Archive for January, 2007

Issue of the Day: Citizen’s Assembly

VP Academic candidate Bruce Krayenhoff’s campaign has some new ideas (“green power” cards, and borrowing textbooks rather than buying them), one in particular stands out. His “Citizen’s Assembly.” It’s generally a very good and creative idea. But I have an important criticism. In sum, the body operates as follows: Randomly select 12-36 students from across [...]

A Rope of Sand: The Jeff Friedrich Story

We get a sense there’s some demand for Friedrich coverage. We’ve had several web hits from Maine (Jeff’s home state), and even three people searching for “jeff friedrich condom video” (we’ll save those people some time – click here). So, what’s the deal with Jeff Friedrich? His platform has more priorities than Paul Martin riding [...]

The platforms: VP Finance

(To learn more about the VP Finance position, and see a job description, click here for our information and interviews, and click here for the official AMS information.) Candidates:Peter RizovBrittany Tyson Let’s begin by comparing some promises:Peter Rizov: Trim the red tape within the AMSBrittany Tyson: Reduce the extensive bureaucracy faced by club and constituency [...]

Voting Questions

We’ve received many questions about voting. A few are worth answering publicly: What’s the Ubyssey Publication Society Board of Directors?The Ubyssey paper is published by editors. Those editors report to the Board, which has very low-grade oversight of the paper’s operations. The Directors pretty much just handle business-y type stuff, and eschew editorial interference.Who are [...]

Elections Insider Endorsements

Before our endorsements, a quick word. We offer these endorsements not to end our coverage of the elections, but to launch it. We have biases, and, to a reader of this blog, these should come as no surprise. So this is just a starting point. We’ll still post issues of the day, and this will [...]

On Stephen Toope (or, the Case for Students)

Tonight the student senators were invited for dinner with Stephen Toope. I had attended several dinners with Martha Piper, the former president, so I was wary of another superficial, “schmoozy” conversation. It was a surprise to me that out of the conversations which unfolded at the dinner table, I received the distinct impression that this [...]

The Candidates at a Glance

So…………… there’s a ton of info on this site. And could take a while to peruse. So we’ve made this post. It’s each candidate in 25 words or less. We’ve sent out questionnaires, had interviews, and met with almost all the candidates, read all their write-ups… and have distilled each candidate down to a few [...]

Issue of the Day: Educational Quality

Out of all the ongoing races, arguably the academic portfolio (Senate, and part of VP Academic) has received the least amount of attention in debates and media sources. While we constantly discuss issues surrounding access to postsecondary education we rarely take time to consider the quality of the education which we struggle to receive in [...]

BoG at a Glance

We haven’t written much about the BoG race. So I will. To begin, a some candidates say, well, nothing, and offer us platforms with platitudes and no evidence of depth of analysis/understanding. That’s not to say they aren’t intelligent, thoughtful people; in fact, they deserve significant credit for putting themselves out there. But the BoG [...]

Issue of the Day: Governance

Who governs UBC? Right now it’s a complicated balance between the University’s BoG, and the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). In short, UBC’s BoG has the final say on development on campus, provided it conforms with various strategic plans (OCP, etc) that are the purview of the GVRD. However, what happens when there’s a conflict? [...]

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