Every few weeks, your elected student government meets on a Wednesday night to talk about issues concerning the AMS. Agenda items can seem long, mysterious and confusing without the proper background, making it difficult to see how these issues affect students. Here’s what to watch out for in the upcoming AMS Council meeting on June 22:
Laserfiche
Council will be voting on taking money out of the Capital Projects Fund to pay for the first year of support and maintenance of Laserfiche, the AMS’s new archiving software. The software — which was recently implemented by the AMS — makes the society’s archived documents searchable, including the agendas, documents and minutes of Council and committees. This means that records are more accessible to the student body and that they are preserved more reliably. This would be a one-time use of the fund as future maintenance will come from the archives budget.
Sustainability Projects Committee
A proposed code change is coming to Council, changing the composition of the AMS Sustainability Projects Committee, which is responsible for administering and awarding the AMS Sustainability Projects Fund. The proposed changes will add an extra student at large as well as a representative from the SEEDS Sustainability Program to the committee, ensuring that the representative from the University Sustainability Initiative is a student and adding the VP Administration and the sustainability funds administrator as non-voting members.
VP Admin Portfolio
In a year of many changes at the AMS, Council will consider a modification to the VP Administration’s portfolio, relating specifically to its reporting structure. The changes include making many coordinators report to the Associate VP Administration rather than the vice-president. Additionally, the Sustainability Coordinator’s title will change to Sustainability Director and they will report to the VP Administration instead of the VP Finance.
Ian Sapollnik is a third-year economics student, a member of the UBC Vancouver Senate and a member of AMS Council. The views presented are his own.