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Check in.

Hello everyone.

I would invite us all to think about what sort of issues we have yet to cover on this blog. We’ve been feverishly covering the elections, but we would like to continue to focus on the issues.

We of course accept emails too, if you don’t want to leave a comment.

Thank you.

By Neal Yonson

Neal Yonson is a native of Ottawa. He graduated from the University of Toronto with an Hon.B.Sc. in 2006 and will be happy to tell you about how things seemed to work more smoothly there. After traveling across the country for free (protip: strategically arrange grad school visits where they reimburse travel) he came to UBC to start a Ph.D. in chemistry. He was quite happy to avoid student issues until he found out how much it cost to go to the BirdCoop. Since then, he has been involved with a variety of advocacy projects.

35 replies on “Check in.”

I’ll be writing a post on the Housing Roundtable discussion the AMS held a couple nights ago (hopefully today).

* Commercialization of research
* Proper role for students and faculty in the governance of public universities (or just governance issues at UBC)
* The endowment and ethical investment
* Why the CAPTCHA on here keeps getting longer–I think blogspot is trying to tell me something.

Governance to include municipal governance, endowment to include how housing endowment is allocated.

I can also think of a number of things around why campus development is done (and what other priorities might be introduced), benefits/drawbacks of adding housing density beyond what’s currently allowed, UBC Line routing, what entrances to campus ought to look like,…

Not that I have a campus development bias…

perhaps on the resignation of the Elections Admin, Brendan Piovesan.

It was quite honourably done actually, sticking it out till the end of the VP Admin election and then standing aside.

It was probably more honour than we deserved considering the treatment various council members, myself included, gave him in the UBC media.

He has earned a great deal of respect in my books for how he handled the resignation. He could have simply walked and left the Admin election hanging, but he didnt.

I’ll echo Pat’s comments. If things came across as personal at any point, they weren’t supposed to. As student leaders, it’s our job to stand up for what he hear our constituents tell us and this is what we heard. Props for sticking it out to the end of the Admin race and good luck in the future Brendan.

Hey guys, you know Alex Lougheed better, what’s that all about the multiple ballot, is he really testing the system? Does it have anything to do with the election reform Maayan?
*gasp gasp*

Karen

Eh, it was a joke. Having talked to Alex before about the topic, assuming he did it (which I dont know for a fact he did), I can say with certainty that he knew that multiple ballots would not be counted.

It could be described with a few adjectives, but cheating is definitely not one of them. There was no intent to in any way alter the race. The fact that the NAME was written on the ballot should be clear evidence of that.

I’d like to see some stuff on CFS/CASA politics, if any of you bloggers are so inclined.

In addition, you could highlight some of the more interesting clubs on campus.

– Talking about how to tackle student life issues and increase campus community.

– degree creep: are too many people being educated in too many useless degrees?

The referendum(s) (referenda?) and perhaps also the byelection if possible.

Or is outside-UBC politics within the scope of this here blog?

how about the Fed By-election at Vancouver Quadra? When is the all candidate debate between Dan, Rebecca, Joyce and Deborah?

I agree that there should be some sort of look into “The War on Fun” (both sides of it) and the steady decline of involvement and community on campus. The referendum would also be top of the list.

How about a look as to how Alex Lougheed’s name is being dragged through the gutter by a one-sided, factually challenged, intellectually absent, and borderline deranged smear campaign?

The issue of sessional lecturers at UBC and how it affects the teaching and learning environment at UBC

The results of the VP Admin Special Election are in!

MARKLE, Tristan 446
STEWART, Shawn 306
McCARTHY, Stephen 280
KUSHNIR, Mike 194
MESSOLORAS, Yian 189
RYAN, Stephanie 104
MAC J 44
PALM, Aaron 42

Congrats Tristan!

Thanks for your post,Blake! I will congratulate Tristan for his remarkable campaign and vision for a more substainable AMS.

Just for the record, Sonja. I did get the approximate estimation for voter turnout to be right. It’s around 3.64% of the general student population for the by-election.

Wow… Tristan wasnt even able tog et 30% of the vote.

Not a bash of Tristan at all, more a bash at the lack of preferential voting.

If Alex was running for a serious position why did he do something stupid like that. That is unprofessional and stupid. The elections had enough problems without candidates trying to fuck things up.

Hi Everyone – thanks for all the great ideas. I’ve written them all into a big list, and hopefully some will resurface as posts on the blog. thanks again.

I also like anon 6:50’s idea of taking a look at the undergrads. They’re definetly not as visible (despite our best efforts) as the AMS and if students aren’t all that well informed on things like tutition hikes and the UPass, it can be tough to get them looking at their own faculty and the things we do for them.

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