning House, and a general session held in the MacCallum Room in the Holme Building. In both sessions issues effecting women on campus were discussed in thoughtful, respectful and constructive ways, and there were many interesting new ideas raised on how to encourage women to get involved as leaders within the USU and how to work to shift attitudinal problems within the community. 

Some issues, concerns and ideas raised included:

·         Lack of information surrounding Affirmative Action

·         Potential for an education campaign

·         Greater networking between student groups concerned with women's leadership and participation

·         Potential sources for more quantitative and historical data

·         Promotion of AA within the clubs and societies program

·         Experience of members within club and society executives

·         Affirmative action within student leadership positions

·         More communication with the University administration about women’s issues on campus

·         Creating a “think tank” of female leaders who represent a variety of student groups across campus to meet and discuss women’s issues on campus and organize joint events and campaigns to promote women’s participation and leadership

The opinions and suggestions expressed by members at these sessions will be compiled into a section of the amended Affirmative Action Review 2012, along with a series of amended recommendations that will be drawn from the ideas raised in the Consultation Forum as well as from members’ email submissions. Email submissions will remain open until November 18^th.

In the week before the November Board meeting, the full list of recommendations contained that will be voted on by the Board at that meeting will be released online for members to view. Following this, the USU President, Vice-President and Women’s Portfolio Holder will be holding a session of “open-door consultation” (at a location TBA) for members to chat with us and ask us any questions on the recommendations contained within the Review.

The USU Board would like to thank everyone who participated in the Consultation Forum and who sent in email submissions, we are always happy to hear from and engage with our members on significant issues such as these.

If you would like to send in an email submission or have any further questions about the Affirmative Action Review or women’s issues on campus, feel free to email the Women’s Portfolio Holder Hannah Morris at H.Morris@usu.usyd.edu.au

Yours sincerely,

Board of Directors

University of Sydney Union

Affirmative Action Consultation Forum

After the approval of the 2012 Affirmative Action Review prepared by Women’s Portfolio Holder Hannah Morris, the USU Board would like to carry out further consultation with members to develop any further actions to be brought to the November Board Meeting.

The USU Board recognises that we are a membership organisation and invite all members to share their opinions and thoughts in advising the Board.

We will be holding a Consultation Forum this Thursday, 1^st November to provide a safe space for debate on the topic.

Details are:
Autonomous Discussion: 4-5pm, Women’s Room. Level 1, Manning House.

Followed by,

General Discussion: 5-6pm, MacCallum Room. Level 2, Holme Building.

The agenda for both discussions will be related to the four areas of the review, as follows:

1.      Affirmative Action in the USU’s Board of Directors

2.      Affirmative Action and female representation in the USU’s Student Leadership Program and the Clubs and Societies Program

3.      The USU’s existing structures promoting and recognizing Women’s leadership

4.      The USU’s communication strategy surrounding the promotion of women’s leadership and Affirmative Action

5.      Other matters for noting (time permitting)

Please find the USU Affirmative Action Consultative Paper which contains substantive findings from the Affirmative Action Review here: 2012 Affirmative Action Consultative Paper

We invite you to read this paper and provide us with submissions on the issues pertaining to each section. Your submissions can include any proposed models addressing the issues, ideas or comments on the findings. These submissions can be anonymous or you may include your name. Additionally, if you would like any part of your submission to be directly referenced at the Consultation Forums, please indicate if you would like it to be done so anonymously.

Please email any submissions to the Women’s Portfolio Holder at h.morris@usu.usyd.edu.au by 4pm on Thursday, 1^st November.

Come along to the event in the spirit of respect and open debate. The USU began as Debating Society after all.

Yours sincerely,

Board of Directors
University of Sydney Union



Changes To Our Coffee

We’re pleased to announce that as early as January 2013, the USU will be changing its coffee to beans that are Rainforest Alliance certified and 100% organic. Our decision to move to socially sustainable coffee is just one way we’re hoping to improve our CSR practices.

For some time now, students have been telling us they want socially responsible coffee. This came to a head with 2010’s referendum on Fair Trade initiated by the student group Fairly Educated. At the time, we were locked into a coffee contract so could not make immediate changes to our coffee.

When our coffee contract came up for review this year, we decided to put out a call for socially responsible coffee suppliers. The tender process was vigorous with suppliers asked to respond to an extensive list of questions formulated by the Tertiary Access Group (a non-profit cooperative providing Australian universities with commercial support), as well as additional questions developed by Fairly Educated.

We established an internal Coffee Working Party to compare the responses from the ten companies who replied to the tender. Our main aim was to ensure our final supplier of choice would not source beans from farmers who exploited ethical labour standards. After a long process including consultation with Fairly Educated, the Board voted to award the contract to our current supplier, Cantarella Bros., a 100 per cent Australian owned company. We will be sticking with the Vittoria brand, but supplying beans that are ethically sourced.

This decision is just the beginning of our move towards a more socially responsible USU. The majority of our products will go through TAG’s questioning process to ensure that when you buy something from the Union, you are doing a good thing for workers and the environment.

I’m currently working with the Board and other USU staff members to review our environmental practices and expand our CSR strategy. Already, there have been many exciting ideas discussed, so watch this space for more info.

If you would like more information on our coffee and social responsibility at the USU, please contact me at: t.raue@usu.usyd.edu.au

Tom Raue

Board Director

ODYSSEY – HERMES 2012

Dear membership and friends of the USU,

Last week your Union continued one of its oldest and richest traditions, by launching the latest edition of Hermes (pronounced her-mees, not er-mez).

Hermes, is Australia’s oldest literary journal, which has been produced by students since 1886. Whilst Hermes is a product of students here at the University of Sydney, its international reputation and remarkable heritage means that it is revered in literary circles across this land and abroad.

This year, Jackson Busse, Gabriela Edelstein, Kate Farrell and Chenoa Fawn have composed an edition themed ‘Odyssey’. In their prologue, they say that writers have a special freedom to “explore and attend the whole drama of human life”. It is a testament to the talent and travails of these students, that anyone who glances at Hermes will quickly realise that this lofty notion has been captured, exquisitely in their 110–page literary gem.

For its exemplary literary pieces, and flashes of Jazz Age imagery, I cannot recommend obtaining a copy of Hermes 2012 highly enough. Brought to you by your USU, editions of Hermes are available free from the Access Desk in Manning, and from the Verge Gallery in Jane Foss Russell Plaza. 

Kind regards,

Zachary Thompson

Honorary Secretary

Verge Extravanganza!

If you’ve noticed any peculiarly placed artworks, music humming from corners of the campus that you didn’t know existed, or the massive big dome currently residing on our front lawns – you’d have probably guessed it’s that time lovely Verge time of year again. The Verge Arts Festival is bigger and better than ever before, and is totally living up to this year’s theme of “Compulsory Fun” - Verge Directors James Colley and Lauren Eisinger have worked at super hard to bring you one of the most rocking festival programs I’ve ever seen on this campus.

It's Alive!
Opening Night Party 

It all started off with a bang last Wednesday at Manning Bar with its “IT’S ALIVE” launch party, and has to date delivered the most excellent sources of entertainment (and excuses to skip class) with heaps of gigs under the dome, the ultra glamourous “Glitterati” night, a smorgasboard of Theatresports and even commandeered the bell tower to deliver your favourite tunes on request. One of the most exciting things on the schedule was the sold-out game of Humans vs Zombies on Saturday, turning the campus into an apocalyptic (and extremely fun) strategic battlefield.

If you’ve missed out thus far (or recently emerged from under a rock), never fear. Verge will be continuing its mighty festivities for the rest of the week.

On Monday, Harry Potter Trivia will be happening from 6:30pm onwards, aptly located in the Great Hall. If you haven’t managed to get yourself a ticket, no worries – you can still get your JK Rowling fix with Wizard Chess happening in the Festival Dome at 6pm. At 8pm, the Festival Dome will be turned into a wondrous cave of light illusions with “Luminous”, a blacklight circus show.

Bounce your way to Super Tuesday on the Front Lawns, and feast on the inflatable activities on offer, from human foosball to giant slides from 12-3pm. While you’re there, check out the acts under the Festival Dome, with comedy happening at 12pm, and Super Florence Jam playing at 1pm. If running around looking for things is more your deal, grab your friends and head down to the Scavenger Hunt, which will be happening all day from 10am til 4pm. There will also be a host of shows and musicals for our more thespian friends, with Seascape presented by SUDS happening in the Old Equine Operating Theatre (er, check a map) at 3pm, MUSE presenting a cabaret night under the Festival Dome at 8pm, and the SASS Factor Grand Finals happening at 5pm in the Verge Gallery. Our friends from the Conservatorium of Music will also be paying a visit to the Festival Dome at 6pm for CONverge, a collection of some of the most talented jazz musicians playing some wicked sick tunes.

Have breakfast with us in the Festival Dome on Wednesday (most students wake up at noon, right?) with the Mad Hatter’s High Tea from 12pm to 2pm – dressing up is very much encouraged. After the cupcakes, 2pm heralds the start of 24 continuous hours of glorious comedy under the Dome, with a bunch of our most talented comedians delivering lols for the entirety of a day.

Can you take a Winstagram? Hashtag
#VergeFestival on your Instagram for your chance to win! 

On Thursday, come celebrate the launch of the 2012 edition of Hermes, Australia’s oldest literary journal of its kind, at 4:30pm in the Verge Gallery. There will also be Twilight Markets happening along Eastern Avenue and the Front Lawns. At 6pm, let out your inner kid with the Magical Music of Disney singing out from the Great Hall, then come party at 8pm with the Beat the System society putting on a massive band night under the Festival Dome.

And so it goes until Friday, which is also the first day of Oktoberfest celebrations at Manning. Grab a beer and view all the Bavarian entertainment on offer. There will be comedy and live music yet again under the Festival Dome, and it all wraps up with a Comedy Dance Party Extravaganza under the Verge Festival Dome at 6pm.

In addition to all these awesome things, the Wine Cellar will also see host to a bunch of plays, workshops and shows throughout the week.

For more info, a complete program of events and details for what’s on, visit www.vergeartsfestival.com.

Karen Chau
Board Director 

STUVAC? MORE LIKE USU-VAC! (amirite?!)

For the entirety of last week, someone in the University of Sydney administration thought it would be a great idea to give my degree a random week off in the middle of semester as a mini “stuvac” before our exams the following week. Cue a week of deactivating Facebook, vetoing all social events, locking myself into the gilded prison-with-a-view of Fisher level 4 and studying non-stop from 8am to 10pm with only one 30-minute break a day for lunch…

Oh yeah, that was everybody else in my degree, as the week of my stuvac also happened to coincide with an epic line-up of USU events, and in the classic method of rationalization that procrastinators do so well (if I go to USU stuff, then I’m technically working, and everybody knows on the hierarchy of stuvac priorities that work > study > fun, right? Right??) 

Anyway, I am so very glad that I decided to turn my stuvac into a USUvac, because last week turned out to be one of the best weeks of my year. Hooked already? Read on…

SUDS Performance of “The Country”

After an hour of radio with Rhys on Monday night in the SURG studio, I decided to kick on to the other side of the Holme Building to see the SUDS performance of “The Country” at Studio B. My decision to see The Country was one of those spontaneous “I’m going to say yes to this email” decisions that I made without asking whether anyone else would be able to come with me or even finding out what this play was about. However like many spontaneous decisions, this turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have made, because The Country was one of the most intimate and intense experiences I’ve ever had whilst watching a performance. On one hand, Studio B is an incredible performance space, with the audience almost spilling over onto the stage and the actors performing literally meters in front of you. The play itself was brilliantly directed and performed, with the pregnant pauses between the dialogue saying almost as much as the words themselves and the screechy violins and dimming lanterns between each scene fostering an atmosphere of tension and edginess that was impossible not to get caught up in. This play was selected to be part of the Festival of Australian Student Theatre in Brisbane, so massive congratulations to all involved, especially director (and SUDS President) Brenden Hooke! As someone with minimal play watching experience I know I will definitely be attending more SUDS plays in the future, and with a seemingly never-ending repertoire of plays being staged every few weeks at the Cellar theatre, there are plenty of opportunities!

Interfaith Week Women’s Panel: Can you be a Religious Feminist?

In what I decided to take to be a divine sign telling me not to study, the USU’s second annual Interfaith Week also happened to coincide with my study vacation. As holder of the USU Women’s Portfolio I was asked to moderate the Interfaith Week women’s discussion panel on the topic “Can you be a religious feminist?” Featuring a fascinating and formidable panel of speakers including Eva Cox, Uniting Church Reverend Elenie Poulos, Muslim women’s rights activist Reeme Allouche, Venerable Yeshe Chodron and Rabbi Allison Conyer, what ensued was a fiery and thought provoking debate about the issues surrounding the role of women ascribed by our contemporary society. To be honest I was ridiculously nervous to be moderating such a panel, but by the end of the discussion I simply felt honoured and humbled to be sharing a room with such intelligent, passionate and articulate women. After such a great experience being a part of that panel I am definitely looking to organize more panel discussions around contentious issues affecting women in our society, so watch this space!

Queer Revue

First revue up for the week was my Thursday night viewing of Queer Revue, “The Mister Sister Act”. Both brilliantly trashy and trashily brilliant, I was subjected to way more man-butt than I’ve ever seen before, was scarred by the image of my good friend and producer of my radio show Annie Wylie stuffing her face full of cake dressed as Gina Rineheart, and in a strangely moving and beautiful display of audience interaction, bellowed out with the entire Revue cast and audience the chorus to “We are from Oxford Street”- the Queer Revue rendition of the classic primary school nationalist theme, “We are Australian”. Queer Revue directors Joseph Ist and Gayda Medessa I salute you, you put together a ridiculously fun show, with a special shout out going to Michael Koziol who managed to reincarnate himself every few scenes in a variety of comical but slightly disturbing characters.

Interfaith Dinner

On Friday night, Interfaith Week concluded with a formal dinner to celebrate what had been an immense week of awareness raising, thought-provoking discussion and healthy debate.  Interfaith week directors Lawrence Muskitta and Louise Castle had been working on this festival for months and months, and it was a testimony to all that hard work and planning that the week ran as smoothly and successfully as it did. The dinner itself was a beautiful and intimate affair, featuring short speeches by various religious and non-religious students about how food plays a part in their celebrations and traditions.  There was also an obscure performance by a magician whose main trick was his ability to inhale 6 eggs into his mouth and then bizarrely exhale them out again, which distressed me on several levels but everybody else seemed to really enjoy it so what can you do! If anything, Interfaith Week has reminded me that although I may not understand, believe or enjoy certain things in the same way as my friends and peers (whether it be ways of perceiving and understanding the world, religious beliefs or even enjoyment of magic tricks) what is paramount is being able to respect their right to hold that belief, and being thankful that in our society we are privileged enough to be able to hold those beliefs openly and freely.

Science Revue

D-day for my final exam is in -2 days, so what to do on Saturday night? Go to Science Revue of course! Directed by the combined veritable forces of Adam Chalmers and Kay Pengelly, Sin(X) City was a cheerful and highly enthusiastic 2 hour long romp that mixed a slick film noir vibe with the unabashed and shameless fist-pump-the-air joy of Glee. The cast was obviously enamored with each other and the entire production felt like a big party, especially the bizarrely perfect ending to the first act. As someone who has zero marketable skills in the singing/dancing/acting arenas, seeing these revues provides me with a deep admiration (and in some cases a minor fan-crush) on all the people who perform in reviews and who I can truly say are legitimate triple threats.

And that brings week of USU-vac to an end! I may not have learned much about the subjects I was to be tested on the following week, but what I did gain was a renewed enjoyment and appreciation of the rich and diverse display of ideas, energy and talent that students at this university have- whether it be in heading up a club or society; directing a revue, a play or a festival; singing, dancing and acting skills; or even just being able to learn from, share and discuss your opinions with others in a respectful and intellectually stimulating environment- in my opinion, that’s what university is all about. And I am just so stoked I happen to go to a university where there are so many ways to engage with and appreciate all this talent that is flying around… exam procrastination has never been so fun.

Till next time,

Hannah Morris

Board Director 

Censure Motion Passed

Today, in Board’s August meeting, it was voted by majority to pass the Censure Motion regarding USU Board Director, Tom Raue. The motion was recommended following several breaches of the USU’s Constitution, Regulations and Director’s Duty statements. For more info on this, see previous post. 

The Censure Motion will be marked on Tom Raue’s official USU record.  This action will not necessarily result in his removal from the Board. However, if future actions by Tom Raue are found to be in breach of our Constitution and Regulations, it could result in such an action being taken.