-----Original Message----- From: Mary E. Price [mailto:Mary_Price@umanitoba.ca] Sent: April-15-13 10:55 AM To: Bev Godard Subject: Results: Private Industry Involvement in PSGSS Vote

Hi all,

The results of the vote regarding our position on private industry involvement in future plant science graduate student symposiums was:

11 Yes (agreed with the statement) 1 No (did not agree with the statement)

Obviously, not everyone voted. If you did not get a chance to vote and/or you have concerns regarding our viewpoint on this matter (restated at the bottom of this email), please contact me directly at: Mary_Price@umanitoba.ca within the next few days.

I will be sending out an email to the other schools inviting them to join the discussion later this week and will keep everyone posted.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Mary

U of M PSGSA standpoint on private industry involvement in future PSGS symposiums:

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.