Christina VarvisTalk of chopping tuition in half, and devising strategies for mental health and residence issues arose at Tuesday’s SUBstage election forum. Facing off were candidates from the President, Vice-President (Student Life) and Board of Governors Representative races.
The three presidential candidates vying for SU leadership were Cody Bondarchuk, this year’s VP (Operations and Finance), Dylan Hanwell, this year’s VP (External) and Fahim Rahman, this year’s VP (Academic). Following their questioning were the four VP (Student Life) candidates which included Kevin Wang, Jordan Simao, Francesca El Ghossein and Levi Flaman, who grilled each other on mental health and policies regarding student groups.
Colin Champagne, the lone candidate in the BoG rep race, said his goals were to work with Students’ Council to define the role. For now, students’ understanding of the BoG Rep, and the role itself, is unclear.
Affordability was a hot topic in the presidential race, where conversation started with Bondarchuk’s platform point on tuition strategy. With the new government, the SU is “able to ask for something more radical,” Bondarchuk said. A tuition freeze was implemented last year with the election of the New Democratic Party and Bill 3. Going further to ask the government to lower tuition by half wouldn’t be unreasonable, he said.
“In previous governments, we’ve been forced to be OK with ‘good enough,’” Bondarchuk said.
Hanwell also said tuition should “cut in half.” Using the proposal halved tuition as an anchoring point to negotiate with the government could lead to reaching a compromise at a 10 per cent decrease in tuition cost, he said.
Rahman’s approach to affordability centered around student financial aid, which would mean more support for financially disadvantaged students, and advocating for more scholarships and bursaries. Rahman was fine with the current tuition, he said.
“Across the board, decreased tuition is a regressive policy,” he said.
After a question from the audience regarding the provincial mental health review released by the Alberta government on called the report “sad.” Hanwell’s concern was that the review did not mention funding mental health in post-secondary and had a focus on addiction.
“We have to careful of the narrative with addiction, especially with alcohol,” he said. “If you blow it up too much, it gives the university the capital to say, ‘Okay, we’ll send them out of residence, we’ll send them off campus.”
Rahman commented on the report’s lack of mention of psychiatry, and called the recommendations “reactive.”
“I really think that not enough was done in the past for students with actual mental illnesses,” Rahman said. “We need to be doing more than just running rehabilitation services. We also have to be a lot more proactive.”
Bondarchuk emphasized the need for separating chemical mental health issues from school-related mental health issues.
The mental health conversation also spilled over into the VP (Student Life) race, as candidates were asked if elected, what they would do if annual provincial mental health funding is not renewed in March. That funding, where the U of A received $1 million per year over a three year period, went towards employing mental health staff on campus, such as those in Counselling and Clinical Services and the Community Social Work team. Simao said he thinks the funding will be renewed, but if it is not, he would devise a collaborative strategy between staff and students to provide the most efficient service with limited funding.
Flaman said he would coordinate between students and staff to strengthen the training within support networks that students could access outside mental health services. If elected, El Ghossein would also work on extending training for mental health staff so they could act as triage unit. Wang said he would strengthen the university’s prevention strategies to reduce the urgency in accessing Counselling and Clinical Services.
Candidates also talked about residences, including tenants’ rights, residence associations and relationships with the university.
Simao said “wrongs can be righted” in the residence fee collection issue. The university’s residence services decided that starting next year, it will no longer collect mandatory fees for student residence associations. Associations now risk of dissolving because fees will have to be collected manually, which may cause a decrease in membership and funding.
“I benefit from having an excellent working relationship with Sarah Wolgemuth, the associate Dean of Students and the director of Residence Life, who made the decision in the first place to cease fee collection,” Simao said.
Simao said the decision for residence services to longer collect fees likely won’t be reversed. If elected, he would work with the Office of the Registrar or the SU to collect fees. Simao also said he would work to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, which currently does not protect students living in university residence.
El Ghossein was in favour of in favour of using a well-advertised opt-out system for fee collection instead of an opt-in method. She said she did not think the SU should be involved in fee collection.
Wang criticized the opt-in system instilled by the university and said it would be ineffective for residence associations to collect fees next year. Instead, he would work with the Office of the Registrar and the SU to lobby Residences Services for fee collection if elected.
“II want to approach the Registrar’s Office, and even if they’re unwilling to collect fees, you have two people nagging Residence Services about fee collection,” Wang said.
Flaman said that though he did not have understanding or experience with residence operations, he would consult to find a solution to residence association fee collection. He thought the university was “a bit heavy-handed” in its decision to cease collection.
The next forum will be Wednesday, Feb. 24 at SUBstage, where candidates in the VP (Operations and Finance), VP (External) and VP (Academic) races will face off.
