Stephanie Spehar and I had a cordial and productive meeting with UWO Chancellor Manohar Singh, Provost Josh Garrison, and several other top administrative colleagues today.
We had some differences of opinion about the need for and content of our petition, but they were handled through healthy discussion.
Chancellor Singh emphasized that UWO is a leader in sustainability and he is committed to maintaining that emphasis and standing.
We agreed that better communication between various stakeholders -- with various perspectives -- in the campus landscape is a must and hope we have begun to put this into practice via this meeting, where some of us met in person for the first time, and pledges from all the people present to make this a priority going forward.
We agreed to put together a working group that intersects with the UWO strategic plan implementation efforts and includes faculty, grounds staff, students, and other voices, who together will work on updating the campus grounds plan and producing agreed-upon action steps that attempt to balance maintaining and investing in sustainability-oriented places and practices with other interests that will hopefully help everyone feel at home, safe, and like they belong here. There have been several attempts in this regard over the past 5 years that haven't produced the results we've wanted, but we're hopeful that this can be a fresh start.
In the meantime, we urged our administrative colleagues to avoid making unnecessary changes to our valued natural spaces on campus and if something does need to be altered according to their mandates (e.g., safety, function of infrastructure), that this be communicated to campus stakeholders like us in advance to avoid further unpleasant surprises.
There is a lot more to talk about going forward, but we sincerely thank you all for supporting our efforts and the Chancellor and his team for making something positive come out of a conflictive situation by having a fruitful meeting with us.