After paying tuition, many students may not know what happens to their money. But organizers within the McMaster Students Union are working to see that changed, and show students what happens to their fees.
The finance committee of the MSU has proposed changes to a bylaw that would see student groups have their levies put up to referendum on a regular basis. The bylaw in question deals specifically with the five non-MSU, non-university organizations that currently receive a portion of student funding.
“What this bylaw essentially does is give [students] more information on where their money is going,” said Daniel D’Angela, MSU Finance Commissioner and Social Science SRA representative.
The groups that fall under this category are Ontario Public Interest Research Group, McMaster, Engineers Without Borders, Incite Magazine, the McMaster Solar Car, and the McMaster Marching Band. The money these five groups collect from the student body amounts to $10.86 for each full-time student.
And despite the enthusiasm of key players within the MSU, the groups affected have come out in vocal opposition of the motion.
“It’s an inefficient way to consult students,” said Lexi Sproule, co-president of the McMaster chapter of Engineers Without Borders of the proposed system.
Under the changes, EWB and the other four organizations would have their levy put on the presidential ballot as a referendum for students to vote on every three years.
“It’s not very in-depth feedback,” said Sproule. “Even if you get approved, you don’t know if students have any issues with how you run things. It’s so much energy for feedback that’s kind of superficial.”
Proponents of the referendums disagree.
“I don’t think that once every three years having to spend two weeks going out and telling students about what you do, I don’t think it’s that taxing,” said Jeff Doucet,
EWB currently collects 37 cents from every full-time undergraduate student. While not making up their entire budget, the approximately $7700 it receives goes directly to funding students participating in the Junior Fellowship Program, a four-month volunteer placement overseas.
While the dollar amount per student is small, the effect the potential loss is on some of the organizations is significant.
“[Without the levy] I don’t think we’d be able to operate—that’s what keeps us going,” said Yuvreet Kaur, one of eight student board members of OPIRG McMaster.
OPIRG McMaster is one of a network of organizations across the province, which promotes social justice issues through grassroots organizing and through the funding of student and community-led working groups.
Of the five affected groups, OPIRG currently collects the largest fee, at $7.57 per student. However, the fee is refundable within three weeks of the drop and adds date in September.
“We give students the opportunity to take that money if they need it or if they don’t support the work we do,” explained Kojo Damptey, also on the OPIRG Board.
”We’re the only organization on campus that does that.”
The threat of OPIRG McMaster losing its funding is not unheard of; other OPIRG chapters across Ontario, including those at the University of Toronto and at Queen’s University, have come under scrutiny through NOPIRG campaigns, which aim to abolish the system of contributing student fees to the organization.
In the case of Queen’s, NOPIRG organizer Stuart Clark told the Queen’s Journal he was opposed to the levy because of “the use of publically available funds for certain activities that don’t reflect the values of the entire community.”
Mac’s chapter, however, feels that its values align very well with the university.
“Our current president [Patrick Deane] talked about forward with integrity—we’ve been doing that for two decades here,” said Damptey. He emphasized that the working groups funded by the group, which address a range of social justice issues, are the product of student ideas.
“There are certain working groups that a lot of the McMaster population is familiar with,” echoed Board Member Sabeen Kazmi. “Other groups…like the McMaster Farmstand and MACycle started under OPIRG.”
OPIRG and the other four organizations involved are seeking not only to make students and SRA members aware of their role on campus, but also to voice their opposition to the process of the bylaw changes being made.
Sam Godfrey, co-editor-in-chief of Incite Magazine, expressed her concern with the idea of a referendum to determine fees.
“It’s hard to measure worth…by whether the majority of students read [Incite]. If you only funded things that the majority wanted, you wouldn’t have the same kind of community at Mac.”
However, D’Angela said that his impression was that the groups were in support of amendments.
“I met with them midway through the summer, the fee holders, and overwhelmingly, I’d say they agreed with increasing with transparency,” he said.
Sproule explained that while EWB is completely supportive of financial transparency, no mention of the proposed changes was made.
“All we heard was ‘great job’…what are we supposed to do with that? If we’d heard they had concerns, we’d be happy to change things,” she explained.
The bylaw changes were made within the Finance Committee but did not involve any further consultation with the groups.The process of amendment also didn’t involve notifying the groups when the motion was set to go to the SRA for voting; a system that was met with concern by OPIRG, Incite, and EWB, but to others was not problematic.
“If the finance committee decides to make a change because they feel we need more democratic input, should they notify the groups in advance that they make their change, before it goes public? I’m not sure if that will change the conversation that much,” said Doucet.
The discussion on the proposed changes will continue at the upcoming SRA meeting, scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 29.
Despite the opposition raised by the five groups, who are expected to present at the meeting, D’Angela and Doucet stand by the Finance Committee’s suggestion.
“If students want to have democratic input, referendum is the most efficient way to do so,” said Doucet.
“We think that the students are smart, they are intelligent people and they’re able to weigh the pros and cons of any single vote,” explained D’Angela upon being asked about the effectiveness of a referendum.
“We think that students are able to make decisions if you give them the right information and give them the important information.”
Bus service changes were part of President David Campbell’s platform during the election race last January, and now he’s set to make good on those promises.
“The [Hamilton Street Railway] bus pass fee is triannual, so every three years we renew it with the HSR,” said Campbell. “Our current agreement is expiring in April, so it was already going to come to referendum in January. That’s what inspired me as part of my platform to say ‘there are a lot of improvements to service we could think about here.’”
The improvements Campbell is seeking give this year’s negotiations a different level of importance.
“In the past, when it was getting renewed, it was a lot of ‘let’s just renegotiate the cost for similar levels of service.’ But now we’ve taken a more aggressive approach in the sense of early on in the year we wanted to make contact with the HSR and say ‘we obviously want to renegotiate our current agreement, and where can we make some improvements,’” said Jeff Doucet, VP Finance.
The McMaster Students Union has prioritized what it hopes to accomplish, and an agreement regarding bus service for summer students tops that list. A Facebook poll found that students, too, overwhelmingly regard it as a chief concern. Thousands of students remain on campus in the summer taking classes or working, but currently the bus pass included in tuition expires at the end of April. Students taking classes can purchase a slightly discounted summer pass at Compass, but the rate it is significantly more expensive at $72 per month than the $63.08 students pay per semester in the Fall and Winter.
Also among the MSU’s priorities is extending bus service later into the night. That’s a concern that the HSR says it has heard from other groups in the community.
“We were surprised,” said Doucet. “We’re not the only people saying the buses aren’t running late enough. One o’clock, 1:20 a.m. is pretty early to stop the buses in a major city.”
“It’s a safety thing, too, right? It’s adequate provision of service,” added Campbell. “It’s not just drunk people getting home, it’s people getting home safely from the bars, from work, from wherever they might be.”
In addition to adding more bus service at night, the MSU would like to see current bus times changed to better service the university. Currently, the HSR increases the amount of buses through campus at busy times, but the increase is spread evenly throughout the hour rather than clustered around times when classes start or finish.
“Let’s look at the University 51 and say ‘this has been identified as a line for the university […] maybe this is the one we can play around with,’” said Doucet.
They are looking to other municipalities, such as Doucet’s hometown of Ottawa, as a guide for what service may be appropriate. However, they’re also keeping their expectations measured.
“[Changing the bus schedules] is a major change. That’s the one that sort of ranks lower in our priorities because we recognize how difficult it would be for the HSR to do,” said Campbell.
Still, a positive aura surrounds the discussions as a whole. “We’re getting along well and we’re really optimistic about what can happen. There’s been a lot of give and take,” said Campbell.
Hopefully come January, students will see some of these options on the ballot.
For many students, water-damaged windows and roofs, out-of-order toilets and insulation peeking out of broken ceiling tiles are familiar sights. Throughout the year we experience dozens of minor, everyday inconveniences and brush them off as something that will be fixed, eventually. Until then we do our best to ignore the water dripping from the ceiling into a yellow bucket.
These annoyances are symptoms of deferred maintenance (DM), a problem that’s getting bigger all the time. It boils down to a simple enough idea: things are breaking, and there isn’t the money to fix them. Of course, when you spread that idea out over a 300 acre campus, tens of years, and multiple university, provincial and federal budgets, it gets complex – fast.
DM is defined as “work on the maintenance of physical facilities that has been postponed on a planned or unplanned basis to a future budget cycle or until funds become available,” and its severity really came to the university’s attention in December 2012 when facility services released a comprehensive report called the Asset Management Plan. This 38-page document systematically categorized the issue and revealed a staggering $300M DM backlog.
That figure was a surprise, even to the university administration. “The University knew about a backlog of $150M prior to 2012, which was based on an old Condition Assessment Survey,” said Mohamed Attalla, assistant vice-president and Chief Facilities Officer. “However, there was not a clear and detailed analysis that highlighted the urgency. Also, there was no clear plan and priorities to move forward.”
DM has the potential to severely affect research and teaching on campus, and is made more problematic by its often behind-the-scenes nature. “It deals with things you can’t see,” said Attalla. It’s hidden in the walls in fraying cables and leaky pipes; it’s hidden in the basement in rusting boilers and dusty transformers; and it’s hidden off-campus in a power substation that is serving beyond its intended lifetime.
Robert O’Brien, a professor of Global Labour Studies, spoke about the difficulties associated with teaching in such an environment. He complained about a lack of Wi-Fi access, A.V. equipment, and proper ventilation. “About half of my teaching takes place in rooms like that,” he said.
With the full scope of the mountain of maintenance revealed, the university moved to begin addressing it. Prior to the report, the DM budget for facility services was $2.2M, just 0.14 per cent of the current replacement value (CRV) of the campus. CRV is calculated by multiplying the square footage of campus buildings by a dollar amount standard for all Ontario universities, and the Council of Ontario Universities recommends a minimum annual budget allocation towards maintenance of 1.5 per cent of the CRV of buildings and infrastructure. It warns that an amount less than this will cause the DM backlog to grow.
In response to the Asset Management Plan’s recommendations, Mac administration intends to increase DM funding by $2M annually until it reaches $10.7M. This means that, for 2013/14, $4.9M has been budgeted for DM. Though an improvement, it’s still a far cry from the $23.4M necessary to reach the recommended 1.5 per cent of campus CRV.
It’s also much lower than some universities similar to McMaster. The Asset Management Plan compared Mac to Ottawa and Western, universities of similar size, and found that even back in 2011, they were budgeting $26M and $11M respectively towards DM.
The insufficiency of the current budget is known to administrators. “Based on what we have here, the current funding we agreed to, we’re not looking at making a dip or a dive in the deferred maintenance. It will continue to rise actually, but it will rise at a slower pace,” said Attalla.
So it’s more, but still not enough. Attalla acknowledges this, but emphasizes the complicated nature of budgeting for a large institution like McMaster. “The university needs to make decisions. There are lots of unfunded priorities […] but you need dollars to fund them. The agreed-to level of funding here takes into consideration the other pressures we have somewhere else in the university,” he said.
“The hope is that after we deal with our current pressure, hopefully five years from now we’ll be able to increase 10M dollars even more to reach some other universities.”
MSU President David Campbell echoed that sentiment. “Very understandably, often deferred maintenance comes up against academic priorities, and sometimes rightly so. The maintenance becomes deferred because there are more pressing priorities. And I think everybody would agree that that is a necessary thing sometimes,” he said.
“But it’s when you start getting into these critical priorities like ‘in the next 12 months this wall might fall down but we can’t find the money to fix it.’ That critical aspect is when it needs to be addressed right away.”
The Asset Management Plan defines components as critical “if they are still in operation and are operating beyond their designed and useful life […] It is important to note that McMaster’s total DM backlog classified as critical amounts to $28.86 million and by definition should be corrected within the next year.” Accounting for the recent budget increase, the difference between needed critical repairs and funding is $24M, not including components that may have decayed to become critical since the report was released.
That means that McMaster is running with at least $24M of its equipment and buildings operating beyond their intended lifespan.
Last year the MSU published a policy paper outlining students’ position regarding DM. “Our first recommendation was that in the short term [the university’s contributions to DM] should go up to $12.5M,” said Campbell. “Our long term recommendation was that contributions should go up to $25M, and that should be a collaboration between the university and the province, since both bear part of the burden on this.”
Attalla is also hoping the university can collaborate with the province, saying that “the hope is that with lobbying the provincial government, it will put more money into this sector.”
But hope won’t double-pane Mac’s windows. It’s important that the university continue increasing DM funding for years to come. “The university’s made a commitment to continue increasing deferred maintenance contributions over the next few years, and I think we should be pushing to have that continue happening, whether that’s through new campaigns or an official lobby,” said Campbell.
Until that happens, though, students will just have to pray it doesn’t rain too hard.
Sophia Topper
The Silhouette
The First Year Council could be great. At least, it’s a great time for the five first years who get to blow through $4000 with minimal interference from the MSU, and minimal notice from the students who fund it. That would be you, by the way—15 cents of your 122.61$ Student Organization Fee goes to the FYC to do… something.
What the FYC is about is unclear to even its members, who gave a vast variety of answers to my every inquiry. Alexander Coomes, last year’s chair, claimed: “No one will ever seriously change the first year experience from this council.” They have had several successful events, for instance, their club nights were successful enough to recoup their output. This, however, simply makes the rest of the spending more puzzling. The council also hosted a movie night, but the proof is in the popcorn—three out of four enormous boxes linger uneaten in FYC’s meeting room.
The annual FYC survey occurred as well, though we haven’t received the results. None of the councillors I asked could say what would be done with the results if they existed, or explain why the survey needed to be annual - surely the needs of first years do not change that much from year to year. Perhaps this is to inform the advocacy that supposedly occurs. David Campbell, President of the MSU, said that the “FYC is a fantastic venue for first years to advocate on behalf of their peers,” but again none of the four members I spoke could describe any advocacy done, or even ideas for what advocacy could occur. Dmitri Dobrov, who held the advocacy portfolio, could not be reached for comment at the time this article was published.
In the words of Alexander Coomes, former chair, “We are a social club. Sometimes we pretend that we’re more, but we’re not.” This self-awareness is laudable, but also betrays the discouragement felt by some members.
“I think the council has great potential for something amazing, but I believe it really comes down to how much each individual on the council wants to commit and dedicate. The more effort and hard work that is put into the first year council will definitely reflect in the success and the experiences one will have,” said Yipeng Ge, Former Vice Chair.
Unfortunately, the FYC is plagued by resume-builders and MSU bubbleheads, who gleefully describe the personal benefits of the FYC while glossing over the benefits to the student body. During a conversation with one member, he pulled out his discount card not once, but twice, as well as regaling me with tales of using the room as his personal gaming sanctuary, saying it was “convenient to have a little bit of authority now and then.” Other members described to me the invaluable connections they made higher up in the MSU echelons, and the importance of the FYC on their resumes. “It’s the best value-to-workload ratio,” said an unnamed councillor. Coomes said, “You can put as much effort as you want to into it… if you mess up, no one’s really there to get mad.”
There is someone there though: me. And you should be mad too. $4000 is a lot of money for some lines on a few people’s resumes. But we can’t just blame them, this is on us too. The fact is, we get who we elect, and what we demand. The FYC started a first year street team, which met twice and fizzled out. A night in Bridges to discuss the first year experience which was mostly attended by friends of the exec. And that isn’t their fault - it’s ours. If we want more than just some club nights and some flops, then we need to elect people who will give it to us. And while it’s easy to blame the election protocols, where five dollars will buy forgiveness for even the most blatant of abuses, we’re still the ones (not) voting. As Coomes says, “If the idealists don’t step up, the cynics take over.”
Sarah O'Connor
The Silhouette
When I saw the "Stop You've Paid Enough" posters being put up around campus during Welcome Week I couldn't help but feel excited. Finally McMaster was going to do something about our ever-rising tuition rates, finally we were going to take a note from our Quebecois friends and protest for a freeze in our tuition, to stop the cost from rising at least for a few years. But upon looking on the McMaster Students Union website, I became disappointed.
Apparently we haven't paid enough for tuition, save for certain instances. The "Stop You've Paid Enough" page on the McMaster Students Union website is not a plan for protest or a plan of action to stop the rising tuition costs, it is a page for students to report unfair fees they may have inappropriately been charged with for a course.
The "Stop You've Paid Enough" campaign is a good thing. I imagine there are a good number of students at McMaster who have been charged inappropriately for certain courseware, textbooks, supplies and field-trip costs. I hope these students are successful in getting some kind of return, though I imagine it will be difficult for a fourth year student to prove that they were charged with one of these unfair fees in their first year.
I understand why the McMaster Students Union advertised this way; it works in getting the attention of fools like me who actually expected some sort of change in tuition rates. If anything I now know that the rising cost of tuition is the furthest thing from the MSU's mind, making banners that allude to change only to call out a certain percentage of students who have been charged with unfair fees. There is no talk of freezing tuition rates, no mention of how much your tuition rose, there is no talk of change.
During the 2013/2014 academic year Ontario undergraduate students paid the highest average fee of $7,259 with Saskatchewan close behind while Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador undergraduate students continue to have the lowest average fees in Canada.
I wonder why Ontario undergraduates don't listen to the Quebec undergraduates and protest for a tuition freeze. What is it that makes us so different? What makes student unions in Quebec different than student unions in Ontario? That one union can protest and win while the other accepts the forever growing debt we will be stuck with at the end of our academic life.
So yes, having the McMaster Student's Union ready to help students who have been given unfair fees in previous or current classes is a good thing. But don't advertise like a dramatic change is being made, don't make us believe that you might actually be doing something about our tuition rate.
We, the students of McMaster, have paid enough for tuition, but not in the eyes of our union. And I don't know how long it will take before they realize that we really have paid enough.
If you’re feeling annoyed, or exhausted, or overwhelmed by Welcome Week, let me be the first to say, okay. That’s normal. That’s just fine.
One of the strongest memories I have of my Welcome Week is waking up on Sunday morning, scrolling through my phone, and realizing that I had no idea who most of my new contacts were.
I had spent the week frenetically meeting people and making fast friends and trying to do it right. In reality, I spent the next few months awkwardly eyeing people in the hallways whom I only vaguely recognized. It’s events like MacConnecter where, thanks to insubstantial 30-second interactions, ironically, you don’t connect with anyone at all.
And when I got tired of mindless cheering, or wanted a little bit of time to myself to unpack, or didn’t want to be danced up on by a loud rep for the zillionth time, I felt like I was being perceived as a boring, negative person. I felt like I would never make friends.
I get that it’s all fun and games and designed to bring people out of their shells. And to the most part, it accomplishes that goal. But there is very little room for diverse personalities in the Welcome Week approach.
Take Superfrosh, for example. We celebrate a male and female Superfrosh for every faculty, which essentially boils down to finding the loudest, most obnoxious and hyperactive teenager around, and telling everyone that they epitomize the first year ideal. Which is frustrating when one is overwhelmed, feeling alone, and is even mildly introverted.
I’m not pushing for alternative programming. We have plenty of quieter coffee houses and movie nights that are designed for the calmer person – if you’re not too exhausted by traditional WW activities to go. Rather, I’m calling for a change in attitude about what a good frosh experience means.
Coming to university provides the unique chance to reinvent yourself from who you were in high school. You can be anyone you want to be, can start over, can make totally new friends. And you shouldn’t feel limited by the narrow definition of confident first year that Welcome Week seems to insist upon.
Maybe you’ve attended every event and loved them; maybe you’re a little disillusioned but still having fun; maybe you haven’t attended a single Welcome Week event yet. What I want you to know is that it doesn’t matter – you’ll still make friends, be happy, and have an awesome year. It’ll be the little things that form friendships, like games of cards in the common room, and late night Centro runs, and walking with people to class.
Five years ago, I arrived on campus as a buzzing cocktail of excitement, nervousness and determination: McMaster was going to be fun and I would get good grades and make lots of friends and have the best time ever. And, in fact, I did. But that success was despite – not because – of how Welcome Week made me feel.
As the first week of September rolls in, a new batch of first year students are being introduced to life at McMaster. Welcome Week 2013 is in full swing as upper-year students, campus organizations, and administration gather to welcome incoming Mac students to their new school.
The current Welcome Week marks the second year of a mandatory MacPass, a policy requiring every incoming first year to pay a $110 levy to participate in the week of events. While new to the Welcome Week, the levy was met with success by the MSU last year and a similar model has been followed this year.
“There haven’t been too many big changes, mainly small things,” MSU VP Administration Anna D’Angela said of the planning. The VP Administration is traditionally one of the main organizers of the week.
Though the week is about half done, MSU President David Campbell is already pleased with how things are going.
“I want to knock on wood saying this, but I think it’s been going pretty smoothly so far,” he said of the programming.
The 2013 Welcome Week has also continued the trend of increasing options for students living off campus.
“I do think again the focus was on trying to get more off-campus [students], because they tend to be the most prominent group of people who don’t necessarily get involved as much but are now paying to be involved,” Campbell explained.
Such events as the SOCS Sleepover, available after the Tuesday night concert so off-campus students could stay on campus, were repeated this year, having been first implemented in 2012.
The weeknight concert, a regular part of Welcome Week activities, was headlined this year by Tommy Trash, while Friday’s concert in Faculty Hollow is set to welcome Lights and The Arkells back to Hamilton.
[MORE] Storified tweets and photos from you.
Dundurn Castle, one of Hamilton's several attractions. Rick Cordeiro, c/o Wikimedia Commons
Curious McMaster students seeking adventure need look no further than Hamilton itself.
That’s the message from one of the McMaster Students Union’s newest campaigns. Discover Your City is a initiative designed to connect students with the city around them. The operation will focus on promoting events, businesses, sights and restaurants to McMaster students.
Hamilton has earned a reputation. People say it is dirty, gross and sketchy; elsewhere in the province, it is called “The Armpit of Ontario.”
Spencer Graham, MSU vice-president (Education), is concerned that students are accepting this. “We as students believe that narrative without actually going into the city at all."
He feels that students should author their own judgement of the Hammer; to draw their own conclusions, they’ve got to cross the 403 and actually explore the city.
Hamilton truly has a lot to offer. The MSU wants to use Discover as a vehicle to inform and impassion students to leave Westdale and appreciate the city they live in.
The idea originated with last year’s Vice-President (Education), Huzaifa Saeed. As a lover of Hamilton, he had worked in local advocacy before finishing his time at McMaster. He also focussed on surveying perceptions of Hamilton. His vision is being carried on by Graham and a team consisting of representatives from the Student Community Support Network, the External Affairs Commissioner and the MSU Advocacy office.
Similar promotions have existed. Most recently, the Get Cultured campaign helped to connect students with the arts in Hamilton. Discover differs from previous attempts in that it is more wide-ranging. The hope is that something will appeal to everyone. One week it may be a music festival, and the next could be a Hamilton Bulldogs game; it could be a waterfall, a restaurant or an historic site.
During Welcome Week, Discover will be spreading their message and trying to build brand recognition, before planning events later in September. Representatives will be giving away free t-shirts and telling students to look out for Discover Your City promotions. Residence Orientation Advisors will be starting early—hosting events that draw residence students off campus to introduce them to the city.
Graham also wants to gauge student input in the campaign. Suggestions for events and locations can be sent to vped@msu.mcmaster.ca.
Spencer Graham’s final words of advice? “Go explore Hamilton. A majority of students will be here for at least four years, so make the most of your experience in the city. Hamilton isn’t a scary place, it’s home.”
Mac students can feel safer this year thanks to the development of a new Security Services app.
It’s called the McMaster University Safety, Security and Transit app, or MUSST, and it’s available for free on iPhone, Android, and touchscreen Blackberry devices. The app provides contact numbers for emergency services and campus resources in addition to information about transportation and safety guidelines.
Upon loading the app, users are greeted by a conspicuous red button that lets them call either Campus Security or 911 with one touch. The front page also links to the McMaster Daily News twitter page and lets one call the Emergency First Response Team (EFRT) and the Student Walk Home Attendant Team (SWHAT), both run by the McMaster Students Union.
EFRT responds to campus medical emergencies and SWHAT will walk you home at night. In another tab, app users can find clinic and hospital locations and familiarize themselves with campus safety procedures.
In addition to these safety measures, MUSST seeks to help students out with transportation. It allows them to call two local taxi services and uses Google Maps to find HSR bus schedules. There are also links to the websites of other bus services, such as GO Bus and Greyhound, but those pages are not consistent in their design for mobile users and can be cumbersome to use on smartphones.
MUSST was developed by Weever Apps, which operates in McMaster Innovation Park, and is a collaborative effort between McMaster Security, Student Affairs, the MSU, and Public Relations. It was inspired by Queen’s University’s SeQure App.
First released in May, it was updated in August and was fully operational in time for the start of this school year. Staff Sergeant Cathy O’Donnell, a security manager at Mac, said that the university will be launching an extensive advertising campaign for the app.
MUSST can be downloaded for free on your touchscreen smartphone. In addition, students living in residence can find a QR code on the cover of their key card that downloads the app when scanned.
With coffee competitors around the corner, UM wants to remain a student hotspot
The Student Centre is bustling again and the Union Market is starting the year off with a fresh face. The student-run store is in the process of adding a third cash register and a new layout for easier coffee service. The store has already added a large grab ‘n’ go fridge along with gluten-free options. A grand reopening will take place in October, once renovations are complete.
The Union Market, owned and operated by the MSU, will soon have to compete with a new Starbucks moving into the Student Centre at the end of October.
“When the Starbucks went up on Main Street, we felt a bit of pressure,” said Matthew Bergen, Union Market manager.
Bergen said the Union Market will continue to bank on the student atmosphere that has kept regulars coming in over the years. He also wants to reach out to first years who may not know about the store because it doesn’t accept student meal cards.
“When you’re in first year, you’re just walking through the Student Centre - you’re in that bubble,” he said.
Bergen started working at the Union Market as a student two and a half years ago.
“I was paying my own way through school, so I needed a job. I really liked the environment here and how it was student-oriented. Everyone was on the same level,” he said. Bergen liked the student vibe so much that he applied to be manager twice.
When he started his term this past May, Bergen made it his mission to renovate the store. Since the Union Market first opened with the Student Centre in 2002, the store hasn’t had much more done than a few paint jobs.
Over ten years, the Union Market has seen its sales and traffic grow along with the student population. Now, with thousands of people passing through the Student Centre each day, the store is trying to catch up with its increased foot traffic. The Union Market currently sells between 2500-3000 cups of coffee a week.
While all full-time undergraduate students pay $122 toward operating costs of MSU services, the Union Market is one of the only MSU businesses that makes enough profit to help financially support other services.
Bergen said the Union Market is in a unique position as both a business and a part of a non-profit student organization.
“Our goal isn’t to widen our margins as much as we can or to mark up the prices,” Bergen said. “The Union Market is the only place on campus where you can get a coffee, yogurt, and fruit for under five bucks.”
