Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University
855 Sherbrooke Street West
Leacock B-12
Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7
Office: (514) 398-1993
Fax: (514) 398-4431
http://www.ausmcgill.com
Report of the Vice-President Communications, AUS Council
September 9th, 2015
I. Introduction
Hello everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Elaine Patterson and I
will be your Vice-President Communications for this school year. My main goals for this position
are to make better use of every social medium the AUS has (the listerv, Facebook, our website,
Twitter, Instagram, etc.), making the weekly listserv move concise and easier to navigate for
students in addition to including a listserv archive on the AUS website, and gathering
constructive feedback from students about which methods of outreach are useful and which
ones go unnoticed, among other things. I understand that as such a large student society we
have a lot of information that needs to be communicated to students and I hope that this year I
can funnel all that information to its respective demographic as effectively as possible.
II. Summer Projects
A. Handbooks and Agendas
My three Handbook Coordinators and I decided to separate the Handbook and the
Agenda as was done last year and ensured the cover art for both books correlated so students
knew they went together. Much of the content from the 2014-2015 handbook was revised and
reused, but we did revamp certain sections such as the Academic Services and Transportation
in Montreal sections. Handbooks were distributed with Frosh bags and some AUS Agendas
were distributed at Discover McGill, others at the Departmental Advising Fair, and some are still
available for arts students who stop by the AUS Office to pick one up!
B. Website Revamp
This year I hired a new Webmaster named Willis Daellenbach. He and I spoke about
modernizing the AUS website to make it more sleek and easier for students to navigate. In
August, Willis took it upon himself to revamp the website before school started and I’m pleased
with the results. Some of the information has yet to be transferred from the old website to the
new website, but all content should be updated by the end of September at the very latest.
C. Graphic Designers
I decided to hire two graphic designers this year: one for the full year and one for a
summer contract so they could work on graphic designs for Frosh. Our full-year graphic
designer did a great job helping one of the Frosh Coordinators, but unfortunately the summer
graphic designer did not fulfill their duties. Projects were submitted late and were sub-par
compared to the other graphic designs already in place. Therefore, the executive decision was
made to not use any of the summer graphic designer’s work for Frosh and, consequently, to not
reimburse them.
III. Communications Committees
A. AUS Media Team
The AUS Media Team for Frosh was made up of 7 people ranging from photographers to
videographers. We encountered some bumps in the road with photographers reporting to their
designated shifts during Frosh, which was difficult. Additionally, one of the photographers I
hired unexpectedly resigned from their position without notifying me until after missing a shift.
My Head Media, Ava Naraghi, and I intend on having a conversation with the rest of the media
team about their roles as team members and our expectations of them, but in the meantime
we are seeking one more photographer to join us. If any of you know of anyone who is
interested in joining the team, please have him, her, or them email me at
[email protected].
B. Fine Arts Council (FAC)
One of last year’s Fine Arts Council Commissioners, Kay Min, is returning to the position
and I met with her last week. One of her goals that we hope to implement as soon as possible is
to include 5 new Fine Arts Representative positions on FAC. Each of these Representatives
would represent a different fine art: theater, music, dance, visual art, and literary art. In
addition to attending weekly Fine Arts Council meetings, each of these positions would plan a
workshop for students to develop skills in that particular field (a creative writing workshop, an
audition workshop, etc.). If you know of anyone who may be interested in holding one of these
positions, have them email [email protected] for more information or to apply!
C. Infotech Committee/Technology Coordinators
In the past, the Infotech committee has overseen the AUS laptop rental program and
worked in conjunction with the ACLFC (Arts Computer Lab Fund Committee). This year, I have
decided to rename the positions on this committee to Technology Coordinators and I intend on
appointing two people for these positions. Ideally the Technology Coordinators will be able to
implement a camera rental program alongside the laptop rental program and will have ideas
about how to spend money from the technology budget.
IV. Other Initiatives
A. Arts OASIS Rebranding
Our VP Academic, Gabriel, and I have been meeting with Brandy Jugandi, the Student
Affairs Administrator from Arts OASIS, about disseminating student surveys and putting
together working groups to get a grasp on what arts students are really looking for from
services like OASIS and CaPS. I’ll be sending out the survey in the next listserv (September 14th)
and Brandy will be creating working groups based on the survey’s results.
V. Moving Forward
A. Establish All Committee Members
In the listserv that went out on Friday, September 4th (the first day of classes), I included
many callouts for committees that fall under my portfolio including: Prof Talk Coordinator,
Marketing Committee, Technology Coordinators, and the Fine Arts Council positions. Ideally, I
will have hired people for each of these positions by Friday, September 25th, so we can get
working!
B. Departmental Listserv Information
I have received some requests from different departmental associations for a list of
students’ emails to include in their listserv. This week I will be working on getting each
departmental association their own list, so Presidents and VPs Communications keep a lookout
for those lists in your email!
C. Listserv #2
From now on, all listservs will be sent on Mondays. The second listserv will be going out
on Monday, September 14th. If you wish to submit content to this listserv (and to any listserv in
the future), please fill out the listserv submission form on the Community page of the AUS
Website by Thursday at 5 PM the Monday before it will go out. This deadline is key because our
AUS Translator must translate all content to French over the weekend. Remember to keep
submissions down to 100 words or less and feel free to include a photo or digital poster for me
to put next to your text (those pictures are worth 1,000 words)!
Respectfully Submitted,
Elaine Patterson
Vice-President Communications