By Lucy Scholey, News Editor & Laura Parlee, Assistant News Editor
President
Shannon Zimmerman
What she promised:
• An improved DSU website
• A strategic five-year plan
• More DSU visibility across all Dalhousie University campuses
What she did:
• Started working with full-time staff to develop a strategic plan
• Listened to student response during Brains for Change
• Developed more concrete office hours for DSU executive members across campuses
• Attended more events on other campuses
• Hired a society co-ordinator to manage societies across campuses
What she says needs to improve:
• The strategic plan is ongoing and will need more work
Vice President (Student Life) Kris Osmond
What he promised:
• To hold seminars for societies in event planning
• Increased visibility on all campuses
• Improved system for buying tickets for school events
What he did:
• Ran Orientation Week, Dal Fest, Fall Festival, Winter Carnival and the Munro Day ski trip and is planning future events such as Student Appreciation Night and the Residence Charity Hockey Game
• Created Dalhousie’s Got Talent
• Worked with student societies to help run their events
• Organized fundraisers such as Shinerama
• Started Storm, a pilot project for an event magazine (Osmond says the project ended up being too much work, but he is trying to find a company to run the magazine)
What he says needs to improve:
• The ticket system hasn’t been much of an issue this year according to Osmond, but a policy could be drawn up to make tickets more accessible for students on other campuses
• An equipment rental policy should be written to keep societies accountable when they rent Student Union equipment
• There should be a better way to promote Dal Athletics
• There needs to be a new hired position to plan events
– Osmond suggested there should be a better way to advertise events
Vice President (Internal)
Mark Hobbs
What he promised:
• An improved DSU website with regular updates and a web-savvy individual to monitor it
• The ability for students and societies to apply for grants online
• To bring back a 24-hour study space
What he did:
• Contacted different firms about managing the website, asked different campus groups for input and hired Think Digital Media to run the website (Hobbs says he expects website to be running by mid-March)
• Updates the website a couple of times a week
• No 24-hour study space
What he says needs to improve:
• All projects in progress need to be completed
• Needs to be a better way to advertise events
• Need to fast-track the society ratification process
Vice President (Education)
Rob LeForte
What he promised:
• To get the provincial government to match infrastructure funding (This happened soon after LeForte was elected)
• To create an education policy committee (The DSU already had an education policy committee in place)
What he did:
• Ran academic integrity events for international students during orientation week
• Pushed for the Killam Library stay open to 3 a.m. during exam time
• Worked on changes to the academic study principals to allow for a fall study day (Students will have Nov. 12 off next year)
• Tried to make the information from student course evaluations accessible to all students (The proposal is currently in the Senate)
• Met with the Premier and Minister of Education to push for a comprehensive review of Post Secondary Education (The province commissioned the review on Jan. 22)
What he says needs to improve:
• The agreement between the Nova Scotian government and universities – the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will need to be re-negotiated next year
• Promote academic integrity among international students
• Student ratings should be public
Board of Governors Representatives, Janet Conrad & Adam Harris
What they promised:
• To improve student apathy
• To decrease divides between campuses
• To increase the number of student services on Sexton Campus
• To work on constitutional reform
• Complete job descriptions for all paid positions on Council
• To address deferred maintenance projects, and to get funding from the government and through private donations
• To upgrade fitness equipment and get sheltered biking spaces around campus
What they did:
• Worked on making academic evaluations accessible online
• Advocated for savings from Dalhousie’s ban on tuition payments via credit card to go toward student benefits
• Addressed deferred maintenance and got federal funding to improve the Dalplex, Health Professions building and the Sexton Campus
What they say needs to improve:
• Make it easier for societies to ratify and advertise events
• Get renewal referendums for societies
Senate Representative, Glenn Blake
What he promised:
• Wanted students to have a say in planning university infrastructure
What he did:
• Kept a blog about the DSU council meetings
• Wasn’t on the planning committee, so couldn’t do much about infrastructure
What he says needs to improve:
• Communication within the DSU
• All required readings should be available to students on reserve at the library
• Secret contracts need to be available to students
• There should be a welcoming group for students at the airport
• More healthy food options on campus
Senate Representative
Meredith Evans
What she promised:
• A uniform grading system across faculties (Making sure an “A” grade is the same percentage in all faculties)
• To work with faculties to make students more aware of plagiarism
What she did:
• Didn’t follow up on grading system because she says people stopped talking about it
• Worked on making academic evaluation forms available to students
• Joined the Committee of Learning and Teaching
• Worked to communicate more with international students about academic integrity (She says they can be more vulnerable to committing plagiarism)
What she says needs to improve:
• More work on educating students about plagiarism
• Better wireless Internet access on-campus
• Bring back 24-hour study space
Senate Representative
Shane Simms
What he promised:
• To focus more on the environment
• To ask students for input on making Dal more environmentally sustainable
• To improve the disciplinary process
What he did:
• Other than buying a reusable mug and printing on both sides of the paper, he says he didn’t focus on the environment (But the senate committee on the environment also disbanded last year)
What he says needs to improve:
• Should be a committee that focuses on the environment
• More focus on welcoming international students in to the university community
• The senate needs to push for student access to academic evaluation forms
• Bring back 24-hour study space
• Improving Internet service on campus
• Levied societies need to be held accountable
Recent Comments