Nearly 50 students were invited to eat breakfast with the president on March 22, in order to critique Trinity Western University’s new strategic initiative, “Design the Decade: Envision the Century.”

“Our belief is that what we do for the next 10 years will really set the course for the next century,” said president Dr. Jonathan Raymond to a room full of students, including a number of representatives from the TWU Student Association and Mars’ Hill, as well a handful of students from the School of Business and graduate studies. “This exercise is an entry point into a conversation,” he added.

At the beginning of the school year, Trinity Western University Student Association president Norman Van Eeden Petersman set an ambitious goal: to reach each student on campus seven times through the association.

The end results of this endeavour, called Project Seven, show that students were impacted by TWUSA 14,003 times over the course of the year. This is just shy of the roughly 15,500 times needed to accomplish the goal.

The purpose of this plan was to inform students of what TWUSA does and to foster student participation and engagement, said Van Eeden Petersman.

My time as a student here at Trinity Western University is finally drawing to a close. As I approach this last season of papers and exams, I wonder how I could best use this space to say something important. But, I’m merely a 23-year-old year senior and, to be honest, I’d settle for something slightly interesting. In lieu of either, here are some thoughts, some ideas and a final farewell. And with any luck I’ll manage to keep the platitudes to a minimum.

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I’ve always kind of been a pack rat. It began in middle school when I acquired an orange plastic mini-garbage can. Every time I visited a new place or met a new person, I always tried to take something tangible away from the experience that would remind me of it. When I travelled with my family to a swimming competition on Vancouver Island, I saved my ferry ticket and placed it in that can. Faded photo-booth photos of me and best friend Jenny were in there too, squished between an American dollar bill from my band trip to White Salmon, Wash., and an old pack of gum I bought while on a first date.

In an attempt to boost the number of students living on campus next semester, incentives are being offered to both residents and commuters. In previous years, Housing and Conference services haven’t had to go to the extent of offering incentives to students. This year however, only 700 of the 920 beds on campus were filled.

“That’s an incredible amount of lost revenue,” said Brad Wallbank, director of Housing and Conference services at TWU. “The university depends on the housing conferences to support the revenue needed for ancillary services.”

Wallbank, who developed the incentive program, hopes to bring some excitement to the possibility of living on campus.

This spring, Political Science professor Mark Charlton is resigning from Trinity Western University, after 15 years here.

“It’s been great,” Charlton said of his time here, and it is with mixed feelings that he leaves.

Charlton, who currently serves as Dean of Research and Faculty Development and International Studies Coordinator, said that relationships with students and faculty top his list of things he will miss most. Charlton will also miss his connection with a number of students who have been involved in overseas organizations and maintain contact with him. Over the past 15 years, he has developed fairly close connections with some of his colleagues, which he said will also leave a void in his life.

Dr. John Klassen is retiring this year after having taught History at Trinity Western University for 31 years.

The professor has seen and helped TWU grow from a two-year college into a degree-granting institution. His teaching and books have consistently brought to the foreground the importance that minority groups play in history.

Asked about his teaching method, Klassen said that when he arrived at TWU in 1976, women were not thought to be important historical actors. As a result, he set out to show his students the ways in which women have worked throughout history. Klassen said he found it important to focus on the way in which history can teach men and women how to relate to one another, “accepting each other as equal human beings.”