USSU reviews vision, mission, value

USSU President Scott Hitchings  said the USSU executive met bi-weekly over the summer to take care of housekeeping changes to its constitution and bylaws, a process last undertaken in 2009. It was discovered at that time that the constitution "had no force or effect under law," said Hitchings. The situation that was corrected by combining it with the USSU's four bylaws to create one document and "by making sure no parts of the constitution or bylaws contradicted each others."

The changes considered over the summer are of a housekeeping nature, he said. For example, the section on the role of the president also included a list of tasks "but that's not what should be in the bylaw. That should be elsewhere."

The executive's recommendations on bylaw changes will go to student council and, later this year, to the organization's annual general meeting.

As for the vision, mission and values, Hitchings said it has been about five years since the last review "and just like the university does its integrated plan, we're looking at refreshing our vision, mission and values, and we want to have staff involved, councilors involved, students involved."

Hitchings said how the review process will unfold remains to be determined but he envisions each stakeholder group bringing forward suggested changes that will then be discussed. "The limitation of our vision is that it could very easily be the university's or a lot of other groups on campus because it says we'll be recognized as a leader in the student experience. We need to go beyond that to define what we want the USSU to be in five years."

Like the bylaw changes, the November annual general meeting is the target date for presenting a revised vision, mission and values.