Please reply to Mary directly Mary_Price@umanitoba.ca

-----Original Message----- From: Mary E. Price [mailto:Mary_Price@umanitoba.ca] Sent: April-10-13 2:47 PM To: Bev Godard Subject: Vote Required -- Private Industry Involvement in PSGSS

Hi all,

I'm asking EVERY STUDENT to take a few minutes to read the following and to reply to this email with their vote on the following matter.

As you're aware, the plant science graduate students symposium is held each year at one of the three participating schools (University of Saskatchewan, North Dakota State University and University of Manitoba). Traditionally, this meeting has been a chance for graduate students to improve their presentation skills in a semi-relaxed environment and to socialize with students from other schools. It is usually necessary for the hosting school to source some funding from private companies in order to finance the event, which necessitates acknowledgement. However, there has been some concern raised with regards to the degree of private industry involvement in this meeting. In particular, things such as the presence of industry representatives at the presentations, presentations to students by industry reps instead of academic researchers or an overly high degree of advertising are of concern to some students.

I think it's important to start a discussion with the other two schools regarding this matter and potentially draft guidelines for future symposiums. Through casual discussions with our grad students, I have come up with the following consensus for our stance on this matter:

It is without a doubt that private industry plays a crucial role in agriculture and agricultural research. However, it is our opinion that it should be kept, to some degree, at an arms length from meetings interested in discussing ACADEMIC agricultural research. While we acknowledge the role various companies may play in providing financial assistance to carry out some students projects, we feel that including and acknowledging this within the individual students presentation would suffice for the purpose of our meeting. We also acknowledge that the PSGSS requires a substantial amount of fundraising and that a large portion of this money must often be sourced from private industry. However, the acknowledgement of the help provided by these companies should be carried out to a reasonable degree, such as within the schedule handbook. Finally, we believe the unwritten mandate of this meeting to be one of inter-school graduate student learning and socializing. For this reason, we do not believe non-student representatives from any institution (whether private or public) should be present save for invited speakers or judges.

Please reply by email by Sunday April 14th with either:

"Yes" - you agree with the opinion stated above "No" - you do not agree with the opinion stated above

The results of the vote will be emailed to all graduate students. If there is no clear decision, we will hold an open discussion next week.

Mary