punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

As some of you may know one of the biggest days of the year for an engineering grad is Iron Ring day. It’s pretty awesome and special and is possibly the biggest party on Sexton Campus all year. Although I can’t comment on the SEKRIT ceremonies that preceded the party but I can tell you which candidates attended Iron Ring afterparty  2011.

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Now that the polls have closed it is time to reveal the real truth behind this election. While Tipping and Edelstein think that they have succeeded with Debo version 1 through 4, there is a far more sinister truth behind this election which began on Sexton Campus over 10 years ago.

In 1997 when the TUNS Student Union was taken over by the DSU a secret calling of engineers known as the Crisis Handling Robotics and Informatics Section was formed. Every year under the guise of an secretive ‘iron ring’ ceremony graduating engineers are inducted into this dark calling under the unsuspecting eyes of the DSU and society at large. Since their  formation in 1997 you have been able to hear their work on a project commonly known as “La Chaise” taking place on the bottom floor of the Mechanical building (where there ACTUALLY is  a machine shop).

For twelve years we have poured Sexton Engineering Endowment Fund money into this project. The majority of the components have been designed by students as their senior design  projects. Several prominent professors’ careers revolve around the research done for “La Chaise”. The most active disciplines have been Mechanical, and Electrical and Computer,  however all fields of Engineering were utilized. Special thanks must be given to the Chemical engineering department for coming up with the “Food and Beer to Energy” conversion system and polymers used to look like real skin and flesh.

The project name “La Chaise” came from the testing phase designed by industrial engineering students in which the robot would chair several committees such as Executive Review,  Nominating Committee and of course our own Dalhousie Sexton Engineering Undergraduate Society meetings.  The technical name for this project is the “Sexton Animatronic  Undergraduate Lifelike Nerdy Informative Engineer Robot” or SAULNIER. Instead of such a foolhardy plan of having our robot run untested in DSU elections we instead opted for  secretly infiltrating the highest echelons of the DSU.

Our spies discovered the truth behind Debo two years ago. After much debate, we opted not to expose Tipping and Edelstein’s evil plot for fear of exposure of our own. Instead we  decided to come up with a third option providing voters with a middle ground between Debo version 4 and our own SAULNIER.

We came up with a “plan” or a “planner” as the case may be. In working with planning students the Computer engineers designed a community interface with advanced collaborative circuitry. This project became known as “Beta Anamatronic Informative Lifelike for Election Year” or BAILEY. We did not have time to completely design a new chassis, but with a pair  of glasses, some plaid, and a goatee we felt that the similarities between BAILEY and SAULNIER would not be noticed. While we had to run BAILEY untested and unknown in this election due to excellent engineering all of our design specifications were met.

That’s right. We have not left this election up to fallible human flesh. In the battle between the future of Sexton Campus and the DSU, no matter who you voted for, this is the beginning of the end. The results of this election, along with the new DSU Website going live (internally known as Students are Kindred Youth Needing Education and Teaching – SKYNET), will  usher in a new era of machine.

Reference: Last year’s mech Design Group 7′s project was used for link.

I have been asked to post an endorsement on behalf of the Engineering Society on Sexton. I would like to precurser this with a note that this is not my personal endorsement as I felt as the Sexton Campus Director it would be inappropriate for me to endorse one presidential candidate over another. In 13 years since TUNS amalgamated with Dalhousie we have not to my knowledge had a presidential candidate from Sexton(or Daltech). This year we have 2 and that is a testament to the ability of students to bridge the gap that was originally there.

Without further adieu….

Dear Voters,

The Dalhousie Sexton Engineering Undergraduate Society would like to support and endorse the following Candidates:

Chris Saulnier for President – Chris is an engineering Student who has been long involved with the Engineering community serving as DSEUS Chair for the past 3 years.

Rob Leforte for Vice-President Education - Rob has been a great support to Sexton campus in his current term of VP Education and the DSEUS would like to acknowledge his contributions and commitment to Sexton campus.

Ben Wedge for Senete – Ben is an Engineering student who is highly involved in DUES and a Sextant Editor.

The DSEUS would like to congratulate all candidates on a great campaign and wish you the best in the year to come.

Sincerely,
Krista Ash

VP External – Dalhousie Sexton Engineering Undergraduate Society

I will admit it was my own scheming that put me in a less than stellar mood today. I was woefully reading posts on my punditry post, unable to stop myself, it’s a sickness really. When I was on my journey home who do I see across the street  from my house playing guitar and singing? Neil Bailey and Evan Price of course! Just a little reminder that we all need to take some time from the hectic campaigning, he said she said of it all and enjoy the beautiful Halifax weather. I hope all candidates took a well deserved couple of hours today and enjoyed the sun. Happy 1 day left of campaigning!

First of all Pundits in attendance: Janet Conrad, John Hillman, Zhindra Gillis and even a pundit of elections past: Mark Coffin

I will be honest it was the day after St. Patrick’s day so I found myself 15 minutes late and without the capacity to take notes. I caught the closing remarks of the people running for senate. Maggie “The Green Machine” Lovett spoke elequently and gracefully as usual. She projected both maturity and professionalism, things that are required for senate.  Carly “Smiles” Nicholson was very upbeat and told people to pick her. Ben “The Situation” Wedge I think reminded us he’s going to be a Sexton student and voters could tell this guy actually eats sleeps and breaths policy. Christian “The Bouncer”Browne made all the other candidates look really small in comparison and his voice was particularly loud(Or was that just me?) which showed us all he can hardly be ignored.

Then came the VP Education part of the debate and I went to get a sandwich. I could hear Evan Price talking about “experiencial learning” from the kiosk. I could  hear Rob LeForte showing off his experience and Karl Dempsey telling us what he could bring to the job.

From what I gather it was pretty much the same as the studley debate.

Both Henry Whitfield and Greg Debogorski showed up late. I am assuming Greg had class and Henry told the CRO(and me) he had a midterm.

I can’t remember if Hannah was before or after the VPI candidates but I will cover her debate now. She was asked a few questions by the CRO then the floor was opened up for questions. (sound of crickets) I won’t lie I actually had a question for Hannah but I really didn’t know what it would accomplish to ask her since a lot of Sexton Students were still in class and the main attendees of the debate were the die hards following the campaign. Maybe Hannah can answer it here: ” With all your experience in the last two years it has been no secret you were likely going to run for this position, why is it you seem to have learned every aspect of the VP Student Life’s portfolio with the exception of the fact that you seem to have had no interaction with the Sexton Entertainment Director or the Sexton Entertainment Committee  in order to learn about running events on Sexton Campus?”-Maybe I’m wrong and you’ve talked to people on Sexton. I hope you will soon come talk to me since I have a few things to discuss with you about Orientation, Techball and December 6th which are all included in the constitution as things you must do.  We could not have done any of those things without support from the VP Student Life so I hope you will get to know how things run on Sexton since it is a bit different from upper campus and there is a learning curve associated with it.

Ok, The VPI debate. Or as I like to call it “Let’s bash the tiger patrol to Sexton idea and DSUtube”. The VPI candidates played a little dirty with each other. They ripped on Kayla for her tiger patrol van to Sexton idea and she defended it. They ripped on Henry for DSU tube. A Kayla supporter wearing a Kayla Kurin t-shirt directed a question at Henry and then interrupted him as he spoke. Tim and Glenn were just as bad at doing the digging at the other two but came out of the match relatively unscathed. I do think these candidates are underestimating the value of a clean campaign. It may have been a good idea in a race that is as close as this to try to get the second choice votes from those supporting your opponents. Honestly right now I am pretty appalled at how that all went down.

By the time we got to the presidential debate the Electrical 4 students who had come to support their classmate Chris had left and there were very few Sexton Students around. Truthfully there is only about a half hour per day that more than one group of students is not in class. Also by this time the Mechanical 5 students were testing design projects and everyone was distracted by the hovercraft and the dog playing fetch with a robot. Sadly this is not a joke.

Debogorski talked about how students “down here” don’t know who their representatives are or anything about the union. I took personal offense to that, but instead of defending myself I am going to defend all the other representatives of the DSU on Sexton Campus.

Nick Allen is our Sexton Entertainment Director and everyone knows Nick runs the T-Room events and other events put on by the DSU on Sexton. If he is not talking up his events to everyone in person he is emailing all the students and telling them about it. Andy Ngae the DSU Sexton Campus Manager meets with people on a regular basis and most students actually know who he is. Trust me you can’t miss this guy he is intense and he is always working for the students. He is closer than ever to getting us an ATM machine on campus and he got athletics to put on fitness classes at the Sexton gym sort of like the ones offered on Studley.  Can you beleive that’s a new thing? Most classes offered at Sexton cost money so this was huge.  These are just his accomplishments relating to his job with the DSU. If I have to go on about what he has done for international and IE students I will have to start another post. You may not know Adam Pelissero, who is one of the Architecture presidents and represents Architecture students to the DSU but the Architecture students do. He has worked with the current VPI and with his council to do great things for the architecture students. Finally Stephanie Hagmann is the Sexton Engineering Rep on the DSU and the president of the Engineering Society. (Please note I am NOT the engineering rep) You would be hard pressed to find an engineer who doesn’t know who she is or how hard she works for engineering students. Mr. Debogorski, you’d be lucky to find one that wouldn’t defend her come hell or high water for the crap you say about her when you generalize the councilors as you do.  Oh dear this has become another angry Zhindra rant but I just felt I had to defend the people Debogorski put down.

And yeah, he’s running against two Sexton students who in their own right have done wonderful things for their respective Sexton communities. So the debate continued with Chris Salnier talking up his experience and his ideas for policy change and Neil Bailey talking about how his degree is directly related to what the job would entail and how he would focus on community involvement. Seriously….can they be co-presidents? Please can we keep them both? However this turns out folks, this won’t be the last you hear of either one.

So that’s the Sexton Debate wrap up. As always I welcome, you’re a bias nasty pundit comments with open arms

There has been quite some conjecture made about VPI in the last few days. The pundits have made a few predictions and the people commenting on this website have said a few things. There have been scandalous rumors surrounding one candidate in particular and in my opinion this is THE race this year.

Really the presidential race is sweet Sexton candidate with the cute smile vs sweet Sexton candidate with the cute smile vs the legend of Debo. It’s a little boring. I don’t have to restate the VPSL race being a snore and the VP Ed race seems to be a case of the juggernaut the underdog and the mystery man. It could almost be a Scooby- Doo episode really.  The Senate race is a good one to watch but seems to be pretty devoid of drama or scandal so I feel if you really want some entertainment or shock value out of this campaign you should turn your attention to VPI. Not to say that the other candidates, their platforms and their issues should be ignored, I am simply saying this one will be the most interesting in my opinion.

Not only that but I feel I want to break down these candidates and this portion of the campaign personally since I have had quite a year with the current VPI. I worked on half of the committees Mark chaired and I drafted and noticed the motion for his re-call, which I will explain briefly later.

Tim Hiltz- Current societies commissioner. Mark was a commissioner when he ran as well. That does give a person experience but really it is in one area of the job. His platform has a lot to do with Societies and ratification; probably because he has a lot of experience there and really that is the bulk of the job. Even with all his experience in that area his improvements to SRC seem to be the same old thing every VPI candidate ever says and they are completely vague. Scheduling regular meetings? Yeah I hope you would do that as it is what you are supposed to do. I hate when candidates use parts of the job description to campaign. Believe me if it’s in the constitution I know whoever wins will be doing it or they will get a lot of backlash. I agree with what he says about grants but realistically meeting more than the committee currently does(which when I was on it, it was once a week) is excessive and will likely not solve the problems that have been popping up this year. Handbook, Handbook, Handbook…that word gets thrown around every year. There weren’t enough this year and there was an issue with ads. I don’t actually think it warrants a whole point in the platform. Maybe a sub point of societies and groups. Foodbank: good to have, good program again maybe not enough for a whole main point.   CAMPUS RELATIONS – First of all the current gap between Sexton and Studley is not the only gap. Carlton feels disconnected too. Don’t forget about the whole section of voters. They rallied around Adam Harris last year and he won a spot on BOG.  Next problem with this is I find it hard to believe he knows anything about the gap between Studley and Sexton. As the current Sexton Campus Director in all the times I have seen him around the SUB not once have we had a conversation about it and really the gap has become a lot less of a problem than it had been maybe even as little as 3 years ago. I think now it would be a good thing to promise maintaining and building on the bridge that has been constructed. Many people don’t know this but there has been a surge in DSU involvement from Sexton in the past few years. A prime example of that very fact is the presidential race. Not to say there aren’t problems I just hate when people vaguely bring up Sexton just to get Sexton votes. I do however appreciate that he is trying and may genuinely want to try to work with Sexton. He just needs more research and needs to include Carlton.

Kayla Kurin- I have seriously seen this girl everywhere. She is a lady about town like no other. The thing is I haven’t heard her talking to anyone. Her platform has three key points and she has sub points and promises under each. This particular one  is huge though and I am surprised no one has brought it up on this site yet:

I will support the new contracts policy that is currently being drafted regarding student consultation when enterting into new contracts. As VP Internal I will ensure that this policy is enforced and the lines of communication between the student body and the executive stay open.

I believe her. She has had something to do with an alternative motion that was put forward and is concerned about the issue. My problem with this is while I believe it does fall under communication she is treading dangerously on VPFO territory and should maybe not rely to heavily on this during her campaign.  I’m not sure it’s a promise that should be in the VPI portfolio. I do have to applaud her for taking a stance and direction on this although I did say I didn’t think it was a solid thing for anyone to campaign on. If she could spell entering correctly it would be better though.

Work with DSUSO to create a sustainability policy for societies to be inculded in the society policy

Sorry Kayla the DSU VPI is no longer on DSUSO and we tried to make their part smaller simply because it has it’s own policy person, it is more of an operation of the DSU and the DSU VPI portfolio is too heavy as is. Again she is kind of creeping on the DSU VPFO portfolio. Her promise does connect societies and sustainability but I am not quite sure how that would work. I guess I am curious as to what that would entail and how she would enforce sustainability policies in society policy.

Use Tiger Patrol vans to shuttle between Studley and Sexton several times a day

That’s not sustainable considering we have a Metro-Transit….She has a whole block of ideas for communication and DOES NOT have anything about communication between campuses, I am afraid I have to say as a student from Sexton I am pretty disappointed.  At least Tim tried. The Tiger Patrol thing would be good especially with the big move of 300 second years supposedly coming down to Sexton and the refusal of DUES to amalgamate with DSEUS thus creating several society issues. However I think the tiger patrol thing is just another small grab at Sexton votes.

Ok so you have Communication, Leadership and Accessibility/Campus Relations however a lot of it seems to be a little redundant and you seem to be crossing over portfolios a bit with the VPFO which is fine (and realistic) however I think you need to expand on this as the portfolio is the largest one.

Glenn Blake-He  has had a run of bad luck with his website but it is now up. I read through his platform. Diversity, Communication, Website, Societies, Food. Yup he has it all covered. Categories with specific ideas! Get out of town! I will admit I am friends with Glenn and I have a hard time saying mean things about him especially with his Old School Nintendo themed platform, but that won’t stop me. Seriously I think he has some good ideas but some are unrealistic. Only meeting once to talk about insurance probably won’t happen. They will be beating that dead horse all year. More inter society events  sounds a little VPSL ish. Food on Sexton-legitimate problem but alas there is not much the DSU can do as they actually own no property at Sexton. I am glad he went out and obviously found a legitimate Sexton problem but related it to everyone. There are some students who have days where they have at most a half hour for lunch and there is one place to get food and sometimes the “Good Stuff” from Cafe Connects is just all gone. Plus it closes at 4:30. All in all I actually think Glenn is underselling himself a bit and it reminds me of Craig Jennex last year. I felt like Craig was a likable all around great candidate but he wasn’t campaigning enough and that may have been his only downfall.

Henry Whitfield- So the drama.  Reminds me of the day we met, when he beaned me in the back of the head with a dodge ball. After I was already out Henry! Seriously! This guy has been working really hard. I have personally met with him a few times at his request. He is definitely genuinely concerned about connecting with Sexton. He is definitely trying to identify issues and connect with students. He is personable and he is the one who is getting a lot of flack on the campaign trail. He was apparently dinged for pre-campaigning but he has been fined from what I hear and it’s in the past. Honestly the whole pre-campaigning rules make it difficult for students who have not been involved before specifically with the DSU and council to go and find out issues but I digress. Henry’s platform is quite frankly too short though. Again I think this is a case of another candidate underselling himself. There are two points in the platform on your website, there are 16000 students at Dal with varying issues. You do the math. Again there are a few specific ideas which I like for a VPI candidate since you have to let me know how you are going to handle the gong show that is DSU VPI’s portfolio. DSUtube is pretty solid. I find there are a lot of mixed reviews when it comes to Henry. I think however if he doesn’t win we may see him again in the future.

Now, here’s the deal. I tried to impeach the current VPI. I sat on Grants, Sexton Campus Advisory Committee and DSU Sustainability Office Board with Mark last semester. Mark came into the job and I feel he had tunnel vision towards one topic which was the website and communication. I did not feel Mark was fulfilling the obligations listed in all parts of the portfolio. That being said, I do think  this position is the most work of them all. If anyone were able to do it all I have not seen it. I think both Dan Boyle and Rosalie Hanlon who I personally saw do the job first hand, did great things but there are those who would disagree I’m sure, as you can not please everyone in this position. The job is too big. That being said don’t ever admit that you can’t do it and don’t cut things out because it’s overwhelming. VPI candidates should understand that taking this job makes you responsible to the students as outlined in the constitution. They must understand all the work they will be doing and they must be organized and find the time to have meetings with all 7 committees they chair plus the board of ops plus the exec. That is a lot of work. I would never take away from what Mark  has done. The impeachment motion topic comes up now and then but Mark and I have both worked through it. Just be aware this is not a joke and this position is immensely important. It’s the glue that holds the societies and campuses together and should be taken very seriously.