Joshua StorieThe race for Vice-President (Student Life) has been tight since the beginning. All three candidates have lots of experience advocating for students living both off campus and in residence, are well-spoken, and have concrete ideas for how to improve campus life for everyone. No matter who wins the position on Thursday night, the portfolio will be in good hands.
Buzzwords abound every year in the VP (Student Life) race, and the ones you would expect to hear about are present in all three campaigns. Issues of mental health, sexual assault, and the rights of students living in residence have been raised at every forum, but for a change, each of the VPSL candidates presents at least a few concrete platform points on how to improve things in these areas.
All three candidates have similar platforms in regards to residence life: make it more affordable, strengthen residence associations, and support the newly reinstated Lister Hall Students’ Association (LHSA). Rabib Alam argues that providing housing bursaries for low-income students should be the priority, while Kyle Monda supports an evidence-based advocacy campaign to present to the Residence Budget Advisory Council in order to demonstrate the need for reduced rates. Ilya Ushakov suggests looking to the University of Calgary’s Students’ Union, which has frozen residence rates.
For students not living in residence, increasing awareness of student groups is a priority for both Monda and Ushakov. Both talk about creating a centralized calendar of events, while Monda focuses on implementing a “Student Group of the Week” and improving Bears Den (something that is long overdue). Alam talks specifically about increasing services and building community at Augustana and Campus St. Jean.
An important part of the portfolio is representing minorities on campus, which is something that each of the candidates appears to be quite passionate about, but this is the area in which Monda sets himself apart. By advocating for specific, achievable goals like providing Peer Support services in other languages, consulting Indigenous students on how to specifically tailor health and wellness services to their needs, and ensuring that every building on campus has a gender neutral washroom, Monda shows how detail-oriented his platform is in comparison to his opposition. Alam highlights the importance of addressing Islamophobia and racism on campus, but provides only a proposal for a week-long anti-discrimination event as a solution.
In regards to sexual assault, Monda provides less satisfying answers. While Monda simply reiterates the importance of following through with the SU’s sexual violence policy and the University’s sexual assault report, Alam’s platform centres around getting student athletes, as well as members of the U of A faculty, involved in consent education, and conversations about masculinity and rape culture — an idea that, while perhaps unlikely to be implemented in full force, shows that Alam is ready to take initiative to address sexual assault on campus. Ushakov, for his part, talks a lot about acting “proactively” as opposed to “reactively,” but fails to provide any concrete proposal for increasing consent awareness.
Although he does have a strong background of advocating for students, Ushakov’s tendency to spout buzzwords without backing them up with a plan suggests that if he wants the position, he’ll have to heavily mobilize the Lister vote. What this race really comes down to is a battle between Alam and Monda. I think Alam is the kind of guy who would be receptive to student feedback, and who will hit the ground running should he win, but the thought that Monda has put into his platform, and the clear compassion he has for all kinds of students on this campus, has earned him my vote.
