Category: AMS

I’ve been on campus for five years now. I probably know more about how the University and Student Society interact more than anyone else on campus. I also have my ear low to the ground, and can hear rumblings before they become issues. This is why I was dumbfounded when I learned that we would have a question on the referendum ballot to immediately transfer money to the “Access UBC Association of Disabled Students”, an organization I have never heard of.

I’m a big fan of students mobilizing to change the rules of the game. This is why I helped lower the quorum for AMS general meetings. That said, when there are questions that are ill-researched, not reviewed by anyone with their head in the game, and when they come from an organization who failed to explain who they are despite having 14 days, I have to encourage everyone to vehemently vote no.

Alex gets ranty, blames council of campus lethargy, and breaks the UBC Insiders editorial policy on endorsements prior to the weekend on the other side of the jump.

The following is a guest post by Bowinn Ma, EUS President 2007-2008; AMS Councilor 2006-2008; Former Hack, less so now.

One of the roles of guest writers is to change things up, and change things up I shall! The UBC Insiders team has done a magnificent job of creating thorough, professional, and complete postings, but what seems to be lacking is public participation. Where are the dozens of comments we used to get from people supporting and condemning opinions? Where are the flame wars and public uproars against the tragedy de jour? Where is Joe the Plumber, Little Timmy, and Big John with their stories of personal strife against the Power?

More of Bowinn’s thoughts, after the gap.

UBC Insiders Analysis

Click here to skip to profiles of the candidates in this race.

Note: Alex was the 2008/2009 AMS VP Academic and University Affairs.

The VP University affairs is the largest and most detail-oriented position on the executive. Best described as the executive that handles “everything else”, the VP A/UA is the single student on campus with the most influence over the way the university goes about its regular business. The job is best chunked into three broad categories: campus governance (planning, liaising, fiscals), academics (quality, funding, senate), and campus climate (culture, relations, equity).

Traditionally a position held by wonks, a good candidate will have a strong appreciation for detail, will be strategic and organized, will learn quickly, and will be a leader when they need to be. This means an understanding of the issues, players, conflicts and rhetoric of campus, as well as having the managerial skills to organize an office that handles forty committees, tens of pages of reading a day, and countless emails.

All that really matters is governance, and questionnaires after the jump.

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UBC Insiders Analysis

Click here to skip to profiles of the candidates in this race.

The Student Legal Fund Society was created in the wake of the 1997 APEC protests. Its specific mandate is: “SLFS is a non-profit student run society that provides advisory, legal, and financial assistance to fund, initiate and continue advocacy, lobbying and litigation to improve education and access to education at UBC and such other matters of law, which set broad precedent and concern UBC students.” It’s a very broad definition, and the decision this year to provide funding for the BC Civil Liberties Association’s Legal Observer training and Know Your Rights workshops exposed the widely differing interpretations of this mandate that are possible.

More on the SLFS and questionnaires, after the jump.

UBC Insiders Analysis

Click here to skip to profiles of the candidates in this race.

The VP Finance has traditionally been one of the most difficult jobs to be effective at in the executive committee. Tasked with crafting a budget to spend millions of dollars in three months, there’s little the VP Finance can do to shake up the status-quo in their most important task. Other parts in the job are the SUB businesses, sustainability, the AMS/GSS health and dental plan, and financial administration.

Because elections don’t yield the best accountants and because the post has been neglected in the past, the VP Finance role was once thought to be a liability to the society. To make sure the job gets done, the staff assumed much of the job. The AMS has matured since those days, and I would claim today the staff has too much control. What the job needs is an insider who understands the system, has the trust of the staff, but also has a vision on how to modernize a fiscal system that’s as rigid and cold as the building it’s housed in.

Recently challenged at council were philosophical questions about the operations of the SUB businesses. The AMS has prided itself on being one of the only student societies in Canada that has a business operation that nets a profit, which is one way the AMS retains the lowest student fees in the country. That said, profitable businesses often come at the cost of pricier food and lower employee wages, many of whom are students. Which is better: cheap mandatory fees, or cheap Pendulum T-Birds?

Also challenged was the extent that the AMS should be volunteer- or employment- driven. While the undergraduate societies are largely run by volunteers, does the importance of their parent organization warrant the added accountability only paid employment can ensure? Insiders answers this question with an unequivocal yes, provided the position at hand has any significant stake in the future of the society. There is, however, a larger role that volunteers and interns can play within the AMS, as opportunities there are currently non-existent.

Budget-wise, the VP Finance is the mastermind behind the AMS services. Operationally overseen by the hired ECSS, the VP Finance still sets the political direction of the otherwise non-political services for the year. In particular, an issue is controlling the spending of the $130,000-annual Safewalk, in which a walk costs more than a taxi-ride.

Also, an alleged structural deficit was uncovered in the budget this year, of which not much is yet known (we asked). It will be the incoming VP Finance’s job to make sense of this hoo-hah, and hopefully use the crisis to introduce some overdue changes.

The candidates in this race are the rather fashionable Elin Tayyar, ’09 SAC Vice-Chair, and the hyper-transparent Invisible Man. We’re elated to see a joke candidate in the running, but disappointed at the overall lack of interest for this race. Tuum Est, Elin.

See Candidate Profiles after the jump.

Edit, Jan 21 2:30am: Much like the House and Senate reconciliate on health care reform, we misinterpreted how the original two questions were to be merged. The Chief Justice will still be required to be a third year law student if this referendum passes. Thanks for the comments, all. Keeps us on our toes.

On the ballot is two questions now apparently a single question designed to change the rules of student court. Overall, the main intent of the changes seem to be the closing of the author-named Lougheed Affair, where council exercised a disallowance power to not receive a ruling from the student court. This raised a crisis about the function of the student court, a body that sparsely met prior to the Affair, and caused council to launch a third-party review.

Being proposed is the removal council’s disallowance power, coupled with the authority of student court to interpret the bylaws, which could possibly be in contradiction with the B.C. Society Act. Beyond this change, there are also a number of riders dealing with some structural changes, and changes in the way referenda make their way to a vote.