CSU Winter Orientation Making a Comeback

Budget for Activities and Staff Will Cost Up to $10,000

NewsSafia Ahmad — Published January 11, 2017

“It was really my initiative to do it this year,” said Student Life Coordinator Rachel Gauthier. “I just really wanted to do it from the beginning of my mandate.”

According to Gauthier, expenses for this orientation should not eclipse $10,000, accounting for activities and the staff. The budget for this orientation is coming from savings generated during the fall orientation, where the CSU accumulated $42,611.55 in surplus.

“I wanted to have a surplus so I could plan this for the winter,” she said.

The budget for next year’s fall orientation will not be affected by these expenditures since each committee is presented with a new budget every year, said Gauthier.

Between 2014 and 2016, the CSU did not hold winter orientations due to low attendance in the past.

However, Gauthier was adamant about bringing back the winter festivities for students who did not get the chance to sign up for clubs and experience the fall orientation.

“When I was a student in first year, the first semester of university is really chaotic,” she said. “Everything is new and you want to make sure you get good grades, so getting involved wasn’t the first thing I did in the fall.”

With regards to the fall orientation, this one will be smaller in scale. On Tuesday and Friday, students will find Gauthier and other members of the CSU at coffee stands in the EV and MB buildings respectively.

Starting next week, information booths will be set up on Monday, Thursday and Friday from 8:30 a.m to 11:30 a.m in front of Le Gym located on the basement level in the EV building.

The CSU will be holding its winter clubs fair on Tuesday from 11 a.m to 4 p.m in the EV lobby. That will be followed by the winter community fair held the next day at the same time and location.

But the main event will be taking place on Friday, with New York artist Juliana Huxtable and Concordia art history professor Mikhel Proulx set to give a talk at the DB Clarke theatre at 7 p.m.

At the fall orientation, promotion was an issue that Gauthier wanted to rectify this time around by making pamphlets with information about the events.

“We’ve learned a couple of tricks that we wished we would have done sooner,” she said.

The CSU posted a full schedule of events online.