The Strand: Could you tell us about the responsibilities of the Academic and Professional Development Commissioner?
The APD is a commission that’s split between advocacy, for instance, for people who may not learn best using traditional UofT methods, and programming. Our most notable event is probably the networking dinner. A lot of what we do is also in terms of collaborations with other student groups. As an example, earlier this year, we had a collaboration with VOCA pancakes, where we invited the Registrar, the Centre for International Experience, the library, and Ira Wells to come in and talk to students about all the different services they provide for students.
In addition to that, I hope to start some new initiatives to increase the scope of the portfolio of the APD because it’s the newest portfolio on VUSAC, so there’s a lot of room for improvement and a lot of room for the Commission to develop.
Could you speak more specifically about the initiatives you want to take on?
I’m thinking of planning a “How to LaTeX” workshop. For readers who aren’t familiar with LaTeX, it’s software which a lot of people in the mathematical and physical sciences use to produce papers. It’s a very useful tool because it’s easier to make corrections as you go along. I’ve learned LaTeX over the past couple of years, and I’d like to share some of that knowledge with other people.
Another thing I’d like to have is a summer school info sessio—a panel discussion with students who have taken summer school in the past.
A third initiative would be some form of a panel discussion on marginalized students in academia, in collaboration with Equity. This idea was actually inspired by a panel discussion on “Being Trans in STEM” that NewPride and the Psychology Students Association put on, and we actually had at least one Vic student who spoke at that discussion. I saw that and thought to myself, why doesn’t APD have an initiative like this already?
Given that you’re running uncontested, what are you going to do during your term to maintain transparency and accountability?
In my opinion, if the election for APD Commissioner for 2019 is uncontested, I would have failed in my job in some important respect. To my knowledge, there have been three APD commissioners so far—and I wasn’t able to find the data for the 2015 elections—but in the 2016 and the 2017 elections it went uncontested, and I suspect the same may be true for 2015. It’s been a historically uncontested portfolio and it feels very wrong to me.
I hope to change that, first of all, by giving my council members a lot of responsibility. With Zoe, she gave each of her councilors a different event to work on, so that’s how I ended up planning the APD x VOCA collaboration, and that’s what got me interested in running for the position, so I feel like if I give my councilors a good amount of leeway they’ll be more interested to run. I’m going to go out of my way to select people who are ambitious and who I think could potentially make a run for APD Commissioner.
There are a lot of systemic issues with VUSAC elections, with only 500 students in the “Vusac Elections Forum” Facebook group, and several positions going uncontested, again. Why do you think that’s the case?
I have a couple of answers. One answer that Shailee, the current Equity Commissioner, posted in the Facebook group is the lack of financial compensation for VUSAC members. This barrier is very much a reason why some people may choose not to run for a position. I saw some other candidates raise the idea of working with the registrar’s office to make scholarships for people to get involved at Vic, and I think that this is a good idea.
There’s also a clearing the field effect when an incumbent VUSAC member runs. People who may otherwise have run think that they are not likely to win.
Another issue is that there’s somewhat of—though it’s clearing up in recent years—a VUSAC “bubble effect.” Historically, people who’ve run for VUSAC have been friends with people who were on VUSAC before. Some people might be afraid that if they run for VUSAC they might end up being the 25th wheel, so to speak. I wasn’t exactly best friends with all the members of council either, so I want to share with people who would be interested in running my experience that I was welcomed. I’m sure that the idea of a VUSAC bubble doesn’t start for nothing, and I’m sure in past years there have been VUSAC councils which have been more exclusive, but I think that, this past year, it has been definitely a very inclusive council, and If I am elected this year I will try my best to ensure that VUSAC will continue to be an inclusive council.
Do you have any ideas for how to reach out to more Vic students, beyond the 500 who are in the Facebook group?
I want to boost APD’s social media presence. I’d like to explore possibilities like having a Twitter, having an Instagram. Hopefully by engaging people more with events over the next year, we can see more people engaged with elections at VUSAC. Contested elections play into this as well, because at the very least there are two friend groups rather than one who are engaged. It is a difficult problem that’s endemic to student politics, and it’s one that I think we need to solve.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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