Major Milestones for EngSoc in 2017-2018

Skule Calendar

Skule Calendar of November 2017

Over the years, it has generally become difficult to find out what clubs or groups are holding events, leading to a lot of spam over email and Facebook. This year EngSoc was able to develop an online platform, called the Skule Calendar, where students can find out what they’re interested in. Additionally, you can filter clubs/categories on or off to more easily identify some events that appeal to you, as well as being able to sync events calendars directly to your Google account. This will be an ongoing project, requiring regular updating, but will optimistically revolutionize the way that students learn about events and student groups, while also having a much farther reach than Facebook events.

Overhaul of Vote.skule.ca

Up until this year, EngSoc’s voting platform, vote.skule.ca, was controlled and monitored by an Alumni Member who developed it during his time here (nearly 10 years ago). After facing several catastrophic issues during the March elections of 2017 (namely some elections being deleted for voters), EngSoc decided it was time to be in control of its voting system. After acquiring the code base and understanding its fundamentals, a complete overhaul was in order for a more modern system, particularly one that allowed mobile voting. The September elections of 2017 saw nearly 1200 voters, approximately twice the amount of regular turnout, showing a substantial improvement.

Reconstruction of Election Processes

Similarly, with vote.skule.ca, the March elections of 2017 made many individuals realize the pitfalls and inconsistencies with the elections processes of the Engineering Society. There were several different documents providing conflicting election information, a lack of cohesiveness of where to find this information, and ultimately many rules (and even positions) missing from our governing documents. This led to a complete redesign of how EngSoc ran elections by centralizing information, removing the idea of rewriting election rules each year (they change little, if at all), and making clarity the top priority for both candidates and the general population.

Skule Newsletter, aka “This Month at Skule”

To reduce email clutter, the old Skule Digest system, which sent out weekly mass emails from automatically gathered posts from clubs and other groups, was done away with. It was replaced with a monthly newsletter with club and EngSoc content curated by the VP Communications. The newsletter also received a significant design overhaul from the old Digest mass emails.

Skule Digest

Skule Digest was revived to become a public online announcement board with a post-like system not unlike modern social media sites. Instead of VP Communications approving each post, each account only needs to be approved once, and can subsequently post as they wish. The most recent posts are also automatically displayed on the EngSoc Website. The platform is targeted towards clubs who might have public announcements to between Newsletter cycles each month or have updates for more targeted student audiences. The site and underlying systems were written from scratch over the summer of 2017 for a launch in August 2017.

Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CEIE)

With the new building set to open in April 2018, EngSoc had quite a bit of work to do involving the space it received in the CEIE, called the “Arena”. There is room for several clubs to utilize office spaces, design teams to move into garages, and music clubs to rehearse in the music room. Allocating space based on usage capability and club reputations was a challenge in and of itself; however, this project opened up the opportunity for a holistic look at all of EngSoc’s clubs and design teams. Consequently, many different needs were balanced where each group either received more or better space or was unaffected, leading to a “migration” of space swapping for many teams. Furthermore, EngSoc was able to acquire another room for the Blue & Gold Committee which is a vibrant part of the SkuleTM community. Lastly, there will be several vending machines in the CEIE controlled by EngSoc and/or affiliated groups, which had to be planned out as well; everything from ordering the machine to deciding what products to sell.

Re-Examination of the Joint Council Meeting

Traditionally, each year Project Directors have been elected at a meeting of Council, specifically the Joint Council Meeting. After years of criticism regarding its structure, lengthy process, and considerable time wasted in debate, the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 years saw the creation of a committee to investigate a potentially better alternative. After several consultations and considerations, it was decided that a large body, such a Council, is not effective for making decisions, so instead more power should be put in the hands of the hiring committee. Ultimately this process saw the removal of the Joint Council Meeting, replaced with a hiring committee that has m,ore power and their recommendations ratified at the April Board of Directors meeting. Ideally this will help streamline the process, saving hours of unnecessary discussion and debate.

Ex-Officio Redefinition

The classification of “Ex-Officio Directors” in EngSoc’s Bylaws was a hugely vague area created for several different groups/individuals that did not properly fit into another classification. The problem with this section was that each entity (e.g. Discipline Clubs, Chief Attiliator, Blue & Gold Committee) were defined in the same way but had vastly different working relationships with EngSoc and their “overseeing” Officers. As such, it only made sense to splice off various “buckets” to properly represent these organizations and representatives, which introduced a new class of “Associated Entities” with several components within it. More details can be found in Bylaw 2 of EngSoc’s governing documents.

Skule Website Revamp

The Skule Website layout and design was updated from a previous version build by the 2016-17 Webmaster. The skule.ca front page was updated with recent Skule Digest posts, a more prominent frequent links section, as well as blurbs explaining each category of pages on the site. The “Get Involved” section also became the home of Skule Calendar. In addition, the content was updated and reorganized with the help of the President to increase usability and readability, and further pages were added, such as a UTSU page and dedicated Project Directorship and Associated Entities pages. The Webmaster has also installed Google Analytics to the website and others, such as Courses, and Digest to track usage of our online services.

Godiva’s Hymn Verse Competition

The 2017-2018 year saw the 2nd-ever Godiva’s Hymn Verse Competition (the first was in the 2015-2016 year). Students were able to submit verses that they wanted to see added to our beloved Godiva’s Hymn, with a theme of “SkuleTM Life”. The submissions were narrowed down to a set of 10 finalists, which were then voted on during the Godiva Week and the winners announced at Cannonball. The competition saw excellent student engagement and is hopefully something that will continue every several years.

Reconsidering Levies

Up until the 2017 year, EngSoc ran 2 levies: the Temporary Special Levy and the SkuleTM Endowment Fund Levy. Both contributed to student resources and lab equipment, the former largely pertaining to projects submitted by the Faculty and the latter for student life. As per a decision made by the University Affairs Board (UAB), ancillary fees (i.e. those fees collected from these levies) cannot be used for curricular purposes. Further, due to an unfortunate lack of communication before these levies had to be re-run, their wording was invalid as per the regulations by the UAB, rendering them inactive for the 2017-2018 year. After further considerations and consultations, EngSoc decided to discontinue the Temporary Special Levy, as its primary usage seemed to be for curricular purposes, and only maintain/re-run the SkuleTM Endowment Fund Levy moving forward.

Officer Video

The 1T7-1T8 Officer Team put together a short, funny video providing summaries of each of their roles. Check it out on Skuletube.

{{Engineering Society by 2015

Engineering Society Elected Members

|1 = 2T1 |2 = 2T0 |3 = 1T9 |4 = 1T8/1T7+PEY

|firstyearchair = Gabriel Sher

|fourthyearchair = Aron Sankar

External Representatives

|utsu1 = Chris Dryden |utsu2 = Danja Papajani*/ Aron Sankar |utsu3 = Andrew Sweeny*/ Jeff Dryden

Danja Papajani and Andrew Sweeny were replaced by Aron Sankar & Jeff Dryden "*" resigned

}}

2017-2018

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