Noor ChaudhryFor the fourth year in a row, the Board of Governors (BoG) representative position is uncontested in the 2024 Students’ Union (SU) elections. Adrien Lam, a fourth-year immunology student, is running for this position.
Adrien Lam
Lam has repeatedly emphasized the importance of making students’ voices heard throughout the campaign. It is re-assuring to know she understands her role, but her lack of original ideas does not make me feel confident in her abilities.
Throughout the forums, Lam has frequently brought up a survey platform she would create to connect with students, if elected. The platform would let students anonymously express their concerns, to which she would then convey to the BoG. It could also sort data based on factors such as race, faculty, campus, and more, if students chose to give this information. This idea isn’t bad, but there’s a lot about it that hasn’t been fully considered.
To me, her survey platform wouldn’t serve a purpose much different than SU Perks, which although well-known, doesn’t garner much response from students. Additionally, there could be negative implications of her survey platform, such as filtering submissions based on race. Often, Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC) are unfairly targeted or treated when race-specific policies are implemented. This filter could be a slippery slope to unintentional discrimination. When I asked about this, Lam offered little to no clarity. In the forums, Lam didn’t explain what she would do with the data she gathered beyond a generic blanket statement, saying she’d bring the numbers to the BoG.
I feel that this lack of full consideration would be more acceptable if Lam had a more extensive platform, but this isn’t the case. Lam’s platform has three points: creating an anonymous survey platform, boosting student traffic and engagement, and supporting international students. While she has quite extensively talked about the survey, she hasn’t presented any other ideas for student engagement. She hardly touched on international student issues, even at the International Students’ Association (ISA) forum. I would have liked to see Lam expand on all her platform points, not just the one.
I think Lam would have been a stronger candidate if she had put the same amount of creativity she put in the survey into other aspects of her platform. She might have potential, but ultimately, she let me down.
Who should win, and who will win?
I think the student body will vote for Lam. As the race is uncontested, the only options are Lam or none of the above. It would take a really poor candidate for students to vote against an uncontested race, and that isn’t Lam. Additionally, while her ideas might be less enticing to students on North Campus, her virtual survey platform would be a good way for students at Augustana and Campus Saint-Jean (CSJ) to connect with the SU. While she might not have had a big splash at North Campus, I think the virtual survey platform could garner a reasonable amount of support for Lam from the satellite campuses.
I wished for either a stronger candidate, or a more robust campaign from Lam. However, I do think she deserves a chance to prove herself. While I’m not crazy about the campaign she ran, she brought a lot of enthusiasm with her. If she puts as much effort into the role as she has in her campaign, she might represent students fairly in the end. Regardless, I think Lam is worth gambling on. Unrefined representation is better than no representation at all.
