VPA candidate gave a strong showing at ISU forum, less so at CSJ

In the one-person race for vice-president (academic) (VPA) of the University of Alberta Students’ Union (SU), Susan Huseynova is still campaigning as if she has competitors to beat. Her first foray into her campaign was at the Indigenous Students’ Union (ISU) forum. There, she demonstrated that she has a solid basis for her campaign in her action-oriented approach. In a forum where many candidates shared their plans to “listen” to Indigenous voices, Huseynova shared her plans for actionable work she hopes to accomplish.

Having previously served as the VPA for the Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society (ISSS), Huseynova brings in some previous experience in a similar role. Her opening statement at the ISU forum was not particularly notable. This is because she stated much of what other candidates campaigning did. However, she shone during the ISU’s question period, where she showcased robust knowledge and provided some interesting ideas.

When asked how she plans to ensure faculty-specific Indigenous voices are meaningfully represented, Huseynova shared some solid ideas. She stated her plan is to work on restructuring parts of the Council of Faculty Associations (COFA) into a senate-like format. Another goal of hers is to ensure that Indigenous concerns are acted on. She plans to move forward with a public action tracker to keep students informed and to keep her accountable.

June Moon, the moderator for the ISU forum, asked Huseynova what steps she would take as VPA to advocate for Indigenous-led guidelines or training to prevent instructors from tokenizing and to create a culturally safe classroom environment for Indigenous students.

Huseynova pulled from her experiences of speaking with Indigenous students. She spoke about how many Indigenous students have been put in positions of having to correct instructors. They also have to deal with the colonial framing of subjects in their classes. She stated that she wants to ensure that Indigenous instructors lead any Indigenous course content being taught, or at least co-create it with Indigenous leaders. This has the potential to ensure credible and quality information if done well.

As she said herself, Huseynova isn’t reinventing the wheel in her campaign. However, she’s giving a strong effort and providing answers that show she has some knowledge and experience to back her up. From what she showed at the ISU forum, Huseynova definitely has the drive and commitment to be a good VPA.

Despite her strong start at the ISU forum, she did stumble a bit at the Campus Saint-Jean (CSJ) forum. The CSJ forum is meant to be a time for candidates to show how they’re going to support the francophone campus of the U of A, as it’s often underrepresented and forgotten. While her opening statement wasn’t bad, Huseynova did struggle to bring new and CSJ-specific ideas to the table.

She once again mentioned her plans to restructure COFA into a senate-like format as a way to help bridge the resource gap that CSJ faces. However, she has never addressed how she plans to restructure COFA. Restructuring a council consisting of executives from every faculty at the U of A seems like a big undertaking. It’s unclear if she can accomplish it within her term or if this is something that may run over the course of multiple VPAs. The initial idea is great, but the details on execution are fuzzy at best.

This also seemed to be one of the only concrete ideas Huseynova presented at the forum. The CSJ forum was shorter than the ISU’s. However, there was still enough time to showcase a prior understanding and knowledge of the issues that CSJ faces. She didn’t acknowledge any issues specific to CSJ students, or any solutions to them. In a bilingual country, French often feels like a forgotten language, especially in Alberta, and it’s a shame to see that there wasn’t more work put into making CSJ students feel like their VPA candidate has ideas for ways to make their academic lives more flexible and easier.

However, this is not to say that Huseynova is a bad candidate, it’s clear from her opening and closing statements that she does intend on giving CSJ the respect it deserves. She made it a point to emphasize the autonomy and identity of the campus and the students there, and that didn’t go unheard. Should she be elected, she’s made it clear that she plans on staying in contact with the Association des Universitaires de la Faculté Saint-Jean (AUFSJ) in an effort to best support them. But, others have promised the same in the past and failed to deliver.

Overall, Huseynova has done quite well for herself in her campaign. While there might be some stumbles here and there, it’s easy to be harsher on a candidate with no one to compare them to. While she does suffer from not having an official campaign platform released, her messaging at both the ISU and CSJ forums has remained consistent. She plans to build off of actionable ideas, listen to concerns, and follow through on her commitments. Overall, she seems to be a good candidate with a definite passion for making positive change in the academic lives of students.