The Great Debate! BoG Round

January 21st, 2013 • Uncategorized

Board of Governors Endorsements: Matt Parson

I am initially reluctant to endorse anyone today yet, because Mike Silley was not at the Great Debate and I have not had the time to speak with him.

 

Ideal BoG candidates should speak confidently about convincing the UBC Board of Governors to lobby the BC Government for the creation of a B.C. higher-education price index.

Ideal BoG candidates should speak confidently about criticizing the leadership of Where’s The Funding? and acknowledging that the AMS, with a very small budget, can inspire student action on lobbying for post-secondary funding.

Ideal BoG candidates should acknowledge that AMS needs to have its own Nationbuilder or Constituency Relationship Management so when student governors are representing students’ interests in terms of post-secondary funding and tuition, they can have much more of a political standing.

 

No candidates are ideal. Really, I’m not sure I can speak confidently as a BoG candidate. Gosh, I should have run for AMS VP External against Kyle Warwick back in the day.

 

In picking parts that I thought were important in the BoG Great Debate, I am able to endorse one candidate for now. Another BoG endorsement may come later and it is going to be Mike Silley, Erin Rennie and Tristan Miller.

 

Debate: Nothing too tricky in this debate, as there were no questions on social policy, particularly the actual details of UBC’s contemplation on providing and funding an emergency shelter. Sad.

Because AMS Elections schedule too short of a time for all five candidates, there was no room for rebuttals and no room for us to see how they react when in argument. Regardless, Tristan’s, Matt’ and Erin’s personalities shined because when these candidates were answering on the fly, they have proven that they have thought about the themes of the questions.

I will paraphrase their responses. I will focus more on these three candidates.

In camera, when at a private board meeting, what would you do when your idea is being outweighed or your motion is being outvoted by the rest of the board?

Tristan Miller: bring supporting evidence for your stance to the board, convince with numbers and get support from AMS. Being respectful, articulate and well-prepared with research can earn you respect.

Clearly indicative of how Tristan Miller would make a good board governor.

Erin Rennie:  Work with the Board! Board of Governors appointed by the Lieutenant Governor, “the eleven fancy business people” appointed,” are just people. I’ve worked with adults of great power and influence. Board members “are vulnerable like you and they have the same interest” in building a better UBC.

Erin gives a seriously good political candidate answer. On the merit of talking about your own skill sets by simplifying the individual politics of board members, Erin showcases her skills as a good politician. She misses the point that provincially appointed BoG members may be influenced by provincial party politics here, but she does address this issue in a later answer.

Good BoG candidates should know the students they represent. Students are not concerned over the intimidating quality of fancy business people. Students considering running for BoG are concerned about feeling politically useless and being only a fly on the wall at board meetings. For some passionate folks, they are even concerned over their mental health from being so pissed off at how certain provincially appointed board members want UBC to cater more to rich international students and want UBC to get very little governmental support to tackle the issue of affordability of student living, student housing and tuition.

There’s a provincial election this Spring. There is a likely a change in power in the BC NDP. Given that eleven out of the twenty one board members are provincially appointed, how will you take advantage of the situation if it happens that  the BC NDP removes a large chunk of the already appointed members and replace them with  NDP-minded governors?

Uh. Okay fine, this one is tricky. The person who sent in this question may have wanted to see if the BoG candidates know their stuff. According to the BC University Act 19 (2)

The board of the University of British Columbia is composed of 21 members, as follows:
(a) the chancellor;
(b) the president;
(c) a faculty member who works through a part specified under section 3.1, elected by the faculty members who work through the part;
(d) 2 faculty members who work through a part not specified under section 3.1, elected by the faculty members who work through the part;
(e) 11 persons, appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, 2 of whom are to be appointed from among persons nominated by the alumni association.

Though 9 is still a large chunk, let’s be clear on the fact that student BoG candidates need to have the alumni association in mind as they are political players in the makeup of the board.

Matt Parson: Painting the picture of how UBC can benefit not just the community surrounding it but the province as a whole. A university degree is really on par with other skill-based learning. UBC is viewed as having massive bags of money. We need to shift ourselves as being perceived otherwise, to be perceived as just as in need of funding as trades education.

Erin Rennie: “We have to remember that we need to build a strong working relationship without getting co-opted by whatever interest those board members represent… Agencies like UBC need to be politically neutral.”

Erin Rennie is a really great speaker who is thoughtful in her answers. Here, she has attempted to address students’ concerns that provincially appointed BoG members are not politically neutral.

I love Matt Parson’s answer here. It is here that Matt Parson has earned my endorsement.

On the domestic tuition increase of a 2% cap legislated by the BC Government and UBC taking the full 2% increase every year since the 2% cap legislation

Harsev: Well, the moderator had to explain how the domestic tuition policy work. He’s an international student. He admits that he still needs to do research on statistics and do more consultation with students about domestic tuition going up 2% a year.

Matt Parson: Matt answered that he would agree to UBC’s 2% tuition increase in the next year but he was not allowed to qualify his answer due to the moderator’s concern for time constraint. Let us note that Matt Parson is an experienced AMS exec who has had to express his views on UBC tuition for at least two years. Coming out of his office had been draft tuition policies that indicated the need for student advocacy to consider not just the BC Consumer Price Index that Erin Rennie has quoted, but also Higher Education Price Index, which is American (as we do not have a BC one).

Tristan Miller: It would depends on the budget that is presented to us.

Conny Lin: Votes yes because it is based on University needs. Before the 2% cap, UBC had to make huge increases to make up for the tuition freeze that was put in place when the BC NDP was in power. UBC made these increases so our education quality is not sacrificed.

 

 

 

End notes:

Michael Silley was absent from the debate.

Conny Lin recently had a meeting with Adv. Ed. on behalf of, I presume, the Graduate Student Society.

If Harsev hasn’t gone to a patronizing UBC Tuition Consultation session or has gone to the AMS University and External Relations Committee to bring up the need for AMS to revisit its tuition policy, he needs to not run for BoG or an AMS Exec position next year until he has done so.

 

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