Dear Editor,
I was reading your first issue of the Medium and I had a chance to go over the articles written by Larissa Ho. The article “UTM departs on an Odyssey” gives a very brief and factual description of how Orientation Week was scheduled to operate, but failed to give descriptions about the student experiences, fun, and excitement that the week entailed.
I would also like to give credit to Larissa for the second article, “Orientation coordinators resign from UTMSU”, as it outlines the views of the OCs and UTMSU. Although long, it shed a light on issues the Medium felt important to bring to the attention of students.
After reading the articles and reading the editorial, I think the Medium is drifting away from the main issue that should have been covered during Orientation Week. Is the main issue to shed a light on the “series of unfortunate events” that occurred behind the scenes that froshies and upper-year UTM students didn’t know about? Or is it to inform and educate their readers about how Orientation Week actually went despite allegations made by the OCs towards UTMSU?
Since the OCs resigned, the executives, along with Orientation Committee members, picked up most of the slack. It’s unfortunate that they resigned a few weeks before Orientation Week, but this did not in any way negatively impact planning for Orientation Week. I would like to commend the leaders, committee members, and my executive team for all the hard work they put in to make Orientation Week 2013 successful. Not only did we have a phenomenal week, but we were able to break the record for the number of tickets sold. With over 1,165 attendees, UTMSU’s Orientation Week included its first-ever paint party. The week also included a great turnout for other novel events. In addition, UTMSU’s Frosh’s Got Talent had various amazing performances from individuals as well as clubs, and topped off with the winning performance by our own froshie, Monarie!
I think if the Medium deems it necessary to shed a bright light on the OCs resigning, it should also shed a small portion of this light on the successes of Orientation Week and give due credit to those that made it successful. Executives and committee members put in long work hours because we all believed in a single vision: to make Orientation Week 2013 the best week that froshies would ever have at UTM, and having worked very closely together, there was nothing that was strong enough to distract us from this vision.
Finally, I am proud to say that Orientation 2013 was just the beginning of many successful events to be brought to our students by their students’ union.
Raymond Noronha
President
UTM Students’ Union
