WLUSU capital expenditures budget approved

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On Saturday afternoon, the Wilfrid Laurier University Studentsโ€™ Union (WLUSU) board of directors convened in Waterloo to entertain WLUSUโ€™s proposed capital expenditures for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The afternoonโ€™s agenda boasted seven projects for approval โ€“ amassing total costs upwards of $270,000.

Projects ranged from the implementation of an electronic alcohol management system for Wilfโ€™s and the Turret, to an ambitious renovation of the FNCCโ€™s third floor, improvements to Wilfโ€™s and the Pita Shack, and the addition of digital signage around campus. However, the proposed WLUSU smart phone application emerged as the meetingโ€™s most controversial talking point.

As debate and speculation ensued on the smart phone application proposal, chair of the board Kyle Hocking pointed out that as there is no precedent for such a venture, it is difficult to determine exactly how the project will turn out. Despite the uncertainty, Hocking urged fellow directors to base their vote on whether or not โ€œyou believe this is going to provide for the needs of students.โ€ In the end, the board voted 9-2 in favour of implementing the application and passed the other six proposals unanimously.

Interestingly, the smart phone application and other capital expenditures appear to be WLUSUโ€™s response to the disappointing results of extensive market research carried out last year.

According to WLUSU President Kyle Walker, the โ€œhugely concerningโ€ results showed that only 33 per cent of students on Laurierโ€™s campus feel that they are apart of WLUSU, only 39 per cent feel that they are well informed about WLUSU and โ€œmore than half of the students on this campus donโ€™t feel that the studentsโ€™ union is theirs.โ€

At the same time, however, the research also found that 82 per cent of Laurier students utilize social media avenues. As such, Walker believes that the launch of a smart phone application will improve WLUSUโ€™s ability to communicate with Laurierโ€™s student population by increasing the unionโ€™s presence in a variety of diversified communication channels.


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