Election Bio: Aaron Beale

Running for: VP (academic and external)

Name: Aaron Beale

Age: 23

Program: Third-year international development and sociology

Hometown: Halifax, NS

Interesting fact: Started a non-profit peanut butter business three years ago while he was in Argentina

Aaron Beale has a history of engaging students. He was even able to convince about a dozen of them to fly out to El Salvador in 2009 to experience first-hand that country’s often fraudulent election process.

Now he hopes he can convince Dalhousie’s student body to make him their candidate for the VP (academic and external) portfolio.

Beale’s experience organizing a trip to monitor El Salvador’s elections taught him that students truly do care about the world around them.

“People always talk about, you know, students being apathetic, or other people are apathetic; I think that’s bullshit,” he says. “Look at what students are doing, most students are involved in something, whether it’s a community project, a society, or just doing something for their friends. Students aren’t apathetic.”

What students don’t care about, however, is their student union, Beale claims, and if elected he would try and change that.

Beale adds that he would make rising tuition and the lack of food options on campus a priority. His familiarity with lobbying the government as part of the recent Day of Action rally and his involvement in making the Loaded Ladle a reality has given him ample knowledge of where the DSU can do a better job, he says.

“I think those are both opportunities for the union to engage with people, reach out to people, listen to them and act for them, and those are both opportunities lost [right now].”

Beale also intends to give the Loaded Ladle a permanent space in the SUB, encourage the organization to serve free or subsidized food five days a week and to lobby for increased counselling services on campus.