Pillar yearbook safe for now

Posted by admin on Sep 22, 2009 in Back Issues, News, Volume 14 Issue 1 | 0 comments

On Monday TWUSA council members met as a representative assembly in Fraser Lounge to vote on a motion to suspend the Pillar yearbook for the 2009-2010 school year. After providing a forum for students and other stakeholders to voice their opinions, the council voted on the motion to suspend Pillar. The secret ballot ended in a 4-4 draw, with one member abstaining from voting.

The motion to suspend Pillar came after months of searching for an Editor-in-Chief and Visual Editor yielded a pool of applicants that was determined to be under-qualified for the task. The opening for the positions have also been displayed prominently on the TWUSA website throughout the summer. After much deliberation the TWUSA Executive Board began exploring alternate possibilities and ultimately decided to propose a motion to suspend Pillar for the year.

Many stakeholders were represented at the meeting including the TWUSA Senate, and roughly 100 students attended the assembly. The Senate voiced the concern that to “suspend an operation as significant as Pillar with only eight school days of contact was imprudent.” In addition, many students voiced the desire to have a physical yearbook at the end of their year.
“We listened to the students and the students have spoken in favour of Pillar. TWUSA has now shifted the responsibility from itself to the students and the Student Media department on finding the right people to run Pillar for the year,” said TWUSA President David van Hemmen following the vote.

“I support looking closely at the future of Pillar, and possibly ending it in its current version, but I think having this year to figure out how that will happen was the best-case scenario,” said Audrey Martin, Student Media Advisor.

Pillar has not been without its difficulties in the past. Finding editors has been a struggle and the yearbook itself has received mixed reviews on its success and relevance. Additionally, its expensive cost has also been cited as a reason for suspending or reformatting it. Last year TWUSA budgeted $57,603 for Pillar, or roughly 25% of the total student fees.