BY JACK PARKINSON
Conestoga students will be happy to know that the college is considering consolidating its many required cards into one single student card.
The initiative was discussed at Conestoga’s College Council meeting on Nov. 10. Currently, in addition to a basic student card someone studying at Conestoga needs a separate card or serial number to access the library, athletic complex and parking lots. In the case of a bus pass, the student card is modified with a special sticker which costs several hundred dollars.
According to Mike Dinning, vice-president of student affairs, the college is aware of the redundancy and plans to fix it.
“There are four or five services on campus that use cards,” Dinning said at the meeting, adding that a number of services at Conestoga are being reworked so one student card can be used. Ideally, students would not need anything but their student cards in order to use a majority of the college’s services. If all goes well, the plan will be in effect for the 2015-2016 school year.
Also discussed at the meeting were the IT department’s work to integrate Microsoft Sharepoint into Conestoga’s technology infrastructure, Conestoga’s Continuous Quality
Improvement (a section of the Quality Matters program), and the success of the CSI leadership conference, which had about 200 attendees.
Norbert Mika, one of the co-ordinators of the software engineering technology program, also brought up the topic of Conestoga’s security plan. Mika cited a recent email from a student to a faculty member, where the student had mentioned physical violence. Although nothing came from it, Mika was concerned that he only heard about the email through another faculty member, and that he should have been notified.
College President John Tibbits fielded the question.
“First, there is an investigation,” he said, stressing the importance of knowing the facts before reacting to any situation.
“It’s important to work quietly in the background.”
If there was a serious threat, the college would take any measure necessary, Tibbits said, adding he thinks that some universities and colleges overreact to threats.
“Some institutions, they receive a phone call and the school is shut down. Two days later, the phone rings and the school is shut down again and again.”
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