{ Our Queen’s

My Promise }

Patrick
Allin
Student Trustee

www.PatrickforTrustee.com 1
What’s Inside
Introduction.......................................................................... 3
Biography.............................................................................. 4
Budget Overview................................................................... 5
Financial and Student Assistance.......................................... 6
A Budget Framework............................................................ 7
Homecoming: Bringing Queen’s Spirit Back Home............. 8
The Queen’s Centre: What’s Next?....................................... 9
A Sustainable Education........................................................ 10
Controlling Queen’s in the Media.......................................... 11
Online Courses ...................................................................... 12

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 Queen’s is at a pivotal point! The Board of Trustees is
responsible for all financial aspects of the University. The Board
approves tuition increases, residence fees, and sets the $700
million budget for Queen’s The actions of the Board over the
next two years will determine:

•whether entire programs are cut or grown

• if adequate financial resources remain available to all students

•if courses move out of the classroom and onto the computer

•the overall quality and reputation of Queen’s

The student trustee has unparalleled access to senior administrators. The student trustee is
responsible for representing the voices, concerns, and opinions of 14,526 students to both the
Board of Trustees and the administration.

I have developed my platform by talking to anyone who would share their opinions and ideas
with me. I have consulted with Queen’s clubs, faculty societies, senior administrators, the
AMS, and individual students. I have tried to incorporate issues relevant to every Queen’s
student in here.

I’ll be the strong voice on the Board of Trustees that will represent my constituents, not my
own agenda. I will not accept “no” as an answer to an issue that is important to students. I
will always ensure that the Board understands the ramifications of its actions.

Please email me at 8pa9@queenu.ca with any questions, comments or concerns. I promise to

respond within 24 hours, both during my campaign and during my tenure as the student
trustee.

I’m here to represent you!

Patrick Allin

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My name is Patrick Allin, and I am in second year economics. Last year, I was a
member of the AMS Board of Directors, which is responsible for the financial
oversight of the AMS services. I am currently the Director of the AMS Food
Centre, an AMS service which provides healthy and nutritious food to Queen’s
students. In this role, I oversee a team of volunteers which serve to assist the
customers of the Food Centre. We have increased usage through advertising
campaigns, which reducing food costs by purchasing food through Sysco.

My hobbies are running, photography, music, camping, and eating ice cream
(favorite flavor: Cookie Dough).

I believe that the best way to address a problem is to learn about all sides of
the story. In developing my platform, I have consulted as many stakeholders
as I have been able to, to learn about the unique challenges and opportunities
facing students, faculties, and Queen’s

Cha Gheill!

Patrick

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 The Elephant in the Room:
Queen’s and its budget
Below is a table of Queen’s income and expenses, from The Report on the Annual Budget, 2010-2011:

This is what the Board of Trustee’s bases its decisions off of. By 2013-2014, Queen’s is projected to have an
accumulated deficit of $100 million.

Why is Queen’s loosing so much money?

Faculty and staff salaries are increasing at 5% per year. In addition, Queen’s has to pay tens of
millions of dollars into their pension fund
Alumni giving has dropped by over $10 million since 2008
Capital projects, like the Queen’s Centre, were built before all funding was secured.

What are the consequences?

Program cuts
Less frequent and larger tutorials
Higher tuition
Elimination of 4th year seminars
Cuts in financial assistance
Reduction of Student services, like HCDS
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Financial and
Student Assistance

In 2009, Queen’s tuition rose an average

of 4.3%, while student assistance only
increased by 2.8%.

With rising tuition, this is unacceptable. I will work to

ensure that tuition assistance never increases less than
tuition.

1 in 2 Queen’s students receive some form of financial assistance from the

University. I do.

OSAP cannot provide enough finding to cover the costs of Queen’s tuition and
living in Kingston. Queen’s maintains a $29 million student assistance fund to help
provide additional funding to students. This money is vital to the accessibility of a
Queen’s education, and it is unacceptable that tuition cots are rising faster than
student assistance funding. Given that all students contribute $100 to this fund, I
will make it clear to the Board of Trustees and the Administration that cuts to
this fund are never acceptable.

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A sustainable budget
framework:
Every year, our programs get cut more and more. Tutorials are being eliminated, and
the diversity of courses is being reduced. Everything that makes Queen’s unique is
slowly being eroded away.

The Academic Plan, Where Next? will be finalized this spring. With the formation of
the academic plan, a sustainable budget and tuition framework must be developed to
prevent poorly thought out budget and program cuts.

Increasing tuition at provincial caps (4% or 8%, depending on the program), and
passing 10% tuition increases for students is not sustainable, and places an
unmanageable burden on many students.

Queen’s accepted an additional 150 students last year in order to receive more funding
from the province. Ontario gives Queen’s ~$9,200 per student. However, this has
maxed out the infrastructure resources of Queen’s - residences, cafeterias, lecture halls,
etc. Also, it is driving up rent in the student village.

I will question the Board as to why there is no financial plan

for Queen’s. Such a plan would help facilities plan ahead for
budgets, and let the administration know of funding
priorities.

Working with students, I will facilitate an “academic and

financial plan” written by the undergraduates. It is vital
that a true response to “Where Next?,” Dr. Woolf ’s planning
document, is developed by those who will be affected by it
the most.

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Homecoming:
Beyond the keg
I will lead a student effort to develop a plan with the
Board of Trustees to fund a Queen’s sanctioned
homecoming.

The cancelation of Homecoming for the past three years, and the future three year
suspension of homecoming has resulted in Faux-coming, a police filled weekend
that is turning away alumni while reflecting poorly on Queen’s.

Homecoming is essential for alumni engagement. Over 8,000 alumni used to come
back for homecoming weekend. Now there is nothing for them to come back to.

Events like homecoming are what foster the QUeen’s experience, and engage
alumni for life. The Board of Trustees will be instrumental in bringing back a
homecoming that is a point of pride for Queen’s.

Bringing back a Queen’s sanctioned homecoming will require planning that needs
to begin now. A wet Homecoming for Queen’s will cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Planning needs to start now to ensure a sustainable homecoming weekend
for the future.

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The Queen’s Centre:
What Next?
Queen’s built phase 1 of the Queen’s Centre before it even had a majority of the
funding for the $161 million project. Phases 2 and 3 have been put on hold indefinitely.

In 2005, students committed $25,000,000 to the Queen’s Centre project. In 2007, this
agreement was revised to tie the commitment to the completion of each phase. We are
all paying $141 per year towards this contribution, with no plan for what students were
promised.

The about $14 million of this contribution is tied to buildings that will never be built as
originally planned. In the next two years, this agreement, between the AMS and the
University, will have to be revised.

Working with the AMS executive, I will ensure that a plan for a new and
renovated student life centre is put in motion, which uses student money
wisely for the benefit of the students.

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A Sustainable
Education
Queen’s uses massive amounts of energy - $15 million worth of water, gas, and
electricity in 2009. Utilizing renewable energy and finding ways to reduce use of these
resources isn’t just good for the environment, its also good for saving money, which can
be put towards academics.

This year, solar panels will be installed on 14 rooftops across campus.

Because many buildings at Queen’s are over 75 years old, there will
be no additional roof space to expand this program in the future.

The solar rooftop project will generate 950kw of electricity on main

campus, and 10mw at the Biological Station north of Kingston,
bringing in $600,000 to Queen’s every year. Thats awesome.

I will lead the formation of a renewable energy and sustainability policy for Queen’s while on the
Board of Trustees. No such policy governing renewable energy and building construction
currently exists. Such a policy will insure that:
All new buildings are built to LEED energy efficiency standards
Renewable energy generation is incorporated into the designs of buildings
A campus wide sustainability plan is developed with the AMS sustainability office

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Controlling the Media:
Queen’s Reputation
Queen’s is a favorite of the media, especially the Whig-Standard and The Globe And Mail. Media
outlets love to write stories that reflect poorly on the University, hurting the reputation of out school.
While these articles are usually biased and unfair, they generate readership from an audience
hungry to hear about the imperfections of a top school in Canada.

The University has done very little to counter the reputation of Queen’s as having a drinking
problem. Students at every university party and drink - Queen’s is no different.

The the administration is responsible to the Board of Trustees. It is vital that out
administrators develop a realistic PR plan to promote the student involvement,
opportunities, and uniqueness that is Queen’s.

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Online Classes:
As a cost saving move, departments are offering some classes in
a web based format only. In some cases, these classes are
required for a program concentration. Removing the classroom
component of a course eliminates true interaction with a prof,
and instead moves it on to the computer screen.

Many students have told me that online only courses are

never acceptable. Online resources, such as lecture videos
are valuable. However, never having interaction with your
prof is unacceptable, and should not be a part of the Queen’s
experience. I will let the administration know this.

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