Our University has a long tradition of focusing on student development and wellness. We’ve always believed that student engagement in healthy activities promotes both personal growth and academic success.

Likewise, our Athletics Department has a long and successful history of supporting our students. It provides a plethora of engagement opportunities, from recreational and intramural activities to high-level varsity sports.

Drop by the Athletic Centre on any day or night and you will get a sense of the high level of activity. Every day, hundreds of people walk through the turnstiles. In October alone, just over 6,300 individuals used the facilities.

Over 7,000 students participate in intramural activities, and our varsity program is one of the largest in the country with close to 700 athletes playing various sports each year.

We also work closely with our community, providing sports and development camps for hundreds of children annually and opening our facilities and programs to the public. In fact, 2,670 children were registered in camps this past summer.

Athletics is also a place that helps to develop our school spirit — who can forget this year's Homecoming football game with more than 7,000 fans in the stands?

While U of G is a leader in this area, we are falling behind in our facilities. The Mitchell Athletics Centre was once considered cutting-edge. But it was built in 1941 with small expansions in 1957 and in the early 90’s.

We are now a school close to 20,000 students, and everyone who uses the facility knows that it simply does not meet today’s standards or needs. We have simply made due while other universities have built state- of-the-art fitness and recreation facilities.

Our students recognized this shortfall and passed a referendum to raise funds for a new Athletics Complex. The plan is to create a place that will engage all students. It will include facilities for all sorts of physical activities as well as meeting rooms and congregation space for all to enjoy.

I encourage everyone to review this short video about our vision for this project. It’s an exciting one! It’s also something that all of us should support.

Everyone benefits from having healthier, happier students on campus. And all of us — faculty, staff, alumni and community members — will be able to utilize the many offerings and opportunities that this new facility will provide.

It’s for this reason that the new athletics facility has been identified as one of the priorities for the Better Planet Project. I encourage you to consider supporting this important initiative that will help us build a stronger student body and a stronger community.

Posted by Alastair Summerlee at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women: a time to commemorate those who have lost their lives as a result of gender-based violence.

As a society, we have come a long way in addressing these issues, but there is much left to do and learn.

Gender-based violence is still prevalent, and, overwhelmingly, the victims tend to be women and girls. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, it accounts for more death and disability among women than the combined effects of cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war.

The abuse can take many forms: sexual, physical, emotional, labour exploitation, discrimination, etc. It impacts not only the victims, but also those who witness the abuse, often young children.

It’s a public safety issue, a public health issue and a human rights issue, so the cumulative effect of gender-based violence touches all of us. As a University and as a society, we must work to eliminate it using education, awareness and compassion.

Here at U of G, we can improve understanding by initiating and promoting research that looks into the root causes of such violence, including abuse of power, misdirected anger, and issues of both women's and men's roles and identities.

We can also encourage open dialogues both in and outside the classroom about the prevalence of such crimes and the harm they cause.

We can support community initiatives aimed at helping victims of gender-based abuse. We can continue programs such as the Women's Campus Safety Initiatives, which fund education, programs and services on women's safety, sexual harassment and violence against women.

Our faculty, staff and students can serve as mentors and role models for girls and young women, and encourage them strive for success in any field that interests them, whether it's science and engineering, medicine, or arts and social sciences.

And, above all, we must work together and as individuals to ensure that all men and women understand that gender-based violence has no place anywhere — on our campus, in our community, and in our country.

So today, I encourage all of you to do some personal reflecting and think about the actions that each of us can take to help prevent gender-based violence. However, make this a commitment not just for one day but for the rest of the year.

Posted by Alastair Summerlee at 07:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was pleased to see nearly 500 members of the U of G community at Thursday's pension Town Hall meeting to understand the problems the University is facing and discuss some proposed strategies.

Admittedly, most of us have other things on our minds at this time of year than pension plans. But it’s vital that we have this discussion now. The government is allowing universities to apply for temporary, conditional relief from having to make significant pension solvency payments, but the deadline is fast approaching.

If we do not get this relief, we will have to increase our current payment of $22 million a year into the pension fund to about $97 million every year for the next five years. The “relief” would make our payment about $40 million a year, which is still nearly double what we currently allocate.

It goes without saying that we MUST apply for the relief. Without it, the consequences would be devastating. Our ability to function as a university would be seriously impaired, and we’d have to lay off people and cut programs and services. We simply have no other option.

But in order qualify for longer-term relief, we must restructure our pension plans to make them financially viable in the future. In addition, to be considered for the relief, we must file a plan for changing our pensions at the beginning of 2011.

This is why we have been meeting with employee groups and why we held the Town Hall meeting. We need to make these changes through formal bargaining, a process that we respect. However, it’s vital that every member of the University community is aware of the magnitude and seriousness of the situation.

We are certainly not alone in this. In Ontario, every public and private sector organization with pension plans has been adversely affected due to the global economic situation.

I encourage all faculty and staff to educate themselves on this issue. A podcast of the pension Town Hall meeting is available online via the U of G homepage. As well, there is information on the Human Resources webpage and information is also available from the various employee groups.

We are facing an incredible challenge as a University community. But I am confident that we’ll be successful in finding solutions if we continue to work together.

Posted by Alastair Summerlee at 08:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)