My Platform
My platform consists of three major goals for the MES: improving how positions are supported, advocating for more student input on faculty-level decisions and spearheading more interportfolio collaborations.
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Platform Point #1
Improve Support Within the Team
During my time on the MES, I have unfortunately seen individuals at every level of the MES, i.e. appointed positions, directors, VP’s and even at the President level, experience burnout - myself included. To me, this should not be the case. When you choose to join something and to pour yourself into something on top of doing an incredibly hard degree, you should feel supported to grow and find fulfillment in what you are doing. Ultimately, I want people to have a good time in spite of the challenges that may arise. This is something that I really believe in and why it is my first platform point. I want to improve the working culture within the MES to ensure that everyone feels supported. My strategy will be to address it at all levels but intentionally targeting the issue at the VP level. In this particular case, I believe in a top-down approach - by addressing how the people leading each portfolio are supported, those individuals will have a wider bandwidth to support their own teams. By improving how we support people on the MES, I believe this will have a positive impact on the overall functioning of the MES and in the services/events that we offer to the student body.
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How I plan on addressing this issue:
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I will transition myself on each portfolio so that I can better support the VP’s when they are needing support, guidance and advice.
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Each VP will be required to transition fully on at least one other portfolio.
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At the summer exec retreat, each outgoing VP will give a presentation to talk about each of their portfolios so that everyone has a baseline understanding of each portfolio’s inner workings and appointed positions.
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I will work with incoming and outgoing VP’s to optimize the workload and processes of each portfolio.
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This is something I started this year but I want to develop a framework for support plans for each VP (and myself). This would include different aspects of each portfolio and developing a plan in case if a VP needs additional support from the rest of the team to focus on school, other commitments, or if life gets in the way of them fulfilling their responsibilities
Platform Point #2
Increase Student Representation at the Faculty Level
During my time as VP Academic and dealing with the direct-entry admissions change proposal, I realized how little student representation there is on various faculty committees and in decision making at the faculty level. I have also come across on how difficult it is for any student to give their feedback and input on issues or on how things are done. If elected, I want to advocate for more students to be involved in the decisions being made at the faculty level. In the past few months, I’ve identified three areas where I feel need more student input and representation and what I will focus on primarily: at the undergraduate curriculum policy committee, in regards to the co-op office’s operations and for oversight of the execution of the direct-entry proposal if it gets approved.
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How I plan on accomplishing this goal:
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Advocating for more students at the undergraduate curriculum policy committee meetings. At these meetings, there is one student (VP Academic) overseeing all of these curriculum changes from each department. This does not make sense as the one student will not know the intricacies of each stream/department and can’t get feedback from other students in time as the changes tend to be released too late. I want to advocate for program society representation at these meetings.
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Advocating for more student input on the co-op office’s decisions regarding co-op and other aspects of the office’s operations.
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If the direct entry proposal gets approved, advocating for current student input and involvement in the planning and execution of it.
Platform Point #3
Increase Inter-Portfolio Collaboration
During my time as president, I want to encourage more inter-portfolio collaboration so that we can grow and expand the services and events that we offer to the student body. One current successful example of inter-portfolio collaboration that comes to mind is Back2School Week. This week involves people from four portfolios: student life, academic, internal and communications. I would love to see more things like this happen. My goal is to support my VP’s and give them the agency and creative freedom to execute their visions for this.
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How I plan to accomplish this goal:
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I will work with the VP team over the summer to come up with new projects that involve 2+ portfolios and following up with them throughout the year.