The crux of UBC’s arguments for the rejection of divestment are found in a Responsible Investment Policy which was adopted by the Board in April 2014. The policy describes divestment, aka screening, as “an option through which investors may express their dissatisfaction with the environmental, social or governance practices of a company, industry or a nation with the aim of influencing these practices.” The policy then lists five criteria which any divestment proposal – regardless of who submitted it for consideration – must meet.

Without going too far into the weeds, the responsible investment policy itself has a lot of problems. First it was only put in place AFTER UBC C350′s proposal had been approved by students in a February 2014 referendum. By adopting the policy, the Board was imposing retroactive conditions on a proposal that had already been voted on. Secondly, and this is probably related to the first point, the 5 criteria are essentially impossible to meet in the way UBC has been interpreting them. The university commissioned a legal opinion from Koskie Minsky about whether or not UBC C350′s divestment proposal met the five criteria. That legal opinion essentially put the onus on anyone proposing divestment to predict the future, requiring certainty that their plan would turn out better than any possible alternatives.

Which brings us to UBC’s proposed alternative, the “Sustainable Futures Fund” (SFF). It is described in the motion passed as a fund “that incorporates non-financial objectives for high environmental, social and governance issues including a portfolio mandate for low carbon emissions.” The SFF is a divestment proposal, plain and simple. It fits the definition in the policy. Greg Peet, chair of the Finance committee, explicitly said it was a form of divestment during the meeting. As a divestment proposal, it should be evaluated against the same five criteria as UBC C350′s divestment portfolio before it can be considered by the Board.

It was not evaluated against those five criteria prior to being approved, of course, and UBC staff have confirmed that the SFF will not be evaluated against this criteria in the future either. It’s a pretty clear double standard being applied – the old paternalistic chestnut of “do as I say, not as I do”. This decision should hopefully make clear that the Board’s difficulties with governance, engagement, and decision-making go well beyond the Gupta Affair and are built into how they conduct themselves on other big issues too.

(An aside to note that UBC’s new VP External Philip Steenkamp has been valiantly trying to uphold the status quo through completely nonsensical statements. Through gathering tape for our podcast, I’ve heard no shortage of them but here’s an example from Vancouver Magazine: “…there was a request from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to make a presentation to the committee and they said no—and equally, they said no to the divestment group. They felt that would allow them to look at all the evidence and not favour one particular actor over the other.” Looking at ‘all the evidence’ apparently involves deliberately avoiding hearing evidence from people who bring knowledge and expertise from both sides of the issue.)

A few justifications have been put forward for why the SFF required no study, no legal opinion, no serious consideration. One is that the Responsible Investment Policy only applies to divestment proposals submitted by others, not ones generated by UBC. There is no language in the policy that would suggest that to be the case: the policy is written as a general guideline for the management of endowment funds. The other is that fiduciary duty will not be an issue because donors will provide specific instructions that their funds should be placed in the SFF and agreeing with all that entails. Except that the very first donor to the SFF is the university itself, transferring $10M from a different endowment to act as seed funding for the SFF. In approving that allocation, the Board of Governors should have had to both follow the Responsible Investment Policy AND ensure that their fiduciary duty to the university was being upheld while doing so. In other words, in making those instructions as a donor to the SFF, was the Board upholding their fiduciary duty? If so, how do they know?

The hypocrisy is even more jarring given that, except for the rather vague description provided for the SFF – that it is a fund that takes non-monetary Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations into account – it’s not clear what it is, really. How to evaluate investments on ESG grounds is a matter of interpretation and priorities. The Board did not bother waiting to figure out any of those details before throwing millions at it. What better way to demonstrate a strong commitment to upholding fiduciary duty than to spend first and do the due diligence later.

Bottom line: the University should subject their new SFF to a serious evaluation based on the same criteria that other divestment proposals are subject to. Not only to be following their own policy, but also to show that the five conditions can actually be satisfied without the need for clairvoyance. Why not set aside whatever UBC paid Koskie Minsky to evaluate UBC C350′s divestment proposal, and allow the AMS and Faculty Association to jointly pick a law firm to evaluate the SFF on the five conditions? They’d be hypocrites not to.

Officially called a “town hall”, that term usually implies two-way interactions. In this instance, the committee was really conducting more of a listening session. Three microphones were set up in the audience. After some short opening remarks by AMS President Aaron Bailey and Chancellor Lindsay Gordon, two questions were posed to the public by the committee: (1) What are the ideal qualities or attributes that the new president should possess? and (2) What are the main challenges that UBC faces, now and in the future? The rest of the hour was turned over to any audience members that wished to get up and speak.

Most speakers addressed the first question, and identified a huge range of desired qualities from student engagement, academic bona fides, a commitment to quality teaching, reflecting UBC’s values, an inspirational presence, a vision for the future, good fiscal management, and political acumen, among many others. With the exception of one or two people, speakers were articulate and had valid points to make.

When all the desired characteristics are assembled together, as admirable as each of them might be individually, the ideal UBC President turns out to be a unicorn – magical and sparkly but unfortunately non-existent. No single individual, no matter how high the quality of the candidates available, will be able to demonstrate all of the qualities sought by the university community. Fortunately, the President does not run the university alone. Far from it. The position, while certainly the most visible one, is just one piece of the university leadership along with the Board, the Senate, Vice-Presidents, Deans and on down the line.

Hopefully committee members – most of whom hold leadership positions at UBC themselves – realize that the people who spoke at the town hall weren’t narrowly expressing what they expected from the single individual who will become the next president, but broadly from the university’s leadership as a whole. The qualities sought from the new president are ones the that committee members should also be striving to embody in their regular positions within the university’s organizational structure. In particular, this is most pertinent for the 5 members Presidential Search Committee who also sit on the Board of Governors: Lindsay Gordon, Greg Peet, Celeste Haldane, Fiona MacFarlane, and Darrin Lehman. It cannot be the President’s responsibility alone to be collaborative, transparent, inspirational, and creative; if the Board is going to demand these qualities from a new president, they should publicly demand it from themselves as well.

Ultimately, the town hall was a useful exercise for optics and for people to get some thoughts off their chests but will be of almost no value to the actual presidential search. It is unlikely to significantly influence the candidate profile, and will have zero effect on whether or not a prospective candidate decides to be brave or foolish enough to put their name forward for the job. We’ll find out who that might be in just a few months.

To Whom it May Concern:

Please consider me to be an appointed member of the UBC Board of Governors. I feel that I am an ideal candidate for this role because I possess all of the required skills outlined in the job description, which is none. I am a proud alumnus of UBC who will act in the best interests of the university, an objective that I presume refers primarily to property values and international tuition revenue.

Regretfully, I do not have any other qualifications that would make me particularly effective or well-suited to this position, such as a net worth in the 8-9 figure range. It is my sincerest hope that this should not hamper my performance as a governor in any way or put me at any sort of disadvantage. I can form words with my mouth that will say things about other things that sound thoughtful about students and other things. Occasionally, I will authoritatively say that Board decisions are justified without giving any reasons why. I love to eat lunch and so will be able to fully participate in all of the Board’s meaningful decision-making processes.

I pledge to attend every secret meeting and to conduct all Board business using a private email address managed by my investment firm. I promise not to make more than $10,000 of in-app purchases using my university-issued iPad. I will clap whenever the word “excellence” and “UBC” are uttered in the same sentence. I will do my best to avoid contact with any rank and file members of the university, except for those individuals who somehow manage to procure a pity invite to a donor event. I promise to recognize Martha C. Piper and/or Christy Clark (as required by circumstances) as my personal lord and saviour.

Should the BRDO need further convincing about my merit, which I have been assured is the key factor in these appointments, I plan to sell my Board-issued parking pass to the highest bidder and immediately forward all the funds received to the BC Liberal Party. Finally, if you need someone to get rid of on the Board to make way for my appointment, that would be acceptable to me. Please go to the following web page and you can find Dr. Kenneth Fung’s appointment expires on February 2016.

http://bog.ubc.ca/?page_id=84

Sincerely, Neal Yonson

UBC is a public body, and is therefore subject to BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Any person can ask them for records, and UBC must make an effort to provide them. Sure, they might come back with redactions, but you’ll probably get something back. On the other hand, not asking at all carries a 100% guarantee of getting nothing. The best part is that literally all it takes is an email. If you don’t care enough to fill out a single form, or send a single email, then I’d argue you don’t actually give a rat’s ass about transparency or finding out more.

UBC has published their own guide about how to file an FOI request with them, or you can follow…

The UBC Insiders Handy Guide to filing an FOI request with UBC

1. Using that ancient technology known as email – sorry kids, they don’t accept FOI requests via emojis or snapchat yet – compose a new message to access.and.privacy@ubc.ca
2. Be nice to UBC’s Access and Privacy team, Paul Hancock, Courtney Waverick, and Tiffany Fan. Say something like “Good morning! You are all fine and wonderful people. While thinking about what fine and wonderful people you are, it occurred to me that I’d like to file a Freedom of Information request with the university!”
3. Tell them what records you want to request. The request should be fairly specific and have time period attached. For example, asking for “All emails about Arvind Gupta’s resignation” will be interpreted as a request to have every single person working for UBC search their email for messages about Arvind Gupta’s resignation since the beginning of time until the present. This is not a reasonable request. Asking for “all emails mentioning ‘Arvind’ or ‘Gupta’, sent or received by Susan Danard or Reny Kahlon, between July 30 and August 31, 2015″ is specific and could be fulfilled fairly easily.
4. Include your full name, and ways to get in touch with you (email, phone number, mailing address).
5. Press send.

Under BC law, there is no fee to make a request as long as your records can be searched for and found in three hours or less, so that should be an incentive to keep your request relatively narrow so you’re not asking people to scour the whole university to find a needle in a haystack. The time spent redacting the records don’t count against you.

But wait, there’s more!

Are you of the opinion that the provincial government might have had their sticky paws in Arvind’s resignation? You can also request records from them! Click on this link, say what records you want and from which ministry (Advanced Education, most likely, but Office of the Premier if you think this goes all the way to Christy) and send in the request.

Finally, if you do make some requests, please send us the records when you receive them? There’s nothing we like more than curling up with a hot mug of tea and hundreds of pages of FOI’d documents.

• From a vantage point outside the meeting room, today’s secret Board meeting was a disrespectful farce brought to you by a bunch of people who seem to think they’re the smartest people in the room, and that everyone else on campus is a complete fucking moron.
• At one point, Board Secretary Reny Kahlon tried to convince everyone waiting outside the room to go downstairs. Her reasons for requesting the move were never specified. Turned out the reason she wanted everyone gone was because John Montalbano would be walking across the hallway into another room to take a conference call and she didn’t want anyone there to witness him walking by for 3 seconds. No detail is too small to spark some attempt, usually unsubtle, by Reny to exert control and dominance over others. She had us move our seats by 10 feet. She “joked” that maybe it was the Ubyssey reporter who had pulled the fire alarm at the Alumni Centre. She said the meeting would be over in 5 minutes multiple times, for many hours in a row. On the receiving end, it feels like a bunch of petty bullshit designed to throw people off-balance instead of normal, respectful human interaction.
• In no particular order, the following governors were spotted today coming out of the Board meeting at one point or another: Lindsay Gordon, John Montalbano, Anji Redish, Celeste Haldane, Kenneth Fung, Darrin Lehman, Richard Johnston, Alan Shuster, Shannon Dunn, Darran Fernandez, Greg Peet, David Sidoo. No student governors appeared to have attended in person.
• On the executive/administration side, Lisa Castle, Adriaan de Jager, Hubert Lai, Susan Danard, and Martha Piper (only ~80% sure it was her, she disappeared quickly) were there as well.
• Judy Kirk, eponymous head of Kirk & Co, a public relations firm, was also there, a fixture at UBC anytime they are in need of damage control.
• Here’s footage of John Montalbano saying “After the Board meeting, I’d be happy to speak” After the Board meeting, he was of course not happy to speak. So not happy that they tried to create a distraction that would allow him to leave without talking to anyone. Then, when caught by a reporter said “Right now, at the moment, I’m not prepared to speak.” Then, because he apparently thinks we’re idiots, he can’t resist saying at the end of the clip: “I’ll be prepared to speak to this tomorrow.” Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some more World-Class, Open and Transparent leadership from John Montalbano and the UBC Board of Governors.

The story is that the Board Secretariat, Reny Kahlon, has recently become concerned about photography and recording during meetings. According to her, the creation of records is the means by which people disrupt meetings, inhibit discussion, attack the board, and distort the truth. There are no cited examples of any of these things having ever actually happened, just the concern that they might. So naturally photos and “recording of any kind” must be banned for everyone!

Er, for everyone except the Board Secretariat, that is. In the hands of the Board Secretariat, who routinely creates a recording of the entirety of every meeting, it is a valuable tool to ensure accuracy and proper documentation of events for the minutes. Hypocrisy has a name and it is Reny Kahlon.

Under her direction, the Board already operates in an extremely secretive manner without this nonsense.

Some important background: The Board usually holds two meetings, Committees and Board. Committees meet first and is essentially a “practice” meeting where they work out the kinks of proposals in front of them. By the time they have a Board meeting, usually about a week later, they are generally just rubber stamping the things they already talked about the previous week. Within each meeting there are two agendas, Open (public) and Closed (private). And within those agendas are items that are either for Discussion/Approval (where the board discusses and/or votes on each individual item) or for Consent (documentation provided, but no discussion occurs, voted on in one omnibus motion).

While there exist legitimate reasons for the Board to deliberate in private, marking items as “Closed” has become a matter of convenience to avoid scrutiny rather than one of genuine necessity. For example, tomorrow’s Open portion of the Board agenda has an item for Approval about raising international tuition. It comes with no documentation, no presentation, and is only allotted 5 minutes. This item did not appear on the Open portion of the Committee agenda the week prior. Motions like this do not appear out of nowhere. Chances are extremely high that in the Closed session of Committees, there was documentation, a presentation, and way more than 5 minutes of discussion.

It also happened this month with the university’s development plans along University Boulevard. A six-part, 240-word motion with 135 pages of supporting documentation has miraculously appeared on the Open Board agenda, where nothing existed on the Committees agenda. In April, it was the university’s billion-dollar annual budget which did not appear on the Committees agenda, then was approved at Board based on a title slide and about 30 seconds of non-discussion. It’s extremely disingenuous to pretend to be making the decision in public while undertaking all discussion and deliberation in private.

The “no recording” policy also fits into this mould – despite being dated May 12, it did not appear on the June 2 Committee agenda and was magically dropped from the sky onto the Board agenda on June 5. To make things more absurd, it is an item for Consent, which means it likely was not subject to any discussion during Committees. It was kept secret for… what reason, exactly? And that’s not the height of the absurdity: approval of Board and Committee minutes, the “accurate documented record” of meetings, never appears on Open agendas. The official public record is considered a private matter. It’s secrecy for secrecy’s sake.

That this motion would even be considered is a symptom of the Board’s greatest weakness: its utter disconnection from the university it governs. The modus operandi of Ms. Kahlon as Board Secretariat seems to be to insert herself as the middle person into any issue that is or could become a problem. Under the guise of protecting Governors, they are isolated from everyone except the administration. The information stream and narrative they receive is often very narrow, and carefully cultivated to support certain outcomes. Alternative viewpoints and information is minimized or suppressed. The result is that the Board becomes the stereotypical governing body that is completely out of touch. Rather than addressing problems head on to find solutions, the strategy results in disputes that are allowed to fester and grow, and only dealt with once they become too big to ignore. Trying to prevent records of the Board’s activities from being generated is just part of that strategy to keep Governors in the dark, and the public too.

Main things I remembered/learned/noticed from this iteration of the plan:

1. The two totally unnecessary infill buildings (charmingly christened B and D) to occupy the little triangular lots between War and U-Blvd are now established fact. They will still block the view of the iconic War Memorial Gym. They would still be better turned into green space. One has already been granted a Development Permit.
2. The administration building on the corner of U-Blvd and University (GSAB) which is now being torn down is now also being proposed as residential development.
3. The Copp building (on the south side of U-Blvd, between Dentistry and Wesbrook), is now also part of the U-Blvd plan, slated as yet more housing development.
4. Both buildings in 2. and 3. are outside the boundaries of the University Blvd Neighbourhood Plan, as defined in the Land Use Plan (LUP). That means that they’re defined as “Academic” and no non-residence housing is to be build on them, making the presented plan an outright transgression of the LUP. Isn’t it funny that the two remaining academic buildings on U-Blvd suddenly reached the “natural end of their lives” at the same time? And even suspending disbelief that that is indeed true, they cannot be sustainably retrofitted, but must be torn down?
5. The new bus loop has been given the larger footprint it needs, with an above-ground pickup/dropoff area at 90 degrees to the current one (in the parking lot of War), and a parking/storage area where the current loop is. The parking/storage area would be covered by a building containing – you guessed it – housing. Think of all those delicious fumes.
6. War Memorial Gym itself is on the chopping block next

General impressions and insights from the event and my chat with the charming Gerry McGeough of C+CP:

• C+CP considers it to be an act of charity (for which they deserve plaudits) not to tear things down. Even perfectly good things. This I learned upon asking the simple question “does every square inch of this area need to be demolished and redeveloped?” whereupon I got the answer “Well, we might not tear down the Gym”.
• The “livable community/mixed-use” jargon has penetrated to the very core of the identity of this project (and of C+CP itself). Criticism of the amount of housing presented in the plan is apparently an attack on this ineffable quality. And it is obvious that the way to achieve it is to max out residential density in every possible way.
• There is a shady internal-financing combination being executed by moving student and staff housing that was slated for the Wesbrook Village into the U-Blvd area (so that more expensive condos can be sold in the former). This is supposedly to finance the loan to renovate the last wing of the BioSciences building. I don’t know the details of that situation, but it’s weird. [Ed: It's explained here]
• C+CP is getting better and better at the consultation game. No, that’s not a compliment. Revisionist history of the area, check. Liberal use of planning-babble, check. Very-brief summary of negative feedback and concerns (without actually addressing them), check. Yeah, it’s better than no consultation, but I still feel like people’s legitimate and unanswered questions are being suffocated under a mass of high-gloss posters.

Now I’m not beating up on Gerry. I liked him a lot (Hi Gerry!), and he took my sometimes intemperate complaining with a great deal of gallantry and good humour. What he didn’t do was ever question the idea that there 1) ideally should be 2) is allowed to be (under the LUP), and 3) can practically be (on top of a polluting bus terminal), this amount of housing in the area. The assumption that “mixed use” communities with mega-housing density is a GOOD THING is gospel truth to the current generation of Vancouver-ish planners.

The idea that there should be housing in this area has been the central (centrally contested, and centrally unchanged) ingredient in the U-Blvd area from the get go. It started with the 1997 designation of this area, and the site of the current bus loop, dubbed Gage South, as a “neighbourhood” to begin with, opening the door to market housing (unlike the other “neighborhoods”, which are all in outlying areas of UBC, this one is in the very core). Years of consultation and opposition (including Neal’s awesome work on this blog), has changed the housing proposed for the area into more student and staff focused, though not exclusively. But it’s still expensive (ie. market), some of it is still on top of a polluting bus loop, and it’s still fundamentally adding a lot of residential density to the academic core and gateway of the campus.

So when I say that nothing’s changed, that’s an exaggeration. The plan itself has changed, and it’s a lot better now than it used to be. But the push-pull dynamics of market housing and commercial spaces vs. academic, student, and community spaces remains the same. This dynamic is not what C+CP’s revisionist history poster would have you believe, and to understand it, people need to remember a bit. Eight years ago, when I was an undergrad at UBC, the footprint of where the Nest is now was planned as an expensive, dubiously safe, and too-small underground bus loop, covered by a mall, with market housing on top. That plan was also sold by C+CP in identical terms of “mixed use” and “vibrancy”, even though it was correctly recognized as the craven commercialization of the centre of campus and widely panned. That plan changed: The bus loop in that location was canceled, the mall was canceled, and the space was given to the AMS and the Alumni centre. I must emphasize that these changes are not thanks to C+CP but despite it. They are due to students that protested and advocated against the commercially-oriented plans, and then funded their own public, student-oriented alternative. UBC now benefits from the fact that the student body essentially forced it kicking and screaming to cancel its plans to commercialize and cheapen the centre of campus, and literally paid for it to be public- and student-space focused ourselves.

The new SUB and Alumni Centre, and the public spaces around the knoll and on the other side of the old SUB are going to be social centre of the campus, as they should be. There really isn’t all that much left to get right. U-Blvd should concentrate on the street-level stuff. The bikes, the buses, the grocery store, the parks and outdoor seating, the traffic improvements to Wesbrook Mall, the artwork. I might even give in and stop mocking the gimmicky “living lab” and “incubator” spaces (whatever they may be) that infest any given mock-up poster. The point is, C+CP – go forth and build the lively mixed-use street of your dreams along U-Blvd. Just understand that there are people here who have memories longer than a goldfish. And we will continue to question the justification, legality, and need for 5-7 stories of (essentially) market residential on top of every build-able square meter.

President

One of the hardest things about being president of a student society is remembering your role. The best president knows their role is to support the Executive; this often means being the number two on all major projects. They are responsible for guiding four vice-presidents, numerous staff, and a student council which can be difficult to deal with in one unified direction. Most importantly, the president needs to be able to work with council. We’ve seen an inability to do so with some current executives and it always leads to a breakdown in the AMS’s ability to work for students.

Aaron Bailey is exactly what the AMS needs in a president and is what it’s been lacking for the past year (full disclosure, I am campaigning for him). While I could go on about how he is articulate, knowledgeable, and a great leader, I’m going to focus on something else – understanding of the position.  He knows the AMS, he knows the university system, he’s been an influential council member, and is probably one of the most engaged people on campus being involved in almost every student social circle. While I’m not too happy with some of Aaron’s platform, I acknowledge that presidents don’t actually get to have grandiose platforms and those are hard to run on. While I have been impressed with Cheniel Antony-Hale, her lack of understanding of the AMS and what it does will be more of a problem than people realize when it comes time to convince the AMS Council of its priorities next year. While I think Cheniel would make a great leader, the AMS needs Aaron Bailey at the helm. Vote Aaron.

Vice-President Academic and University Affairs

It’s never fun to see races uncontested, however even it was I would recommend voting Jenna Omassi. She’s a take no prisoners, kick down the doors type of person who reminds me of Kiran Mahal (arguably the best AMS executive we’ve seen in the past five years). Jenna has the experience, she’s not afraid to tell off the university administration, and is familiar with the intricacies of the portfolio. I could go on, but you probably are cool with just voting already. Vote Jenna.

Vice-President External Affairs

For some reason people think the Vice-President External Affairs needs to be a political mastermind who knows all the right people. The AMS has staff that researches and writes policy and staff that organize events. Furthermore, no single student is responsible (or capable) of pulling meetings with the VIPs of the political world. This is why we are part of the Alliance of British Columbia Students and Get on Board (and why we should rejoin the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations… but that’s another story). The VP External should be a good team leader, an experienced manager, and someone who is personable and can talk to politicians.

Jude Crasta is this person. While a lot of my interactions with Jude have been sitting across the table arguing over AMS finances, I know Jude to be an incredible proficient individual. I’ve heard great things about Janzen Lee, however I am concerned about his lack of understanding of what the AMS does and of his “political connections”. It’s a problem for me if you’re asking people “what is the AMS and what does it do” 3 weeks before nominations are due. It’s a problem for me if you think the recent alumni of your fraternity who are well known in one or two local ridings of a federal party are people who can help get you a meeting with the minister of advanced education or finance. While I think Janzen has the passion for the position, I think he should take an additional year to better familiarize himself with the Society. Vote Jude.

Vice-President Finance

The Vice-President Finance is the most boring position to watch in an election. Now that the Business and Administration Governance Board is up and running, the VP Finance has (and should) very little involvement in the running of the AMS businesses. If the VP Finance can get anything done this year it needs to be redoing how the student government side of the AMS does its budgeting with an emphasis on moving towards value-based budgeting.

Based on what is needed I think both Mateusz Miadlikowski and Will Pigott would make a good VP Finance. I’ve chatted with both of them about their positions and they are very similar. Because of this and that of all the executive positions the VP Finance is probably the most administrative in nature, I’m supporting Mateusz as there will be no learning curve and students will get a full 12 months of effective work. However this comes with the caveat that I would like to hear him speak up more. Vote Mateusz.

Vice-President Administration

For me this race was really between Ava Ansiri and Alex Remtulla. While James Jing came off as a decent candidate, the knowledge and experience of the other two is far greater. I voted Ava over Alex because she is experienced in the position and an incredibly effective executive. She’s often unfairly criticized for delays in the Student Nest, however based on how her predecessors handled the project this was always going to be the case and is unfair to lay at her feet. While Ava’s start to her current term was rocky, she has quickly identified herself as the most productive executive and should be allowed to continue. Alex would serve students well, but the combined learning curve and inexperience with council would result in a less productive year.  Vote Ava.

Board of Governors

As a current student member of the Board of Governors, I know that a successful board member must have a fierce intelligence, the ability to stand up to university administration, and be able to cut through bureaucracy. Moreover, student board members must be highly dedicated to the student community.

Without a doubt Veronica Knott is the best fit for the position (I am also campaigning for her). I am torn between Tanner Bokor and Julie Van de Valk for the second vote as they represent two different approaches to the board. Tanner is without a doubt the most knowledgeable student on campus when it comes to UBC and would be a great policy wonk. However his propensity to want to always please all parties involved in any   issue worries me – sometimes you need to take a stance and accept the outcomes. Julie will need some hand holding in order to navigate the inner workings of the board, however working with my partner Nina Karimi this year showed me that someone other than old student politicians can be an incredibly effective board member and can bring great perspective. Vote Veronica and either Tanner or Julie.

Senate

Instead of going through each candidate one by one, I want to start with what I look for in a senator. The UBC Senate, while generally underappreciated, is the single most important body for academics at UBC. Numerous individuals have suggested that it should be a place to help grow and develop young student leaders – if students want their Student Senate Caucus (“SSC”) to be better this view needs to change! In my mind there were four candidates who stood out.

Aaron Bailey has been one of the most outstanding senators this entire year and is the chair of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Flexible Learning. He is directing the committee in an amazing way and should continue this work. Eric Zhao is another outstanding senator who has taken major leadership within the SSC in regards to mental health and wellbeing. One of the few senators that goes above and beyond his duty, Eric needs to be re-elected. While a new comer to the senate, I voted for Jenna Omassi because of there is a natural synergy between it and the VP Academic. Marjan Hatai is new to the senate but commands a surprising amount of knowledge about the senate and its current on goings. While she is untried, I am excited for her platform and would like to see her serve. The final spot vote was a tough decision between Gurvir Sangha and Viet Vu. Having worked with them both I’m confident that regardless of the outcome either of these individuals would do well. Viet is often unfairly criticized for the issue of VSEUS’ rocky first year but I doubt anyone can take on the AUS and leave unbattered. At the end my decision came down to my belief that VSEUS will need Viet next year and that he should focus there as opposed to the senate. Vote Aaron, Eric, Jenna, Marjan and Gurvir.

Vice-President External Affairs

First off, because of my involvement in the Alliance of BC Students and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, the most familiar portfolio and dear to my heart is the Vice-President External Affairs position within the AMS. I was excited to see a competitive VP External election this year, however I was severely disappointed.  At the first debate Janzen Lee had no idea what he was talking about and Jude Crasta failed to capitalize on this and call Janzen out. Jude knows the position and can make some positive impacts with an upcoming federal election. Jude gets my vote and should get yours too!

President

Now that the most important position is out of the way (joke). . .  For president really the race would have been way more interesting with Tanner still in the running. Aaron Bailey should walk away with the role of president – he is certainly saying and doing all the right things. Aaron really impressed me as executive oversight chair last year and it was about then that I realized he would run for president this year, and I also knew I would be voting for him and for a more engaged AMS moving forward.

Board of Governors

#VERN4Everything – Veronica Knott is a true leader on this campus, through her role as president of Engineering Undergraduate Society she has shined and she will shine on as a beacon of light for students on Board of Governors.

Tanner Bokor – I have worked closely with Tanner over the last number of years and one thing you can say about Tanner is that he makes every decision with students in mind. People may disagree with his decision or direction but he believes he is making this campus better and I for the most part have supported his vision over the last couple of years.

Senate

The strongest senate team that I can see working together and really driving the student agenda are: Aaron, Jenna, Gurvir, Marjan and V, I mean Viet.

Vice-President Administration

All of the candidates are looking to change this position. Ava is in the best position to be able to complete a transition while continuing her current work. Tea parties for all!

Vice-President Finance

New buildings lead to new costs and we need the person who knows the finances to stay for once! Last year an incumbent lost this battle – Mateusz Miadlikowski has my vote this year.

Student Legal Fund Society

This society lacks accountability. Elect the accountability slate for more accountability (Students for Accountability).

Vice-President Academic and University Affairs

Jenna Omassi for VP Academic . . . sure but my real vote is for Daniel Munro lol!!

The UBC Senate race is often joked about in the UBC blogosphere because there are so many candidates. How do you keep track of 10 or 12 candidates for five spots? But when it boils down to it, there are only a few important things to look for when choosing your student senators:

1. Speaking Up

Really, this is the most important quality a student senator must have. While there will always be a few prominent student senators who can lead projects like establishing the Ad Hoc Committee on Mental Health and Wellbeing, every student senator needs to be someone who will speak up, because the work of Senate is done in committee, not in Senate itself, so if you’re one of only two or three students on the committee, you need to be able to speak up and give a student perspective.

2. Getting Informed

The university’s academic structure is complicated. The lingo that gets thrown around can be confusing (e.g. “Two parts of the Flexible Learning Initiative are a partnership with edX and better integrating Piazza into our learning technology ecosystem”). There are ways to make arguments that faculty members will listen to, and ways to make arguments that they will rip to pieces – remember that it’s literally their job to sit and analyze arguments all day long. There are a lot of background politics that one can stumble into – like the longstanding annoyance of Senate that the Provost’s Office really runs the place and the fact that as much as the university’s governance structure is supposedly bicameral (more lingo, look it up), the Board of Governors has more power since it controls funding.

Not that a newcomer can’t learn the ropes, but experience does help in navigating these waters. Reading the entirety of the package may be difficult, long, and boring but there’s a lot there  And don’t be afraid to ask questions, especially from your fellow student senators. And even if you ask it at a meeting, I’ll bet there’s always at least one faculty member who was thinking the same thing and was too scared to ask.

3. Taking Action

I said above that the work of Senate is done in committees, not at Senate itself. But that’s only half the truth. The day-to-day work happens in committees, but if you really want to get stuff done, you have to do a lot of work outside of committee. This means meeting with the Senate Secretariat, meeting with committee chairs to get their opinions on ideas, researching and writing reports, and, once your proposal is finally ready for the Senate floor, doing some serious lobbying of senators to make sure they vote for it.

A student senator who is willing to put in a lot of extra hours to do those things is a senator who will get things done.

4. Teamwork

Lastly, student senators need to see themselves as a team. For my whole time on Senate, student senators have worked together on projects, not gone it alone, and have been very effective at getting things done (despite Senate’s glacial pace). There’s a lot of work to be done for big change to happen (see #3 above), and much more will get done if everyone works together.

How I’m Voting

There’s a lot that’s broken with Senate, so it’s easy to say this race doesn’t matter. But I’m glad to say our new President knows it too so this year may see a lot of change come to the Senate, and so it will be more important than ever to have students who will be vocal and ensure that within a new structure, students will continue to have a significant voice on the Senate.

So who am I voting for? Firstly, my current fellow student senators Eric Zhao and Aaron Bailey have both been vocal, effective, advocates for students and have put many hours into their roles, and both deserve another year.

Next, Jenna Omassi and Gurvir Sangha have proven this year on AMS Council that they know how to vocally represent student voices and how to craft good arguments. Gurvir may have some learning to do about the university’s administrative structure, but I have no doubt he can learn to navigate it gracefully.

Next, I’m left feeling like a tie between Viet Vu, Marjan Hatai and Margareta Dovgal. All have been very involved in different aspects on the AMS, but none of them with any experience directly related to Senate. Margareta and Viet both have no qualms about speaking up, but I’m concerned about their ability to craft an argument in a way that will be listened to by faculty and administration. Marjan is not someone who regularly speaks up in AMS Council, and so I wonder whether she will speak up enough at Senate. All three would have some significant learning to do, but all have the potential to be effective. In the end I voted for Margareta, because she’s only in second year, so even if this is a learning year, she’ll have an opportunity to re-run and put the learning year to use.