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Ana Sofia Vargas Garza.
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Science one step closer to forming a society

By Laura Woodward

The Ryerson Science Society (RSS) is one step closer to being created.

On March 30, Ana Sofia Vargas Garza and Adrian Popescu presented the logistics of the society at the Board of Governors meeting — resulting in their referendum being approved by the board.

“We presented what the science society is willing to do in the upcoming years, what we have done and what we’re planning to do. We asked [the board] to go on referendum next semester, in order to get support for our society,” Vargas Garza said.

If students vote in favour of creating the RSS in the fall semester, students in the Faculty of Science will pay $22.50 per semester to fund the society.

The price was decided through surveys conducted in Fall 2014 by science students that asked others  how much they’d be willing to pay and whether they would be in support of the referendum.

“An extra $22 won’t do much to the $7,000 that I’m already paying,” said Mariam Chakvetadze, a fourth-year biology student.

But Vargas Garza said the money would go toward “supporting students’ initiatives [and] student groups. We want to make sure we foster collaborations between different student groups. We also want to make sure we give professional developments to students to make sure students know what to do when they graduate.”

Alisa Prsaut, a second-year bio medical science student said she thinks the Faculty of Science needs a society. “Our program is relatively new so we need a voice as well. And everyone else has one, so why not?” Prsaut said.

The science faculty separated from the engineering faculty nearly three years ago, the same year the science executive team decided to create its own society. In that time, the executive worked with “the student union, other student societies [and] the dean’s office — we wanted to make sure everyone was 100 per cent supportive of the science society before we even considered going to the board,” Vargas Garza said.

Imogen Coe, the dean of the Faculty of Science says she was delighted the proposal went through.

“We’ve supported [the executive] and directed them to people that could help them in developing a proposal, making sure that it would cover all the bases,” Coe said.

Voting will occur in the fall semester of 2015 to determine whether the RSS will receive student funding or not.

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