Last night, AMS Council met to discuss the society’s strategic plan and the development of a sensory room in the Life Building for neurodiverse students.
Here are the highlights.
Sensory room to be built in the Life Building
Stephanie Quon, a current student, presented a plan for an AMS-run sensory room in the Life Building.
Sensory rooms are places where neurodiverse and disabled people can go to self-regulate. These rooms often include comfortable seating, stim toys and weighted blankets. Quon and the AMS intend to develop a sensory room in one of the storage rooms in the Life Building, near Bike Kitchen.
“A sensory room can provide a place for people to go when they're feeling overwhelmed and need a quiet environment to calm down and self-regulate and it can be especially useful to provide these spaces in public facilities that are often noisy, crowded and bright,” Quon told Council.
The AMS has secured $10,000 from the Government of Canada and a $1,500 grant from its own Innovative Projects Fund to furnish it.
Councillors supported the idea, but some questioned where funding for repairs and replacements would come from. VP Admin Lauren Benson said that funding could come from the Capital Projects Fund if needed.
Council funds another attempt at an AMS Strategic Plan
AMS Council approved $25,000 in funding toward the development of a new strategic plan. Most of that funding will go toward paying Nicolas Romualdi, a PhD student intended to lead the development of that plan plus a $2,000 expense account.
Romualdi presented further on what this plan will look like and how they intend to make this one stick. Romualdi is a former Graduate Student Society exec.
In his presentation, Romualdi went over previous attempts to make a strategic plan at the AMS and how they had fallen short.
“The framework seems to be somewhere in the three to five years. Longer plans seem not to succeed and yearly plans in the context of the strategic vision, strategic framework did not seem to be successful,” Romualdi said on the potential time frame of a plan.
He also highlighted the importance of creating a unified plan and vision across the AMS.
Based on the current timeline, Romualdi said that the plan would be finished by the end of the academic year.