Name: Anthony Saikali
Age: 22
Hometown: Halifax, NS
Program: Neuroscience and International Development, Double Major
Relevant Experience: Three years ago I founded a Type 1 levied society called the Dalhousie Medical Campus Response Team. I’ve led a team of about 60 students for the past three years, and those students range from first year students to masters students to medical students. I’ve also sat this past year as the DSU’s representative on the university’s Board of Governors. In the summer, I was hired by the administration in student services to research and engage with the DSU and create a mental health peer support strategy for the university.
Why do you want to lead the DSU?
A lot of it comes back to the experience that I had through some few experiences. So for the past three years, I’ve worked with dozens of student groups and hundreds of students, a lot of different administrations and administrators in the university. Having founded the DMCRT, I know what it’s like to just be a regular student, and have an idea, and a mission, and just want to run with it. But sometimes, the doors aren’t always immediately open to do that. A lot of people have great ideas at the university, but if you don’t know and understand the process and the logistics of how to bring those ideas to fruition, it can be more difficult. Being on the DSU council and Board of Governors this year, it was pretty important to me in the sense that I have been able to create those relationships beyond the DSU that allows to give a lot of the changes we want to see at the university accomplished. More than anything, I think that through that I bring a collaborative approach, and that’s what the DSU needs. Through someone who’s been educated on the operations of the university, and that’s really where I see myself fitting in.
What are your plans, if elected?
All of the research and preparation that I’ve done all comes back to one main theme which is, investing in students…Sure, investing means financially, so even in the sense of our society, we’ve offered $35,000 of certifications to students for free. But also investing in students, empowering them, collaborating with them, engaging them, consulting with them. Students want to be involved, and student groups wants to have more of a voice on campus. That’s kind of my biggest plan overall, but in terms of specific platforms and what specific I’m going to be bringing up is the hot ticket item: tuition. My seat on the Board of Governors right now has given me some really good insight to the approach we should be taking to combat the tuition increases that are coming up. International student support is a big thing that I’ve been in consultation with a number of students and the folks that work with the international students. I think the DSU should be taking a far more active role in supporting them. Continuing the mental health peer support strategy, we’re working with different groups on campus in figuring out the things in what those groups need, but also what students need. One of the big things also a lot of people are excited about is student jobs, especially through the DSU. We need to do a better job of providing students the opportunity to work 6-8 hours a week, with schedules that fit their schedules as students. Rebuilding the relationship with the DSU and the Sexton, Carleton and Agriculture campus, I think it’s really important.
What is the biggest issue facing Dal students next year?
That is the biggest issue facing students right now, which is tuition. And I just want to get into that because it’s is going up, it has been going up for the past three years, and again, we need to take a look at right now, and make sure we don’t get faced with the same issue a year down the road. We need to address this, a year in advance, and more. We have a provincial election coming up in a year and a half, I think that’s where we need to start looking now, how we engage those political parties to make a commitment to students, and figure it out. We clearly have an issue here and it’s not just at Dalhousie, it’s not just at the Board of Governors, it’s province-wide. That’s something we’ll definitely be rolling out into next year. Students are having problems paying tuition but also on a week-to-week basis figuring out what they’re going to eat for the week, and far more than that. So that also comes back to student jobs and a lot more than that. I have the tuition issue broken down into a short term, mid-term, long term plan. A lot of it involves engaging the board of governors, creating an agreement with them that they will work with us over the upcoming year or two years, to lobby the government and figure out an alternative strategy in balancing the budget. The interesting thing when we talk about tuition is also heavily tied into mental health. So through the research that I did, we know that finances are the number two reason that students experience depression and anxiety at Dalhousie right now. It’s kind of counterintuitive because the university’s strategic priorities are all about student retention. We also know that students who experience anxiety and depression have a harder time continuing on in university and find the supports that they need, especially throughout their classes. So we’re putting the burden of balancing the budget on tuition and on students, and knowing how it affects their mental health and knowing the repercussions of that, it’s counterintuitive. So I would say, tuition coupled with the mental health issues around that, is the biggest issue for students.
Name three things that you would change about how the DSU is currently being run.
One of the big things is that, so the nature of what we do as students and in the DSU is quite transient. Student executives are here one year and out the other, a lot of promises get made, and a lot of things get said. So one of the things I would change is actually hosting and holding some form of consultation during a period with different student groups, different student campuses, to create a list of priorities and objectives that we need to accomplish over the upcoming year. So that students can actually hold us accountable to what we say we’re going to get done, what we say is going to be done, and what doesn’t get done. The other thing is, going back to the financial responsibility of the DSU, for example…if we’re running one of our key businesses at $100,000 loss every year and we’re not creating targets to cut back on those losses, or we’re not asking our staff and our managers to help figure out ways to cut back on those losses, in that sense, it’s irresponsible of us. It extends again to supplying our students with a job instead of immediately outsourcing the work that students would love and have amazing expertise to complete on campus. So making sure that we look to our students before we go back to outsourcing, for a variety of things. Also looking into the operations of levied societies who receive three quarters of a million dollars every year, and yet a lot of students feel that they don’t benefit from those services. My third thing I think would be trying to engage students who may not be represented by a particular student society or student group. Again, I felt that as a student when I had this idea of a society, I didn’t know where to go and I felt kind of on the outside of the DSU. Had it not been for the VP Internal at the time taking a little interest in what I was hoping to bring, just as a regular student, I don’t think we would have been able to accomplish the things that we have and in the timely fashion that we have. So being able to reach out, especially as President and the executive, we need to do a better job of regularly opening our doors and inviting students to come in and engage, and understand what’s going on, opposed to just the folks who have been regularly involved throughout the year.
How can you make the DSU’s work more visible?
In order to make it more visible, students also need to be educated on exactly what is the responsibility of the DSU really is. That would give them a better platform to hold us accountable for the things we say we’re going to do, and the things we say but don’t do. We also need to do a better job of engaging the largest societies, for example faculty societies, on topics and issues that may be of particular interest to them. We also need to do a better job, in terms of our DSU council, to ensure that our councilors are responsible and are taking the initiative to represent their constituencies opposed to just themselves. So although it is of the utmost responsibility of the DSU President and the executive to reach out to as many students as possible, at the same time, the DSU is not just the President and the executive: it is the DSU council and everyone around that, and it’s all of ours responsibility at the end of the day, to make sure that we’re doing our best to communicate the appropriate information to students, and getting their feedback and their insight. That’s one of the big things I would look at, putting a little bit more responsibility on the DSU councilors and the folks who are regularly involved with the DSU, to work together to engage other students.
What do you think of Dan’s performance this year?
Dan is a good friend of mine, and we’ve worked together on a number of initiatives this year, like the mental health initiative. I think the DSU has come a very long way from where we were four, three, two years ago. I think Dan and the executive have done a very good job of working together, doing their very best to communicate to students – Dan especially in that sense. I think Dan’s someone who brought that outsider perspective of being just a regular, average student to the DSU who has perhaps had a reputation for working for or focusing on the people who are in the direct proximity of the Student Union itself. So I feel like Dan transcends what the DSU has been known for and has done an excellent job of reaching out to different student groups. He’s been reaching out to different student campuses, and then bringing all that together.
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