RSU President Elect Toby Whitfield. Courtesy of Ryerson’s Students Union

The existing situation of the Ryerson Student Union (RSU) is generally unknown to students, as many pay little attention to university politics. During this year’s election campaigns, students were stopped in the halls, bridges and building lobbies, as different teams attempted to win over their votes, often leaving students unsure of whom to vote for and why.

All teams running promised change-making strategies and plans for the upcoming year, such as decreases in student fees and more events to enhance student life. Despite each team advocating for a positive and progressive change on campus, students were still left wondering why the teams that ran were opposing one another and what the problem in the RSU was in the first place.

We need to work on building, expanding and redeveloping change to vote for and why.

“I only ran to raise awareness about the RSU’s mishandling of money,” said Sherif El Tawil, a second year industrial engineering student and the only one of the four RSU presidential candidates to run independently in the elections. He says that the Ryerson Student Union is also incorrectly distributing student money to cover “useless expenses.”
“The RSU uses $1000 per year on uniform costs? Then why isn’t the guy selling me my metro pass wearing a uniform? When have you seen anyone in the RSU in a uniform?” said El Tawil.

Head of opposition party (LEAD) Darius Sookram. Courtesy of Darius Sookram

In his campaign posters, El Tawil openly expressed his lack of support for president-elect, Toby Whitfield, and stated that as current vice-president of finance of the RSU, he is responsible for the current waste of student money.

El Tawil disagrees that RSU lobbying led to the closing of Gould Street; and said that it was the university as a whole that succeeded at temporarily closing of the street, in order to speed up the construction of the Ryerson Image Arts building. “As a matter of fact, the RSU was ticketed for setting up a sports field in the middle of Gould Street in the first semester, and that ticket is now being paid from student money,” he said.

Ryerson is an 86 per cent commuter school; when voting is done by ballot box, it doesn’t make sense.

El Tawil said that he plans on running again in next year’s elections, this time to really succeed at receiving student votes. If elected, he plans on trying to reallocate student money and de-federalizing from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS); an organization which he believes is a profit-seeking corporation “hiding behind the name of a student federation.” He also plans on following the points suggested in an audit issued by Deloitte Canada; one of which was an adaptation of an online voting system instead of the current paper-ballot one. President-elect for the 2010-2011 academic year, Toby Whitfield, says that the focus should be student issues rather than personal issues, and acknowledged that there had in fact been negative campaigns against him. But he said that there are no issues currently within the RSU. Whitfield ran under the slate “Students United.”

“We need to work on building, expanding and redeveloping change,” said Whitfield. He emphasized a fact in which he firmly believes: “The RSU works for students.”

Whitfield said that as current VP finance of the RSU executive team, they have succeeded at the elimination of the $70 deferral fee, decreasing the price of the metro pass to $99 from the original price of $120, as well as successfully lobbying for the one-year pilot project of the closing down of Gould Street. “We will continue to lobby and campaign to drop tuition fees in the upcoming year,” said Whitfield.

“Drop Fees is a useless campaign,” was Sherif El tawil’s counter-opinion. “A lot of the RSU budget money is allocated to that campaign, $32000 were spent on it this year and only 120 to 130 Ryerson students attended the rally, and the $70 deferral fee was not the biggest student concern.”

The presidential candidate with the second largest number of votes this year, Darius Sookram, seemed to share a view similar to Sherif El Tawil. “RSU is very adversarial, not conducive to making deals or things work,” he said.
Running under the slate titled “LEAD,” Sookram also claimed to having had his posters torn down by opposing “Students United” team during the campaigning period. When asked if he is sure of the other team’s responsibility for the attacks, Sookram was certain. “I get e-mails from people I trust all over campus telling me exactly what is going on.”

Darius also supports a change to an online voting system, arguing that “Ryerson is an 86 per cent commuter school, when voting is done by ballot box, it doesn’t make sense.”

Sookram described Ryerson student groups as being the hands of Ryerson University, and the RSU being the head. He says that bettering communication between the students and their union and educating them of the current situation is a means to bettering student life on campus.

The difference between the number of votes for Toby Whitfield and Darius Sookram was a total of 268, the smallest margin between two slates to ever occur during the RSU elections.

Tom Dolezel, a fourth year Radio and Television Arts student, ran for the second time this year. He also says that an online voting system is necessary in the future. “Unless there’s online voting, nothing will change,” he said. “Any CFS-affiliated slate gets at least 1000 student votes. That’s why online voting would help students dilute those numbers.”

Dolezel had a unique and humorous approach in his campaigns, calling his slate “The TomTourage” and running alongside candidates for vice presidents student life and education, Calvin Desautels and Paul Murphy.

“People thought my campaign was a joke campaign, it wasn’t. They are too serious when it comes to these matters, they need to loosen up,” said Dolezel.

Dolezel recognizes problems in the current RSU set-up, and says that the RSU is not aiming for students’ best interests, but rather “other peoples’ interests.” If he pursues a Master’s at Ryerson next year, Dolezel plans to run for president once again, with the intention of attempting to reallocate the student money and using it to better the school.

“RUAS has created various opportunities for the thousands of accounting students at Ryerson,” said Asmaa Shahsamand, president of RUAS.

The event’s competitive and motivational nature helped expose both RUAS and the Ted Rogers School of Management’s students’ potentials to participants from eight different universities across Ontario, including Schulich, Guelph, and Wilfred Laurier University.

“It’s the best we’ve had so far,” said Shahsamand.

Overall, the team was happy with what they accomplished at the competition, but there was one challenge that may have hindered their success.

“Lack of experience in doing models together, it was always hard getting everyone together [for preparation purposes] and other than that, everybody has their own point of view and it’s hard to find the right solution. You have to have nerves of steel, and a connection between members,” said Masad.

The structure of the competition included two days of actual challenges and one day of networking and socializing.

“Thursday night there was a lot of socializing, and also it was a trading Shahsamand believes that RUAS events are setting standards for Ryerson’s accounting program and that student participation in them is beneficial.

“Students thatparticipate in these events have a higher chance of being employed once they graduate,” he said.

To further increase networking and employment opportunities, RUAS also hosts annual designation information sessions, industry nights and an Alumni Gala which accounting students can attend to learn about internship opportunities, and get information about post graduate studies.

The winning team took home $1,500, provided by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, as well as a plaque of recognition. In order to avoid any possible partiality, instead of faculty personnel or RUAS executives, the competition’s judging panel consisted of eight industry professionals from the event’s
corporate sponsors. The competition was based on the study of one accounting case; the concepts in the case were analyzed by each team and then presented to the judging panel as well as the other participants.

Renu Shah, a fourth-year accounting major and competition coordinator, believes that this event is only the beginning of RUAS’ achievements.

“For the past two years, it’s only been a day-long competition,” said Shah.

“We want to eventually turn this into a two or three day conference, to make this event bigger and better.”

“The current brigade trip that is planned is focused on giving students hands-on experience in the field of business, such as the basics of marketing, accounting and finance, on a real-life project,” says Jonathan Aellen, a Brigades member.

“The group’s main focus is also to give students a chance to be leaders and to work as a team in an effort to make a real difference and change in the lives of others.”

Global Brigades is an international student-led organization that is based out of California. Student leaders can choose to open a chapter of Global Brigades at their university, in fields including law, medicine, public health, microfinance and, of course, business. The Brigades focus on a holistic and sustainable approach to growth within the community they visit, giving community members tools they can continue to use as their business venture grows. According to executive member Jienezza May Alquinto, the Global Brigades focus on educating villagers on critical business principles such as marketing, accounting and the improvement of a product for a specific market.

“It’s an incredible opportunity to go and help impoverished villages in Panama, which I think is something that can be overlooked due to Panama’s strengthening economy,” says Global Brigades member, Jessica Shute.

“Unfortunately, the country has the highest economic disparity gap and the villages we work with are those affected by this gap.”

Out of each student’s $900 trip cost, $100 goes toward a microfinance project, which the trained community members will be responsible for after the groups departure. The students then have the chance to return to the village a few months later to see the growth of their initial investment, as well as how the community has changed as a direct result of their involvement.

“Since this is a sustainability project, another trip will be followed around August to ensure the village is operating as we planned,” says Alquinto.

Though Global Brigades greatly benefits the communities that it travels to, volunteers can expect to leave the experience with an entirely new set of skills and a fresh perspective on the role that business can play in a community.

“It is important to get involved because the experience is business at its core level,” continues Alquinto.

“Students are not only able to practice the skills they learned in school, but they are also given the opportunity to dedicate themselves for a greater cause.”

The group, which was recently approved as an affiliate to the Ted Rogers School, is excited to officially be a part of Ryerson.

“The project also sets a new reputation for the Ted Rogers School,” says Alquinto. “We are not only known as competitive, ambitious business students, but also students with a heart for the common good.”

Students interested in getting involved with the next Global Brigades trip can check out Ryerson Global Brigades on their Facebook page, or direct questions to GBBryerson@ gmail.com

“Current students from various years and programs, as well as alumni, attended the conference to hear industrial specialists provide some insight about their respected fields with glimpses of what’s to come in the future. The conference started off with Dave Remmer, an architect advisor from Microsoft Canada who enlightened students of what is required of them in the coming years. Remmer, who is considered an industry veteran, discussed the issues he faced when he started working in the field of IT and prepared students for the future.

A unique session regarding Personal Branding was lectured by Michael Cayley, an entrepreneur and consultant, who helped various companies adopt web based applications. With social networks on the rise, Cayley advised students to keep their online identities rich and vivid. He also explained new trends in the hiring process businesses are adopting, as they now look at social networking websites to determine potential candidates and eventually employees.

“Understand the strategies that will help you maximize the benefits from participating in social networks while also discovering the inherit risks of this evolving space,” said Cayley

Leading to the afternoon was Mathew Milan, Partner and CEO of Normative, a Toronto based design and strategy studio. Being an entrepreneur and a designer, Milan discussed the necessity of strategy in a business. From showcasing his unique model and approach for new business frontiers to the significance of Post-It’s in an organization, the session was informative and lucrative.

The conference then progressed to Professor Kenneth A. Grant, the Director of the Information Technology Program who made an announcement in regards to the change of name of the business program.

The programs name is to change from  Information Technology Management (ITM) to Business Technology Management (BTM), with this year’s graduating class being the first to adopt the degree name. The sole purpose of this change is for the benefits of students pursuing their careers, as BTM helps identify and clarify the true purpose of the program.

The conference proved to be an asset for students and alumni alike. Although a formal event, the atmosphere and people present made it an ease to communicate with new faces. Listening to Professor Grant retell stories of former students and their successes, while sipping a martini, allowed participants to meet industry specialist on a more personal level.

The conference ended with keynote speaker, Don Tapscott.  If you’re wondering who Tapscott is and what he’s about, I encourage doing a quick search on Google. With more than a dozen books, authored or co-authored, and around half a dozen post-secondary degrees, masters and doctorates, Tapscott was more educational than any lecture could ever be (sorry Professors). Tapscott talked about the evolving educating system and how the digital media has changed the way students learn and conceptualize ideas. He also confirmed that as Information Communication Students and with the power of digital media, the future is always within our grasps.

Participants were split up into groups of four for the simulations. Each team was given a case and their own separated prep area, the teams would have 30 minutes to read the case, discuss the issues, and give their evaluations for what needs to be done. After the allotted time ran out the team would present their case in front of a judge.

Each judge is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and would mark the teams on a set of given criteria. The competition was tough and each team did their best to earn those top marks.

The best part of the Bay Street simulations for Lisa Miller, a University of Alberta student was the energy,

“ The best part is the pushing yourselves in areas you may not be comfortable in and meeting lots of great people.”

After all the teams had presented it was time to tabulate the scores and determine the top three teams. These top three teams would then compete in one final challenge that would have them presenting to a panel of 12 CMA’s. This next competition allowed teams to create a presentation in only 15 minutes.

Peter Newman speaks to students at TRMC. Courtesy of Miguel Syyap

The final case involved a company called SLP that would need to implement a brand new website and a web-based training program.

The first team presented a detailed analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and the implication such a procedure would have for the company. The team also explored financial issues and how to fund the entire project.

The second team presented potential obstacles and how to overcome an IT duopoly that existed in the business world SLP existed in. Their presentation focused heavily on reaching new clients through social media.

The final team followed an e-commerce model. Their presentation mainly focused on out-sourcing they did not want to go to the social media route because they believed it to be it unprofessional.

All three teams fought well, but only one team would come on top. During the gala that took place that evening the winners were announced. The team placements were as follows:

1st Place:
Tasom Jeong
Meghan Youmans
Lisa Miller
Manpreet Barbra

2nd Place:
Rachael Aramolaran
Salman Habib
Rania Maroun
Christopher Nguyen

3rd Place:
James King
Faiza Hussein
Stephen Sin
Victoria Nguyen

TRMC Day 1
TRMC Day 2

“Since I was president of the Ryerson commerce society in the 2007-2008 academic year, I’ve wanted to see this conference happen. More time, opportunity and resources helped create and implement this successful conference.  The Ted Rogers memorial conference provides value and motivation to delegates while paying tribute to one of the most eminent business leaders in this country, Mr.Ted Rogers” said Abdul Snobar, manager of the Ryerson Commerce Society.

All corporate representatives are from corporations that have been affiliated with Rogers Communications Inc. and they have each worked closely with the late Ted Rogers. They provided students with insights and advice regarding business aspirations, their goals as students and their responsibilities as future business men and women. Students had the privilege of hearing four different opinions and points of view, as each speaker worked in a different industry and played a unique role as a president and CEO.

President Sheldon Levy shows his support for TRMC at the Saturday night’s gala. Courtesy of Amanda Parker

Arzan Bharucha, fourth year business management student and director of corporate relations of the RCS said that this conference helped prepare students for their futures.

“You’re not only learning skill for business, you’re learning skills for everyday life,” said Bharucha.

The panel discussion, which was hosted by CityNews anchor Gord Martineau, was a source of inspiration and motivation for many students who were still deciding their career paths.

The speakers explained the importance of passion, personal value, hard work and the overlap between all three as vital to achieving goals.

“You’ve got to find an industry you’re passionate about,” said Larry Rosen, current CEO of Harry Rosen Inc., who added that his son is pursuing a career in the music industry.

Tim Hockey, CEO of TD Canada Trust, also highlighted the importance of choosing a career that’s compatible and unique to one’s persona

“If you want to work for a large organization, find the culture that you fit with, don’t go for the job,” said Hockey.

The panelists openly spoke about their setbacks, challenges and failures and how they overcame them. Bill Thomas from KPMG said he keeps his very first rejection letter from KPMG as a reminder to stick to his values and work hard to achieve his goals, “I have this letter framed and on my wall,” said Thomas..

The speakers also discussed leadership and the means to becoming good leaders. Nadir Mohamed, CEO and president of Rogers Communications Inc., explained that a company is bettered through the empowerment of others.

“As a wise man once said, show me where my people are, and I will follow them,” said Mohamed

He explained that while working closely with Ted Rogers, he constantly learned from his dedication and persistence to meet and satisfy customer needs.

“I’d get a handful of voicemails from Ted early in the morning asking me to implement improvements to our company immediately. He’d have a casual conversation the night before with a Rogers’ customer and would call me the next morning letting me know whether this person was satisfied with our services or not and what should be done about it,” said Mohamed.

To students and individuals outside of the realm, the business this field may only like strategic money-making, rather than a domain where personal values can be put into use, the speakers and events of the Ted Rogers memorial conference were successful at drawing the bridge between personal and financial growth, and encouraged the practice of values and ethics, both in personal lives and in business.

Arzan Bharucha explained the diverse nature of the business world: “Business is not limited to one aspect, you need to be well-rounded as a business person, and you need values.”

TRMC Day 1

Free coffee and food, giveaways and prizes!

When: Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Time: 10am-7pm
Where: (10am-3pm TRS 1-003, 3pm-7pm Main Floor Kiosk)

The Commerce Times is Ryerson’s business focused newspaper that provides high integrity news and views that connect students to the world beyond campus.

Generous sponsors of the Commerce Café include Starbucks, Booster Juice, St. Louis Bar & Grill, Vervegirl magazine, and Taco Time.

The video, filmed and uploaded by U of T student Antonin Mongeau, depicts Whitfield pacing in front of a wall of posters, before cutting to a shot of crumpled EFUT French Club posters advertising a crepe lunch and other EFUT events. Mongeau, whose YouTube username is Brahpster, approaches Toby about the crumpled posters, but Toby ignores him and busies himself with his BlackBerry.

“I said ‘Hi, Toby,’ because I recognized him,” recalls Mongeau. “I negotiated a poster truce with him. I often poster for the French Club, so I showed him our posters and I said “It would be real cool if you could not cover our posters and we could not cover yours.” Mongeau then says he continued to poster the St. George campus.

Mongeau and Whitfield’s second encounter is the one initially shown in the video. Mongeau perceived Whitfield’s presence as ‘interfering’ with the U of T student elections, and wanted to ask Whitfield himself. “…I approach him with my camera, and that’s the footage that you see in the video of me asking him questions, asking if he is Toby Whitfield of the RSU, and he’s not very forthcoming.”

It is a few hours later when Mongeau sees Whitfield for the third time. “I was out in the back of Sid Smith … I literally see Toby come out rip down our posters – and just our posters!” Mongeau catches Whitfield on film, but a building between Mongeau and Whitfield causes Mongeau to miss catching Toby’s actual defacement on film.

Mongeau called the campus police, whom, according to eventually apprehended Whitfield outside of the Gerstein Library, while postering for Stronger Together. “If you look at the video, I think I ask him five or ten times, and at no point does he deny tearing down the posters, because he knows he did it,” says Mongeau. “He 100 per cent did it. I saw him do it. Without a doubt.”

EFUT president Sitelle Cheskey was both disapointed and confused when she heard about the incident. “Why?” she asks, “What did we ever do to him?”

‘[I am] disappointed, because as a student leader, he should know how hard it is to run events. Postering is one of the most important things we do as a club, and his actions showed complete disrespect for club involvement in general,” she says.

Despite the defacement, Chesky says that the crepe event was a “great success.”

“I am not disappointed in Ryerson itself, or its students,” says Chesky, “but I think that Ryerson students should be aware of the fact that one of their paid representatives is spending time outside of his university and therefore duty, interfering with another university’s property, and that they should know where their money is going.”

As of March 14, the YouTube video has 1,179 views.

You can watch the video for yourself:

Surprised? In annual elections, the Ryerson Commerce Society has been bucking the social media trend and disallowing students from campaigning via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets.

“We wanted students to connect with the students,” Muzzamil Ahmed, chief returning officer, said.

Those campaigning for RCS executive and director positions also had to work with small budgets (under $25) and a ban on student group endorsement.

“They should do classroom talks; they should go and talk to students. We wanted more of the personal touch, people connecting face-to-face, to bring that genuine sincerity back into the election process,” Ahmed said.

This is striking when compared to the large-budget, high-publicity affair that is the RSU election.
“The RSU, they have a broader spectrum to cover,” Ahmed said. “Whereas the RCS is just in the Ted Rogers School of Management building.”

“The people who are going to be voting for [the candidates] all reside in one building, so it’s really easy to connect,” he said.

In addition to encouraging students to talk face-to-face, the bans on web media and endorsements level the playing field.

“We want every student to have an equal opportunity to campaign, to promote, and have the same level of resources or leverage that the other student would,” Ahmed said. If some students do not have easy internet access or Facebook, that shouldn’t put them at a disadvantage, he said.

The same thing applies for candidates with close ties to other student groups, who are more likely to be endorsed by those organizations. If a member of the Ryerson Finance Society decides to run for RCS, he has access to an emailing list of 700 students. Those running for RCS a second time would have access to 7, 000 students’ emails. To avoid such discrepancies students must run independently.

According to Ahmed, when students are faced with restrictions like these, it forces them to innovate and work together to reach their audience.

“You could pair with students who you think you would be willing to work with, and you could combine your budget,” he said. “So collectively, let’s say, you could have a $200 or $250 budget, which gives you a lot more flexibility in doing a lot more things.”

Also, this year’s election saw an increase in new students to the TRSM and RCS bringing new and inventive campaigns.

“They brought another level of creativity and ingenuity to this election. There were definitely things that made me ponder and made me think. It was actually refreshing to see a lot of students with these kinds of ideas, because it just shows you the future generation of students aren’t just using the conventional methods,” Ahmed said. “They’re thinking outside the box, which is exactly what our school promotes.”
Looking ahead, Ahmed says that there may be changes. But right now, the system is working as it is, and the 2010 election was a success.

“We also take into consideration the new digital media age, and what students are using, and what other activities they could also use to promote themselves,” he said.

“It’s definitely not written in stone, but in the future, you might see some changes in the ways that the elections are being held.”

“A strike would disrupt the education of our students and is not necessary. And it would not make the union’s demands any more affordable or provide the colleges with any more money,” said Rachael Donovan, chair of the colleges’ bargaining team.

Donovan announced on Feb. 2 that the colleges have asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to step in and allow faculty to vote on an offer previously rejected by their union.

“We are taking this step because the union declined to allow faculty to vote on the proposed collective agreement and have set a strike date,” Donovan said.

“If the majority of faculty vote against the offer then we will be facing a strike.”

Ontario’s college teachers set a Feb. 11 strike deadline on Monday. If the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, representing Ontario’s 9,000 college teachers, have not reached an agreement with Colleges Ontario by that date, the union’s leaders say they are ready to strike. The union noted that it was prepared to enter into binding arbitration if the colleges agreed to that route.

Donovan explained that both sides haven’t been able reach a settlement because of the two key issues of salary and workload.

“We remain substantively apart in both cost and structure,” she said.

The colleges’ final offer, presented on Jan. 29, reduced the length of the proposed faculty contract to three years, increased salaries by a 5.9 per cent over those three years, and removed several items that the union perceived to be problematic.

“We believe that the colleges’ final offer is a fair and reasonable offer . . . and is as far as we can go,” said Donovan.

Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents the province’s 9,000 college faculty, will be urging the members to vote down this offer.

“Our members know that the improvements we are seeking will ultimately provide a better education for the 200,000 (full-time) students in our college system,” Thomas said in a release immediately following the college’s announcement.

“That is our goal, and it should be the goal of the colleges as well.”

Donovan also announced that the colleges have rejected the union’s offer of binding arbitration.
“We do not believe that binding arbitration is the answer. We believe that the right approach is to allow faculty an opportunity to vote on the offer and not bypass them by going to a third party. Asking a third party, from our perspective, to write a contract does not change the economic circumstances of the college or its students,” she said.

The date of the vote has yet to be determined, but the colleges have asked that their request be expedited in order to avoid reaching the union’s Feb. 11 strike deadline.

Only 57 per cent of the unionized faculty voted in favour of a strike mandate on Jan. 13, which means that the new contract details proposed by the colleges at the end of January may have a chance if a final offer vote were taken straight to faculty.

However, Ted Montgomery, chair of the OPSEU bargaining team, said on Monday that be believed the slim majority wouldn’t make a potential strike less effective.

“The majority is clear enough. We don’t believe the colleges can operate in the way that they need to operate, even if the faculty cross the picket lines,” he said.

“You can’t simply slow down the teaching and graduating of students.”