Richard BaganThe sole vice-president (academic) candidate Joel Agarwal experienced a lot more grilling during the first SUBStage forum than he did during the rather uneventful Lister forum, but handled the increase in questions with mostly competent answers and little lip service.
Agarwal continued his themes from the Lister forum, focusing on ways to overcome barriers to academic success and increasing opportunities for experiential learning.
His main points on decreasing academic barriers were improving the advertising of university resources and removing fees for services such as the Academic Success Centre. Agarwal mentioned that we already pay a lot of money for university, and we shouldn’t need to pay even more for university services. Slashing the fees for the Academic Success Centre sounds good, but Agarwal failed to explain whether this is even possible.
To further increase experiential learning on campus, Agarwal suggested providing SU scholarships for student research and other opportunities.
Agarwal was wise to focus on increasing opportunities for experiential learning, especially research. Virtually every student I have spoken too, myself included, wants to have some kind “real world” work experience related to their major, whether that’s in student research, internships, or volunteering with professors and other academics. The job market is becoming more and more competitive, and employers want to see applicants with actual job experience on top of their education.
However, when asked how he would allocate funds to increase experiential learning opportunities, Agarwal mentioned that he doesn’t plan to cut funding from any other SU awards, but rather lobby the government for more funding. It’s a win-win answer, but Agarwal is dangerously flirting with fantasy. Given the current economic situation in Alberta, relying on the government to fund his arguably most important campaign initiative is a major risk. Agarwal needs to be ready to bite the bullet and consider cutting other SU awards if he wants his experiential learning plan to work.
Later on, Agarwal was asked about how he would would make the university more inclusive towards Indigenous students. His response, was the typical: add Indigenous content to classes. When further pressed on how this would be done, Agarwal prudently acknowledged that the issue won’t be solved overnight, and made no specific promises.
The implementation of Indigenous content in classes has been long-requested, but the issue is complex. University courses are already tight packed with content; adding even more content risks increasing the stress of university classes, something the vice-president (academic) should be weary of. Furthermore, it’s likely that most courses wouldn’t do Indigenous content proper justice, as it would likely be treated as a superfluous detail to the regular course material.
Agarwal hasn’t been a stand out candidate, but he also hasn’t sat back and acted like the position was his for the taking. Agarwal exhibits quiet confidence, and has so far proved to be a capable candidate.
