Name: Kathleen Reid
Age: 22
Hometown: Thornhill, Ontario (but claims she is a well-adjusted Haligonian)
Program: Double-major in International Development and Creative Writing
Relevant experience: I’m currently the Vice President of Student Life for the DSU, so I’m an executive this year. I work with the current president on a lot of different projects, and I really do love the VPSL role and the fun, events-based aspect of it, but what I enjoyed most about it was I tried to expand that role to a more day-to-day student life aspect, so for example, working with mental health or sexual assault on campus. These kinds of portfolios are why I would like to run, to amplify my ability as a student leader. Before VPSL, I was the coordinator for O-Week, and sat on the committee for a while. I also coordinated TedxDalhousieU last year, so my background is fairly events-based, but over this past year I have definitely stepped into a more administrative role.
Why do you want to lead the DSU?
Working as VPSL, and having those experiences to be a student leader, and to expand the portfolio and to do some more important things that deal with student issues, like consent and alcohol harm reduction, gave me a view into how students are able to come together. Once there is a student collective there is an absolute ability to create change. I think that working with students, and students working with the university, we can make this university a much better place and a much more safe place for students, and I think that a sense of community comes from a strong leader, and I think that I can be that strong leader.
What are your plans, if elected?
I think that everyone has a lot of plans and a lot of promises that they would make, so the way I have decided to form my platform is to make four main goals and then under each of those goals make action items. So one of the things that I’d like to touch on, just to highlight one of the action items, is the sense of community (at Dal). So I would like to turn University Avenue into a pedestrian green space and bike lane only, from LeMarchant Street all the way to Robie Street. I think that having that space as a community hub would be really important to making our campus a greener and more sustainable place. Another idea that I have would be to create a Service Hub, so there’s a lot of services that exist at Dal, but maybe students don’t know how to access those or if they need help. What I hope to do is create a space that will have an online presence, and giving better education to Info Desk staff because they are the front-face of the union, and educating (them on) how to help students and direct students on that path when they need it.
Community and service hub fall under student wellness. So there’s governance, and my perspective on governance is that the president’s role can turn into a president’s office, hiring several staff members that support the president in roles like student commissioners. They do meaningful work, which gives the president more time to be on the ground, engaged with students and talking to students on a daily basis. I think freeing up that time for the president would be really important, and also would give students the ability to have administrative jobs that they can apply to their future life.
The final one is advocacy, and I take a two-step approach to advocacy. I think that advocacy exists on a personal level, so a student-by-student basis, advocating for student rights, making sure that students getting through the university process in a fair way, and there’s the external side of that, which is activism and fighting for students on a larger scale by lobbying government and the university administration.
What is the biggest issue facing Dal students next year?
Right now, the biggest issue that we’re facing is the tuition reset. I think that most people will touch on this. I’ve been fighting really hard to (draw attention to this), and was involved in the tuition reset rally, so I think that the most important thing to realize right now is it’s bigger than the university. What we need to do right now is come together as students and lobby the government for better funding for our university. Absolutely, Dalhousie has a responsibility to make sure that its students are able to make it through school, healthy and safe and not be worried about student debt, but it’s also the responsibility of the province to fund students for the future of the province. If they want us to stay here, then they should definitely invest in us.
We’re always fighting the tuition fight because there will always be a need for more money as long as the university is looked at as a business. I think that’s a big problem, where universities are an institution, and I understand you do need money and it’s important, but I think in realizing that the real value in universities are the students who go there. They’re not just another number, they’re people, and they have lives and needs, and people suffer with their mental health. It’s always an ongoing fight regardless of when it is and when it’s happening.
Name three things that you would change about how the DSU is currently being run:
Having a student staff work alongside me at the president’s office, absolutely not for me to work towards the student initiatives that students have decided they’d like the president’s role to see through. I’m a current executive so I have a view into that, so we’re working really hard on communication and communicating to each other on what needs to be done, and the fact that different executives need to have different views, and different portfolios, and stuff to do, but those don’t have to be solo. So the way we carry those out, so the way we make sure those projects happen, happen in a collaborative measure. Finally, I think we can better use our part-time and full-time staff more. We have an incredibly large pool of information and resources that come from those staff that work here, the part-time staff are people who see students every day, they come face-to-face with them, whether it’s the Grawood staff or the T-Room, they talk to students and get feedback, and I think there can be a lot better communication with those folks.
How can you make the DSU’s work more visible?
By freeing up more of the president’s time the president can have a more viable role on the ground, on campus. Something I would like to continue, or start, instead of just holding office hours at my office in the SUB, is that I’d like to take office hours to students. So setting up a table in a different office building every week where students can just ask a question, or talk about an issue that they have, or maybe give an idea of a project they would like to see happen. That way if they’re really busy, and I understand, they don’t have to come all the way to Studley from Sexton or Carleton – and especially at the Agricultural Campus – they shouldn’t have to do that. It’s important for me as the president to make it my responsibility to bring that accessibility to them. Also, in my role as VPSL, I’ve been trying to make the Union a more visible place in a small scale way. So I think that social media these days is a really important platform, and also just media in general, so I actually created a radio show this year on CKDU called “Student Life Live,” where I do my weekly shows with another student. We talk about all things DSU and interview members of the Union. We play cool music and just have a good time talking about the current issues that involve students. I think it’s important to make the time to communicate to students.
What do you think of Dan’s performance this year?
I think Dan did an incredible job this year. I think we were all a little bit unsure of how he would do because a lot of (people) didn’t know him. I had been working for the DSU for a little while when I got my executive role and he seemed like a really passionate guy, so I was excited to see what he could do, and I think he did an incredible job continuing the initiatives of the executive before him and making sure our executive worked harmoniously and that was really key this year. To make sure our executive worked together as a team was really important. Something specific that I really liked that Dan did was this initiative called “Text the Pres,” and I would absolutely carry that over if I were elected. There’s a number on posters all over campus and if you text it, it will go straight to Dan’s phone and he can text you back. If you have an issue, or a question or maybe an idea for something, that’s accessible right at your fingertips and I think that’s really cool to continue.
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