Earlier this year, the Student Life Centre (SLC) announced clubs are no longer required to submit event sanctioning forms to book booths in the Queen’s center.
In Fall 2021, the AMS implemented mandatory event sanctioning forms for both in-person and online events due to the pandemic.
“At the beginning of the last semester, we were under the guidance of no in-person activities happening at all,” Jane Ford, SLC operations and sustainability assistant manager, said in an interview with The Journal.
SLC’s updated policy now only requires students to submit a booking request on their website, followed by an agreement to a safety plan.
Aside from updating booking policies, the SLC has also changed their pricing system through three categories: student, community, and corporate.
“The lowest pricing is called ‘students,’” Summer Chen, SLC head manager said in an interview with The Journal.
The student category is reserved for clubs and other on-campus organizations. In support of Kingston and local businesses, Ford said the community category has reduced its pricing rate by 10 per cent.
With some negative responses to the events sanctioning process last semester, Chen said she understood the “challenges” that were faced by student clubs.
“Looking at the bigger picture, I think [those were] the protocols that we needed to take to ensure that our students [and] community are safe,” Chen said.
“It’s our step to ensure that we are taking responsibilities for our students and also even [for the] broader Kingston community.”
Ford encouraged students to go to the SLC with any questions on events sanctioning.
“Our staff are really knowledgeable about all the policies right now,” Ford said. “Any student who has questions about university policies, […] we’re a resource for them.”
The SLC is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, seven days a week.
