After an hour of scheduled closed session, the March 3 meeting of the Board of Trustees was largely devoted to student and faculty representatives informing the Board of developments in their various departments in recent months. 

Four motions were voted on, the first of which was to ratify changes to Senate Function 10 — a piece of policy that’s been altered by several university bodies in recent months. 

The policy was altered to read: “Senate has the authority to approve policies and procedures regarding student academic matters, and to discipline students with respect to departures from academic integrity, including the power to require a student to withdraw from the university. Senate maintains a concern for matters of student non-academic Queen’s University at Kingston misconduct and participates in the Board of Trustee’s governance of non-academic misconduct discipline structures.”

The second motion was to approve that the Queen’s University Planning Committee be dissolved, as discussed in the Jan. 31 Senate meeting, and that the Queen’s University Board-Senate Advisory Committee be approved effective March 3, 2017.

Another motion approved the tuition fees for the two upcoming academic years and a slight revision to the management and licence agreement between the University and PARTEQ, which terminates PARTEQ’s right to commercialize technology from the University disclosed after a certain date, which has yet to be set.

Reports included the quarterly advancement report, which showed Queen’s is still $5 million short of their $60-million goal for gifts in this fiscal year, the University Relations quarterly report which boasted a 24 per cent increase in engagement with school Facebook posts among other social media boosts, and the Quarterly Financial Update which listed the March 2017 financial update which is now posted for review. 

Among the other reports were the Investment Committee Report, which notes that the payout for the next fiscal year is projected to be 6.8 per cent higher than currently, and the Provost’s Operational Report which outlined the election of Barbara Crow as the new dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science and the recruitment of a new Vice-Provost and Executive Director for the Bader International Study Centre.

Finally, the Quarterly Research Report stated that after receiving $63.7 million from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, the Canadian Particle Astrophysics Research Centre is currently hiring six faculty positions. 

Exiting Undergraduate Student Trustee Jenn Li was honoured by the Board with a gift and congratulated on her victory in the recent AMS election. She will be returning to the Board of Trustees as an observer in her role as the AMS president next year. 

“I was glad to see such high engagemen from Trustees with the student reports from the Rector, AMS President, and SGPS President,” Li said after the meeting. “It was a great last meeting for me and I look forward to watching Victoria [Chappell] take on the role next year.”

Current AMS President Tyler Lively also gave an address, in which he thanked those in attendance for their efforts in building a better university. All members of the outgoing AMS executive were present to deliver their final report which outlined their final projects, including the dissolution on the Commission on Environmental Affairs, a feasibility study to be conducted in the JDUC and surveys on study spaces in the campus libraries. 

Rector Cam Yung also took time during his speech to address the issues of diversity and inclusion concerning matters of gender identity, sexual orientation and creed, as stated in his report. 

“I have also been serving as an advisor for the Principal’s Implementation Committee on Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion,” Yung said. “The committee has done a wonderful job of identifying institutional and systemic barriers for creating an inclusive campus. The committee has much work ahead of it to implement the recommendations from the DARE and DET reports.”