First Impressions and Critical Questions
Now that we’ve been introduced to all of the candidates, I’d like to provide you with my overall impression based on three criteria: their poster, their video and their debate performance. I’ll be delving into them in greater detail based on their website, platform and other materials later in the campaign. Please keep in mind this is just a first look.
I’m also going to assign each candidate with a critical question. I don’t anticipate the CRO to ask anything like what I intend to ask. Any candidate brave enough to respond will have their response posted here.
–
PRESIDENT
Fiszman
Charismatic. Not in a quiet, listening Neil Bailey way, but more of an angry, demanding change kind of way. Nothing he says is too radical and you’re not going to doubt you’re hearing from a Commerce student when you see him. Much better at making posters than he is at making videos. If he knows how to campaign, he could give Saulnier a run for his money.
Critical Question: None of the insiders saw you coming. Either you’re a stealthy ninja, or your direct experience with the DSU is limited. Or both. Given the learning curve in this role, why should students take a chance on you over a candidate who already has a year’s experience under his belt?
Hillman
Wasn’t present in the debate, albeit for legitimate reasons. He seems to have some of the same qualities as the first time he ran: a great sense of humour and top-notch video-making. We’ll have to wait and see if time and experience have offered him new insight to refine his platform.
Critical Question: If you had Darrell Dexter in front of you rig-no, just kidding. But seriously: if you win, what are you actually going to do?
Saulnier
He’s more or less what I’ve come to expect: a thoughtful, quick on his feet, though perhaps a bit verbose, engineer. He clearly knows his stuff (even if his spelling is in question with 2/9 words on his platform spelt wrong) and he has a clear vision on how to move forward. Saulnier is the safe choice.
Critical Question: You seem to have set up things like the food service contract pretty neatly for someone to come in and carry on from your work next year. Why should we take you back, instead of opting for a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective on the issue?
Bonus Question: Really? ”Presedent” AND “Experenced”?!
VICE PRESIDENT (ACADEMIC & EXTERNAL)
Bouchard
Clever, experienced and well liked, Bouchard is the “insider” favourite. She knows her stuff (well, the spelling could use some work) and has about as much experience with ANSSA as you can accumulate without being an Exec. In another year this might be hers to lose, but she’s got some stiff competition. The “pretty girl” effect won’t hurt her in a race against three guys, though.
Critical Question: A lot of your advocacy goals are expensive, in a time of fiscal restraint. When push comes to shove, what comes first? Tuition? Student financial assistance? Some groups over others, or all students equally?
Dempsey
I barely saw him when he ran last year. This year, though, he’s got a pretty clear sense of what he stands for. His delivery needs some work; at a few points, I couldn’t really follow the point he was trying to make. Still, he has me listening. Especially after the panic that I felt after seeing Nova Scotia as a prison for student debt.
Critical Question: How are you going to get your message across to government and the university? What will your approach be? How will you affect change in practice?
Mecke
He knows his stuff for a 2nd year fresh out of residence. Pitching as sort of an agressor as the status quo, he’s managed to capture new perspectives and a broad theme in a race that could otherwise be dominated by people rehashing the same points on tuition. There are still some outstanding holes in his ideas, though. In any case, he’s in an awfully tough race, but don’t count this guy out yet.
Critical Question: How in the name of all that is holy do you plan on getting mandatory faculty evaluations past the DFA? I wouldn’t count on that relationship surviving the attempt.
Price
What a polished campaigned so far. He’s toned it down a bit from last year, though reviews remain mixed as to whether he comes off as enthusiastic and competent or somewhat condescending. Obama was probably a poor choice if he wanted to appear more humble. In any case, he’s a very serious contender this time around.
Critical Question: You own a business out near Truro, among a list of other responsibilities. The constitution may say the job is only 30 hours a week, but the Council pretty much expects twice that. How would get things done as VPAE with everything else on your plate?
VICE PRESIDENT (INTERNAL)
Connors
This guy is smart. Not only is his platform solid, but it also seems specifically designed to hit Kurin at all her weakest points. He also seems ready to tap into the fact that for an Exec led by an Engineer, this one hasn’t seemed that great at keeping Sexton Campus happy. It will be interesting to see if this pays off. Speaking of happy, I’ve yet to see this guy smile (or even appear smiling in a picture).
Critical Question: It may not take a scientist to know that Carleton students want to be engaged, but does a Management student know how to pull it off? Last time someone tried to start a Carleton Campus Advisory Committee, there wasn’t even interest.
Kurin
I haven’t held it up to compare yet, but Kurin this year sounds a lot to me like Kurin last year, but with a year’s experience in the pitch. This could go over well with anyone happy with the status quo (and the lack of conflict that usually comes with the job). She’s got her unique sense of humour mixed into the campaign as well. Her opponents may not be pushovers, but this race is still hers to lose.
Critical Question: VPIs are traditionally known for controversy, major achievements and utter burnout. Society Policy, DSU Leadership and even the website are examples of this. You’ve largely dodged the controversy part, but do you have the achievements? Why do you deserve to be re-elected?
Mekhail
A hard worker whose name came up a lot last year. He’s got some solid experience at the Faculty society level and some creative ideas, especially on inter-society relations. Comes off as pretty approachable as well. A pretty strong candidate running in a pretty challenging year. With significant Society Society experience, he may have the right connections to pull off an upset.
Critical Question: VPI isn’t all glamour and red carpets. If you’re doing the job right, sometimes you’re going to piss societies off. How are you going to handle that?
VICE PRESIDENT (STUDENT LIFE)
Arron
Oh man, this guy exudes charm. If you don’t believe me, just ask any of the five girls in his campaign video. His experience is a bit unorthodox for the portfolio (might seem more naturally a VPI candidate) but he’s clearly done his homework, he’s smart on his feet and his claim to fame is in student engagement, which can’t possibly hurt in an election campaign. This isn’t locked up by any means, but Arron is the candidate to beat in this race.
Critical Question: Many of the past VPSLs have had at least some experience in traditional events that come with the portfolio like Orientation, Student Appreciation Night, etc. Are you up for carrying on those traditions? Or are some of them going to get left behind?
Dobbyne
He sure came off like he knew what he was talking about. Some pretty neat ideas (beer garden in the McGinnis Room? that’s just badass) and clearly has a good sense of humour. Seems to have a pretty solid handle on some of the more complex issues in the portfolio. Definitely a contender. With a nickname like “English Tom”, I was expecting a thicker accent. A little disappointed, not gonna lie.
Critical Question: What do you offer over the other two candidates to students who don’t drink?
Bonus Question: How are you a Dal student in Journalism…?
Reid
A solid platform that’s easy to remember (3As)and arguably the most relevant experience for the portfolio, he’s got a pretty good head start in a few respects. He’s also the only candidate really talking about athletics, which has had somewhat of a strained relationship with the DSU in the past. With that said, he stumbled a bit in the debate and came off as the least easy-going of the three.
Critical Question: How are you going to tackle strained relations in the VPSL portfolio with Sexton Campus?
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Griffin
Pretty polished, clearly has experience in this kind of an environment. Even his poster looks sharp. Lack of a video could hurt him, though; Law students have the uphill battle of time commitments that his opponents can dodge more easily. May have overdone it on professional students for his audience in the debate. Nevertheless, came off as very capable and competent.
Critical Question: How are you going to manage your connections with the Faculty-level societies, especially in relation to working on BoG-level priorities?
Ma
Past experience on a BoG isn’t gonna hurt in this race. Also has a pretty seriously elaborate video, clearly took some work. Ma must want this pretty badly and he’s got experience running in SU elections, even if this is his first kick at the DSU can. Not convinced he’ll be able to connect with students in class talks or one-on-ones as well as his opponents, though.
Critical Question: A year ago, you were running for President of the King’s Student Union. You’ve only been a Dalhousie student for a year. Are you ready and able to represent students at Dalhousie?
Rector
Math student with experience of the DSU Board of Ops makes for an interesting combination for BoG. Particularly strong supporter of the Loaded Ladle referendum is also interesting. Definitely seems adamant on food issues. He can’t pull off the Obama look. I’m still reserving my judgement here, not sure what to think yet.
Critical Question: If food issues are your passion, how would you do anything on them from the Board?
SENATE
MaGill
One of the better candidates I’ve seen for the Senate in recent years. I’m not sure how much political sense he has (simple? and that poster picture is unnerving…) but he’s definitely got a solid policy sense. A good plan that, if not achievable, definitely has room for pursuit. I doubt he’ll have much trouble winning a seat; the real question is what he’ll do next.
Critical (Bonus?) Question: Discipline and appeals are central to the Senate Rep’s job. On the Discipline side, each Faculty has an AIO that tries to resolve problems informally before they go to the Senate. For Appeals, there’s enormous diversity from one Faculty to another and some Faculties have multiple different appeals processes. My question is: what is the appropriate balance between standardization and flexibility for different faculties? What, if anything, would you change about the current system?
Scrimgeour
I’m prepared to reserve a hint of judgement for seeing her, since she had a legitimate reason for not attending the debate. With that said, based on her platform points, she’s put out nothing so far to demonstrate to me that she knows anything about the University Senate.
Critical Question: I could ask you what the Senate does, but that would be a softball. Instead, I’d like to know how, in concrete terms, you plan to accomplish the points of your platform and where you will fit that into your Senate responsibilities.
Critical Question: What do you offer over the other two candidates to students who don’t drink?
An open mind. I’m happy to explore other avenues for events and idea’s. more dive in movies perhaps?, casino nights in the sub (Howe has had 3 of them in the last 3 years), society mixers, local/student bands, glee clubs, dodge-ball tournaments. Anything the students want to see being formed/put on/tried. I’m willing to give it a shot.
Bonus Question: How are you a Dal student in Journalism…
I’m a arts student, but I felt that as journalism was the class I most enjoy this year it made sense to say that rather than just arts which is rather vague
PS I have a lot thicker accent. I tone it down for you all so I’m understood lol
@Tom
As a Dal student who was in arts but felt like journalism was the elective I most enjoyed: beware. You will have to transfer to King’s if you want journalism to be your major. As a Dal student, you can only take it as a minor.
Becoming a King’s student in upper years involves putting up with a lot of dense jokes about philosophy and Dante’s Inferno and German Idealists and stuff like that, and also feigning interest in chic cliques called things like Young Alexandrias, and King’s Theatricats, or whatever.
@Bethany
thank you Bethany I will remember that!!! I haven’t decided on my major/minors yet but I’d rather not face Dante’s Inferno again (theatre class last year put me off it)
Karl Dempsey has provided his answer to me in a printed out copy. I’ve transcribed it below for your review:
–
“How are you going to get your message across to government and the university?
First, no one person can do this job alone. It is going to require a dedicated team, feedback from external lobby groups and involvement from graduate students. Most important is the average student at the university who needs a voice. Better communication is needed between the average student and the student union.
What will your approach be?
Hard work, dedication and a believe in ones dreams. Providing an educated solution will help from others and taking a leadership role in the field of fighting for student’s education.
How will you affect change in practice?
Change is slow and no one is going to make changes over night. But standing and saying we need lower tuition, we need a better student loans division is nothing more than talking. Engagement of the average student and listening to their concerns will provide better communication. Look at alternatives with the university and government to find solutions. The knowledge our graduate students possess will provide expert advice on critical issues. Our graduate students also have the ability to become leaders in helping to find solutions to post secondary education.”
@Eric Snow – Did you REALLY resort to talking about Bouchard’s looks? Not impressed.
@Meredith Evans
The effect I was referring to, which has been discussed here many times in previous years, is that “pretty girls” tend to do very well at the ballot box in DSU elections. Even when there are far fewer female candidates, they tend to come out on top. The way it’s been suggested before is that they do very well among voters who don’t know anything and vote based solely on the profile picture they see on the ballot.
There are plenty of examples over the past four or so years that I’ve been watching, and my understanding is that the effect dates back before that since I don’t think it was new at the time. I can list plenty of them if you’d like. It’s also among other effects that been discussed as possibly impacted elections in the past, ranging from cool names to alphabetical listings of candidates.
I was in no way criticizing Sarah’s (very impressive) qualifications for the job or her platform. I was in no way saying that if she wins, it will only be because she’s “pretty”. I am also absolutely not saying that “girls only win because of their looks”. With that said, past experience would suggest that, right or wrong, it could factor into her chances of success, which was the only point of the comment.
I sincerely apologize if I offended Sarah or anyone else with the comment. That was by no means my intention.
I disagree with the phrasing – he didn’t “resort” to it, like it was all he had to go on. It was more an afterthought. He talked about her inside track, her knowledge, and her experience, and then mentioned appearance in a race against three guys.
If you don’t want him to bring it up at *all*, that’s understandable. To be honest, it struck an off chord with me at first too. But appearance is a criteria that voters report using to make decisions (for both guys AND girls); however uncomfortable it is to talk about, ignoring it won’t help. (… talking about it won’t immediately help the problem either, but in general I’d choose putting issues on the table rather than ignoring them). Should appearance matter? No. Does it? To some people, sadly yes. I’m disinclined to shoot the messenger.
Apparently during elections, Eric and I form a HIVE MIND.
@Meredith Evans
This is exactly why gender studies is studied in University. You can be pretty much be guaranteed that she will steal a few votes from uninformed voters because she is a girl. I don’t think Eric was being disrespectful in anyway. Im impressed Eric.
@Eric Snow
@Mike Smit
@Meredith Evans
Is it just “pretty” women (and pretty men) who have a slight advantage, or perhaps is there also a factor of ANY woman (no need to refer to appearance) running against three men in an election where the majority of candidates are men would catch a voters’ eye?
Maybe it’s just my years of feminist indoctrination, but that would be a point in their favour, for me. As a voter, I’d cringe to select leaders for a union comprised of mostly women without voting to have some women at the (executive) table.
@Bethany
Both.
My point was that voters, when asked, specifically identified appearance as a factor when choosing who to vote for, which is fairly unambiguously about appearance.
For inferences drawn based on the gender of the winner, I agree entirely with your interpretation. In fact, when Eric said “pretty girl”, I read “pretty” and “woman”: two concepts, as opposed to a single concept.
Critical Question: How in the name of all that is holy do you plan on getting mandatory faculty evaluations past the DFA? I wouldn’t count on that relationship surviving the attempt.
The simple answer is that the DSU represents students, not faculty. What the unions relationship with the DFA is should not take priority over what is in the best interest of students. With that in mind it is important to empathize with the faculty; these evaluations are already on many of their minds regarding their future in academics, especially those who have yet to be tenured. The availability of student course and professor evaluations to students should not be viewed as a way to punish new staff who are still grasping their methods, it should instead be viewed as a way to prize instructors who engage students and create a unique learning environment with students who are motivated to attend class, give input, and have more interest in their academics.
By making the evaluations public, Dal can usher in a new era of quality education and can take pride in how its faculty is seen by students.
@Meredith Evans
Unfortunately one year I was told by someone that they voted for all the “Hottest” people based on their picture on the elections website. Not a good way to vote, luckily most of those people were pretty and smart. It shouldn’t be a factor but sometimes it is. If it was a guy in a race against 3 girls Eric may have made the same comment and perhaps no one would have noticed. Then again, being in a male dominated profession I have been called a lot worse than “pretty” so it hardly phased me until a comment was made.
In response to Eric’s question at the Studley debate and the one above, I would like to direct you to the following document listed below.
http://senate.dal.ca//Files/policies/Faculty_Discipline_Procedures__effective_September_1%2C_2009_.pdf
Under Academic Integrity Officers, paragraph 4, you will see that Academic Integrity Officers (AIOs) meet once per year to try and ensure consistency and predictability in the academic offences process. My impulse says that this is simply not enough. When we are talking about the process, it is meant to provide fairness to the student, essentially a chance to be involved and defend his/her position. I’m sure the AIOs of different faculties have relatively different perspectives on what offences legitimize certain penalties. The process is about fairness, I want to ensure that it is met with consistency. I think a fair proposition would be for the AIOs to meet at least twice a year, if not more. This is one way in which I will try to balance the issue a little bit.
On a side note the number of cases heard on the discipline committee have been decreasing over the recent years (see below), which I imagine is due to better education on the issue of academic integrity, referencing and resources such as “TurnItIn”. I am committed to watching the numbers and establishing policies to make sure this low number continues.
“Allegations received in 2006-2007 and heard in 2007-2008 – 23
Allegations received in 2007-2008 and heard in 2007-2008 – 31
Total allegations heard in 2007-2008 – 54
Allegations received in 2007-2008 and heard in 2008-2009 – 8
Allegations received in 2008-2009 and heard in 2008-2009 – 14
Total allegations heard in 2008-2009 – 22
Allegations received in 2008-2009 and heard in 2009-2010 – 3
Allegations received in 2009-2010 and heard in 2009-2010 – 7
Total allegations heard in 2009-2010 – 10
Allegations received in 2009-2010 pending a hearing as of July 1, 2010 – 1
Total allegations received in 2009-2010 – 7”
I welcome any questions, comments, suggestions and criticisms you may have.
Thanks.
You’re on track, but that doesn’t include cases settled at the AIO level iirc. If the student is satisfied with the AIO’s penalty, it doesn’t come to Senate. There are still some hefty issues with the entire process, council is currently debating a motion to improve the AIO process across faculties.
Imad has offered his response. See below. It may be long, but it’s a good read.
–
Great question! Upsetting to hear about the lack of glamour and red carpets though. I know it’s a long answer, but I have split it into two: A) How I plan to avoid upsetting societies in the first place, and how to contain the situation B) A real example of a situation and how I handled it.
A) First off, as you can imagine, I hope to keep pissing off societies to an absolute minimum. I have worked with a lot of great society people in the past, and those I haven’t worked with I’m sure are of equal character, and I know that everyone involved only wants the best for their society, those they represent, and for Dalhousie in general.
Unfortunately, like you said, I will likely eventually upset an individual or an entire group of people during my time as VP Internal. I do, however, respectfully disagree that doing the job right goes hand in hand with pissing someone off, but that’s not the main point.
Dalhousie has an increasingly diverse body of students every year, and with that comes opposing views and opinions. Also, students will come with great ideas that the DSU either does not have the funds to support, ones that we’re unprepared for, or ones that do not match our principles. And, heck, sometimes things that should work…won’t.
Whatever the case, I firmly believe that the majority of people whom get upset become so because they feel that their concern/idea is going unheard, and in several cases they are justified. By sitting down with them and showing that this isn’t the case, and that I am here for them, I’m sure it’ll alleviate a lot of the tension. A simple way of doing this is by simply staying in touch with someone. Rather than waiting for someone to come in and ask for an update, simply sending them an email saying, “Hey, I remember you and your concern, and I’m working hard for you. This is what I’ve done so far, and I’ll update you as soon as I get any news” goes a long way.
If a situation occurs where I really cannot help someone/group, I would provide them with alternative routes and, as much as possible, help them navigate them. I’ve done that before, for example, when the DSS personal grants budget was exhausted and there were several people still looking for funding. By helping them apply to other sources, such as the DSU, the Dean of Science’s Office, the President’s Office, etc, they still left feeling the DSS was there for them.
B) Here’s a concrete example of how I handled a significant situation:
During my year as president of the Science Society we held our first ever Gala. Unfortunately, due to availability constraints of the McInnes room, it landed on the day before the DUPS/UNS Charity Dinner. They, understandably, were upset because we were essentially competing for ticket sales.
When the concern was brought forth, I talked to the representatives from both groups and explained to them the situation and why we really had no choice in the date availability. We also, in good faith, purchased a few tickets to the event, and gave them away to any science student wishing to attend. To further assure them this wasn’t one time thing, I reminded our current VP, who was taking lead on this years Gala planning, about what happened to ensure it is not repeated this year.
I believe that the way I handled things were appropriate, and helped mend the relationship.