Richard BaganThe vice-president (operations and finance) is in charge of the Students’ Union’s finances and its over $10 million budget. It falls onto them to make sure the organization’s finances are sound, and that the money raised through dedicated fee units, fees collected by student groups, are properly handled.
Additionally, the vice-president (operations and fiance) manages the Students’ Union’s business operations, including SUBmart, Horowitz Catering, and the two campus bars: Dewey’s and Room at the Top.
This year, only one candidate is running for the position: fourth-year business student and current business councillor: Luke Statt.
The following interview has been condensed and simplified for clarity.
In one minute, can you tell us why you are running for Students’ Union vice-president (operations and finance)?
Luke Statt: I am running because I think students across campus don’t feel very engaged by the Students’ Union. So, that’s why the main part of my platform is actually finding ways for students to be engaged.
I know a lot of students in the faculty of business, and they’re all very competent with doing an excellent job in the position. But most of them don’t understand the position. A lot of my position is going to be spent communicating to students to make them feel like they can actually have a role in the SU, as opposed to just simply trusting it with their funds.
Can you concisely explain your platform?
Statt: My platform basically has two components. One part is finding ways for students to feel like they are able to engage with the SU.
Most students still don’t understand what the SU is, what it does, what services or businesses we provide. And it’s sad because they pay $200 a year to the SU, and the SU does try to do a good job for students. So, a big part of my platform is finding ways for them to engage, finding ways to make communications more accessible, and finding ways to make partnership and collaboration between the SU students and student groups easier to manage.
The second portion is just managing businesses better, looking for new opportunities for new drivers so the SU can generate more business revenue and be able to provide better services without necessarily charging students more money in the future.
This year, the current vice-president (operations and finance) attempted to pass a student levy in order to deal with ageing infrastructure on campus, which would’ve charged students $18 in the 2019-20 academic year, doubling annually until it reaches $54 by 2021-22, but that levy failed in council. If you were the next vice-president (operations and finance), would you initiate another levy?
Statt: The reason it failed in council was council felt it was too rushed. They felt they didn’t have enough time to review it, and they felt like there are still a couple of points that needed to be improved.
However, talking to a lot of councillors afterwards, they actually thought the idea was good. They liked the idea, the idea makes sense, you have a fund where students can take money, propose projects and fix things across campus that is all controlled by them and they have the ability to change it.
I think the greatest weakness of it was that [current vice-president (operations and finance) Emma Ripka] wasn’t engaging students all year-long. So, whether or not I’m going to do her version of the fee is definitely up to students. It is not something that I have strictly in my platform.
I understand it is a need, so what I will likely be doing is taking the basic draft of Emma’s, and holding forums, consultations, focus groups, that kind of thing with students through the entire year because we have an entire year to work on this again.
Do you plan to make any changes to Room at the Top and Dewey’s?
Statt: I think Room at the Top has a great identity now, It’s starting to make some revenue but not too much, which is good. I think Dewey’s is where the focus needs to be at. There’s a strategic plan being drafted by Emma right now, so im going to be looking at that and building from it.
Right now one of my points is to devise a committee on student involvement and organizational decisions, so that will be really fuelling what Dewey’s looks like next year and what work is done on it. I have a lot of my own ideas but I’ll be trying to take more from students for that.
Is there anything you would have done differently from this year’s vice-president (operations and finance)?
Statt: I think Emma, overall, did a good job. She, unfortunately, got caught up with this thing with the student spaces levy, which wasn’t originally in her platform and I don’t think she was originally planning on working towards.
Specifically, that was probably the one thing I would do differently. I think there’s definitely a need for the student spaces levy or a form of it, some way to solve deferred maintenance, even though it should be the university’s responsibility in the end. But students need to have good student spaces and need to have washrooms that work, or elevators that work, and that kind of thing.
But outside of that, I think she’s done a lot of good work and I wouldn’t really do anything differently.
The SU opened their new catering kitchen in SUB this year. If elected, what would you do to expand or promote Horowitz catering?
Statt: Two options I think would be really great is the Campus Saint-Jean, [which] obviously has had a catering problem. They are looking to be a student-run catering [operation] next year. I think a really great opportunity for the SU would be providing catering, using our catering kitchen at a very low, affordable, consistent price and quality to Campus Saint-Jean.
The other one, this one has very much under development, but possibly looking at the Marina [Food Court] over at Lister. I know the Marina also had a number of issues. I understand there is currently a contract in place that will have to be reworked, but that is another really good opportunity for catering because I think the strength for catering is affordability for student groups, for events, for different eateries across campus, and consistency of quality.
Joke question: If you could add one new item to the menu at Room at the Top or Dewey’s, what would it be?
Statt: Milkshakes. Chocolate milkshakes. In fact, triple, quadruple chocolate milkshakes. They need milkshakes.
