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It was probably the least-climactic announcement ever, thanks to an early slide projection announcing Adam Fearnall as the USC president-elect before the actual announcement was made, leading to confused glances and delayed, awkward cheering from Fearnall’s entire team.
He’s in there…somewhere
But, to be fair, this entire elections race was one of the more dramatic in recent years, filled with demerits, a hacker, an invalidation, a blackout and a re-vote. What better way to end it all than with a mistake leading to an awkward, slow realization about what exactly just happened?
Congratulations to Adam—he kept a positive attitude amid all the drama of the past few weeks and pledged to continue to work hard to win votes no matter how many times he had to campaign and clearly it paid off—he came out on top, beating second-place Jon Silver by about 1,000 votes. Next followed Logan, with Claire trailing behind. Surrounded by friends, family—even his grandparents—Fearnall was clearly elated by his new job position.
Unfortunately, because of the circumstances of the election, there may always be an asterisk beside Adam’s win in the eyes of some students. It’s a shame and one that was all but unavoidable the second our most famous former Western student, Keith Horwood, decided to type “Bieber” on the elections site.
Along with the presidential win, of note are the two referendums that were readily passed, granted more medical coverage and a long-awaited undergraduate dental plan. Though overlooked under the shadow of the nail-biting presidential race, these wins signify an important move forward for student coverage that shouldn’t be swept aside.
After a long—and I mean long—campaign race, it’s nice to finally have a president-elect. Whether you’re happy, frustrated, or indifferent about the results, you have to admit it’s nice that it’s finally over.
It’s February 28. Reading week is over, students are back on campus and scrambling to get back on track before St. Patty’s day. In any other year, I would most certainly not be writing a post about elections—but here we are. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the basics are that the USC vote website got hacked, the results were deemed invalid, and there is now going to be a re-vote—this week actually, with voting starting tonight at midnight and closing Thursday at 8 p.m.
Oh, and in the meantime the hacker has come forward and is likely going to be criminallycharged, but that’s old news now.
Remember these guys? Me neither.
In fact, this whole election is pretty much old news now, and that’s a shame. After a record-setting voter turnout (over 10,000 votes cast), the revote is unlikely to yield more than a handful of votes, mostly from ardent supporters, USC insiders and, well, the Gazette staff. But I’m not sure I can really blame students for not voting a second time. It’s not that it takes a lot of effort to click a button on a website (how often do you like something on Facebook a day? It’s literally that easy to vote), but it does take a lot of effort to get informed, get excited and feel like your vote counts for something. When that all goes down the drain, and then you go drink your face off in Cancun for a week, it’s really hard to reignite the political fire.
Our four candidates have returned from a break and a blackout with significantly less fervour, but still encouraging votes. Claire tweeted “Remember the Bear. Remember to #voteclaire. But do you remember why? #voteusc.” A fair question, especially considering most students would have to answer “no, not really.” Jon has mostly been retweeting supporters, although he came out of the gates with a more chipper attitude than his initial reaction to the revote, tweeting “Long Jon Silver – ready to sail the 7 seas again! #allaboard#votejonsilver.”
Logan tweeted “Have your voice be heard again. Re-vote tonight at midnight#lovelogan,” and also retweeted support from followers.
Adam has been following a similar strategy, but accompanied it with a blog post he penned on his personal blog that urged voters to look at each candidates’ reaction to the hack as an indication of their character. I’ll leave it up to you to guess whom he was referring to with the line “I knew how the rest of my team would react to the news. No one was going to cry, no one was going to break down and no one was going to go on an angry tirade because, surprise, USC Presidential elections should not and do not define people as individuals.” Hmm…
So that’s where we are now. If you’re reading this blog, I’m hoping you have at least the slightest interest in this election and so I urge you to revote. Yes, it sucks that the site got hacked. Yes, it sucks that we’re still talking about this election almost two weeks after it was supposed to be over. But try to suck it up, log on and cast your vote one (hopefully) last time. Hey, at least no one robocalled you.
I wish “Financially Mistaken with Jen Valadao” was as publicized as “Politically Incorrect with Andrew Forgione.” Big Purple Couch had the vice-president finance of the University Students’ Council take the candidates to task with the help of the rest of the executive. You can read the full passage here.
It’s rare for VPs or current USC members to speak out against candidates platforms, so this is a change and a treat. Many managers are reluctant to mention their future bosses’ ideas aren’t feasible in the future of the USC, and the VPs typically want to look impartial. This is a unique look into what the realities of the candidates’ platforms actually will mean for the organization. It also gives students who aren’t involved with the day-to-day life of the organisation the oppourtunity to look inside.
While not every point is covered, it does give a fairly accurate view of what the candidates could accomplish in the next year. While I would recommend reading the whole document, below is a breakdown of what what said about each candidate, in regards to the favourite campus hang outs, the Spoke and Wave.
Valadao notes candidates really shouldn’t touch the Spoke and Wave. Adam Fearnall’s “sushi Wednesdays” came under fire as being too costly, because it would require purchasing many perishable ingredients, and even having the sushi outsourced has a high per-unit price. His “Home cooked menu” also takes some heat for the extra training and printing costs associated with the monthly change to the menu. As an example, printing costs about $1000 for each time the menu changes.
Logan Ross’ student discounts at the Wave “would be disastrous for the Spoke or the Wave” if discounts were offered every week to every student. Valadao notes the extending the current Monday night 15 per cent club discount to everyone would cost $900 a week.
Jon Silver’s “starving student burger” could be potentially feasible, but if it is being offered at cost, and the burger is popular, the increased labour costs could harm the operations.
The only candidate whose Spoke platform doesn’t take some heat is Claire McArthur’s. Her jukebox in the Spoke was actually researched by the current executive to be the jukebox in the Lounge. The only problem, however, is her changes to the midnight breakfast are changes to a platform point which was “extremely expensive to execute.” The project could cost $10,000 in the future, with the cost of food and staff.
There’s no better way to start your day than to see the University Students’ Council presidential candidates compete in silly, hilarious tasks. We had a lot of fun at the Gazette office as we put the contestants through seven grueling challenges. Let’s recap how they did.
The quiz
Winner: Jon Silver
The quiz was a hard one, which seems obvious in retrospect considering Silver won with only 58.7 per cent. Some of the surprises included Adam and Jon both getting the number of student senators wrong. My personal favourite part was that all but one candidate didn’t know the year the Gazette was founded, although in fairness it only appears on the front page of every issue.
Twitter contest
Winner: Adam Fearnall
Our social media throw-in, where the candidates had to tweet that they really wanted a coffee, and whoever was brought one first, won. A few fun facts here—Adam actually had two teas brought, proving that he has the loyalest band of Twitter followers. Logan was brought one after Adam, which would signify that she has the busiest followers. Jon’s followers apparently would do anything for him short of providing hot beverages, which is weird because I’ve seen his campaign manager serving him lunch on occasion. Claire chose to abstain from the contest, not wanting to impose on any of her followers. A bold strategy, but it really hurt her chances in this one.
Twister
Winner: All (so nobody)
I normally try to fill these blogs with criticism, but all the contestants impressed me here. The candidates really showed their flexibility, resourcefulness, interpersonal skills and perseverance on this challenge. Even when we told them to put one leg in the air, everybody stayed up, although Adam nearly went down after Claire “accidentally” kicked him in the chest. When it became clear that we were pushing our time limit, we called the contest a tie. In retrospect, we could have made it a more interesting contest by tying the contestants’ shoelaces together, or throwing things at them.
Flip cup (with water, of course…)
Winner: Jon Silver
A confidential source told me after the challenge the Jon Silver was taught his flip cup skills by the Social Science soph team. I suppose it would explain the talent I saw on display—pacing, smooth hands, graceful flips. I was impressed, although I’m fairly sure I could have taken him. Adam was fairly close to winning, but a last minute stumble meant Jon got his flip off first. Claire and Logan performed admirably, but were each only on their second cups by the time the contest ended.
Lettuce eating
Winner: Claire McArthur
No surprises here. Claire is legendary for her lettuce ingestion skills, so she had a natural advantage in this one. Whereas all the other candidates were on the verge of vomiting, Claire seemed to be enjoying herself. Adam looked lost, like he didn’t even know his way around a head of lettuce. Jon seemed distracted, probably figuring out how to get past this challenge and destroy the rest of the skills competition. Kudos to Logan for coming in a solid second place on this one—I wouldn’t have predicted she would do that well. I suppose she once again proved she’s more than “Little Logan.”
Super Smash Bros. (N64)
Winner: Jon Silver
The original plan was Mario Kart, but playing that game leads to levels of swearing that would be inappropriate to hear from presidential candidates. So we decided to go with the other game that defined the childhood of every ’90s kid. Jon’s Captain Falcon triumphed over Logan’s DK, Adam’s Yoshi and Claire’s Kirby. Adam seemed to be doing well to start, until he was eliminated first. After that, Jon seemed to be in total control, although that was to be expected when we had to explain the controls to Logan and Claire during the game.
Book search race
Winner: Jon Silver
We finished off with a good, old-fashioned rat race. The rules were fairly straightforward—each candidate got the title of a certain book in Weldon library, all of which were located on the fifth floor. The first one to find it, check it out and bring it to the Gazette office won. Although it was nice to see the candidates motivated to run hard, I had to follow Jon Silver, who “didn’t trust the elevators, only his legs” to get him up to the fifth floor first. I didn’t take this job to run up stairs. Despite my breathlessness, I managed to keep up with Lightning Legs and we arrived first at the Gazette office. Claire arrived soon after—I was told she and Adam were in a dead heat until Adam took a wrong turn. Happens to the best of us, I suppose, although I wonder why he didn’t simply follow her. Logan was unable to get her book, possibly because I chose one from the top shelf of the stack.
Overall Winner: Jon Silver
Congratulations to Jon for taking four of the seven contests. The other three performed well, and I’m still laughing every time I think of them playing Twister.
The relationship between the press and government is often a strenuous one. At best, things remain amicable with a distinct air of mistrust and obligation. At worst, a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred is directed from one party towards a particular media outlet (see: Rob Ford’s relationship with the Toronto Star). Thus, it was with great pleasure that the Gazette held its annual media forum with the presidential candidates yesterday.
Fortunately, no bridges were burned (as of yet). In fact, the consensus by the editorial board was that, all things considered, the event had gone fairly well. Indeed, perhaps the most talked-about topic for us was Logan Ross.
At last week’s USC presidential debate, Ross, as expected, emerged very much as an inexperienced underdog delivering empty statements. But yesterday, it was like seeing a completely different person. No longer a timid third-year featuring blumpkins in her campaign video, Ross gave seasoned USC candidate Jon Silver a run for his money on many of the questions, leaving us with the collective thought that she might actually win this thing—if Silver and Fearnall split votes.
But no candidate was perfect. Ross was faulted on her proposed “Lunch with Logan” and how it resembled past president Tom Stevenson’s “Tea with Tom,” Silver failed to deeply address how he would fund an increase in academic counselling at Western, McArthur acknowledged she hadn’t been to a single educational speakers’ event at Western in the past year, and Fearnall stressed the importance of a student fee-funded shuttle to London International Airport. I’m sorry, but I don’t think enough students are flying home every weekend to justify spending money on this—and if there are enough students doing this, I’d prefer my money not go towards helping a bunch of rich kids get to Punta Cana.
Another interesting portion of the debate was that, when asked their thoughts about the student-funded executive retreat, most of the candidates said they believed the $14,500 trip to North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida wasn’t worth it— but they didn’t seem to be willing to completely give it up either, should they be elected. Silver came off the best with this question, noting the traditions book proposed by Andrew Forgione and his executive had failed to manifest, and that he didn’t feel students should be footing the bill for food for the executive council while on these retreats.
For us, things grew even more interesting when it came to pointed questions about how the candidates viewed campus media. Sadly, it seemed social media such as Twitter and Facebook were deemed to be more important than our beloved newspaper. Additionally, our website came under attack. Here, the Gazette wholeheartedly agreed. Our website could be way better. In fact, we would love nothing more than to renovate it. But unlike the USC, which has spent over $30,000 on recent website redesigns (which arguably have made their website less functional than ever), we have a budget for our website that can be measured in pennies.
Towards the end of the debate, we turned to students for questions, and pitted candidates against each other.
Ryan Durgy, the student behind Rewd.ca, asked candidates what they thought of the Gazette censoring a student’s death earlier in the year.
Point of information—the death in question was initially broadcasted by the university as a death due to a sudden illness. Additionally, the student did not die in London, nor was she from London. Refraining from publishing gossip and hearsay on highly sensitive matters with little ties to Western is not censorship—it’s an autonomous decision to preserve journalistic integrity. All candidates responded to this question respectfully and thoughtfully.
Giving credit where credit is due, overall, the Gazette was impressed with all candidates and hopes not to receive any press release blackouts from the candidates.
We’re now one week into the campaign trail and, to be honest, it’s been more of the same. There has been good and bad in the videos, the platforms and the debates, but none of the candidates have struck me as a game changer. In fact, one of the weirdly pervasive messages so far has been that the University Students’ Council is doing a great job and doesn’t need to change much.
I realize that this is student government, which has very little power to effect change and on its best day is an annoying voice in the ear of administration. However, I find myself somewhat bored by this batch of candidates, all of whom are thinking very alike.
We get it, candidates—you want to make the student experience as awesome as possible and provide as many little benefits to students as possible. You want to increase USC services and make the whole world more accessible. I’m bored.
Here’s what I’m would love to see from a candidate who wants to turn heads.
Somebody who doesn’t care about reaching out to students.
Let’s get this out of the way first. I’m not talking about a candidate who doesn’t value student opinion, which is just bad democracy. I’m talking about somebody who is willing to accept that outside of a dedicated few, most students don’t care about their student government, and that’s perfectly fine! Not everybody has to care about Access Copyright or mental health. People are only here for about four years, and between schoolwork and their own personal lives it really doesn’t matter to them what the USC president does. I want a candidate who doesn’t try and pretend they’re just like other students. I want somebody who will say, “I know this stuff, I care about it, and you don’t. Just elect me and I will do a great job.” I think if regular students want to give their input, there are more than enough avenues to do so. But stop trying to bring student issues where they’re not wanted or needed. There’s no need to “bring the USC down from the third floor.” Most people don’t understand what that means and there’s a great reason for that.
A student representative who does just that.
For all the platform points a candidate has, the president is not the one who is responsible for enacting them. That job falls to the vice-presidents during the year. The main thing I think a president has to be able to do is deal with administration. Now this relationship is not usually dramatic. Students and administration don’t clash on too many things, mostly because they either agree or an issue is not something that is dealt with by both sides. However, there are going to be those times where the president needs to go head-to-head with administration on a contentious issue, and in that case they had better know what they’re doing. The administration representatives do their job for years, compared to USC executives who have one-year terms. Any president going in not only has to know what few powers the student side possesses, but they have to be willing to use it. Too much of the time, presidents want to maintain a good relationship and therefore don’t push where they need to. Of course, sometimes you get the type of president I’m looking for. I believed one of last year’s candidates once called that type, “a little bit nuts.”
Somebody who actually understands the USC
This one is vague, but I want to see a candidate who looks at the USC and sees it for what it can be, not what they wish it was. I don’t want a candidate to play it safe and makes their main campaign promise more chairs in the Mustang Lounge, nor do I want a blatant lie about how the candidate will bring about free tuition. I want somebody who is willing to acknowledge that the USC is not a powerful organization, but at the same time somebody is willing to use what power they do have to its fullest extent.
So there you go, candidates. You now know what you have to do to get exactly one vote. Or you can stick with the traditional formula and get a few thousand.
The candidates for the University Students’ Council presidential elections had their second official public appearance today, when they were interviewed in the Spoke for The Big Purple Couch.
The hosts interviewed each candidate separately for about 15 minutes. The format was more casual than last night’s debate, allowing the candidates more time to speak. Despite the more laid-back atmosphere, they mostly expanded on themes brought up in the debate.
Logan Ross came on stage first and appeared very much at ease. She continued on her somewhat risky path of drawing attention to her shortfalls—it was clear during the debate last night that she wanted to portray her lack of direct involvement in the USC as a strength, rather than a weakness.
At first I wasn’t convinced this would work—why try to sugar-coat your shortcomings rather than promote your assets?—but after the BPC interview, I think Logan might be able to actually make this work in her favour.
For example, some have questioned Logan’s plan to update her platform mid-campaign, saying it makes her look indecisive. But, as she clarified for BPC, “I can’t know every student’s concern before the campaign period.” She said her platform is feasible and won’t be changed completely—perhaps “adjusted” would have been a better word.
And again, she pushed her lack of direct involvement with the USC as a plus, saying she had “grassroots appeal.” I can see the tactic working now that Logan seems more comfortable in the campaign, but it remains to be seen whether voters will bite, or go with a more experienced (safer?) choice.
Jon Silver was next up, though unfortunately I missed the first few minutes of his interview—I briefly left the Spoke to follow what appeared to be an encore to yesterday’s protest.
When I returned, Jon was talking up his platform point of introducing a “Spoke Brew,” modelled after the infamous beer brewed in-house at the Ceeps. “Everyone loves Ceeps Brew,” he said as I sat down—hang on now, Jon, let’s not say things we can’t take back. I admit I’m intrigued by this idea, but I just don’t see how brewing beer with student fees could ever get off the ground [Update: I've been informed that Silver only plans to buy beer, and brand it as Spoke Brew].
Contrary to Logan, when asked to differentiate himself from Adam Fearnall, Jon pushed his extensive experience at various levels of student government. He claimed his experience was “much more well-rounded” than Fearnall’s, which is arguably true.
But while Jon continues to push his experience and impressive knowledge of the USC, is it possible he’s alienating some voters? It’s obvious that the average student knows far less about student government than Silver, and he might risk turning them in favour of Logan or Claire, the “average student” candidates.
To her credit, Claire defended her somewhat-criticized use of pop culture references in last night’s debate (she referenced four TV shows and a celebrity breakup, each in a separate answer), by saying she thought it was important to stay light-hearted in order to engage students, and even made another—this time to Napoleon Dynamite. She has a point—I’ll concede that some of those marathon five-hour council meetings could have gone by a lot quicker with some comic relief.
Though she answered questions directly for the most part, Claire continued to seem the least comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. Her answers tended to ramble and lack focus. However, as far as I can tell, Claire McArthur has more enthusiasm than any other candidate in this race. But how far will that take her?
Adam Fearnallis in his element in front of a crowd. Maybe it’s all that time he’s spent sitting in front of the USC as the speaker this year, but he seems to exude confidence when speaking to an audience.
At the same time, though, this confidence might be off-putting to some, crossing the line to insincere. Good politicians are great speakers, after all, and who’s ever heard of a sincere politician?
Adam defended his platform point for an interest credit for students, which was criticized as unfeasible by Jon Silver in last night’s debate—Silver said the credit would allow for far too many possible combinations to be researched, putting undue strain on an already struggling counselling system. Adam pointed out, however, that a similar system has already been implemented at other schools including McGill and Harvard (after all, Western is aiming to evoke Harvard-style prestige with their new branding), and said critics were just afraid of “big ideas” like this one.
When discussing his platform point to update the CHRW recording studio, Adam did drop one interesting nugget—reportedly he is working on an album of his own right now. Maybe it’s just part of one of his almost-too-well-rehearsed stories, but that’s something I want to hear.
The University Students’ Council presidential debate was held in front of a full house in the Mustang Lounge Wednesday night. #voteusc became a Twitter trending topic, and the tweets were shown next to the stage using a live feed.
At the debate councillors asked the candidates general questions which were answered by the candidates with a time cap of two minutes. There was no clear winner of the debate, as each candidate had their own strengths and weaknesses in the group setting. Below is a review of how the candidates handled the crowd—but first, a tip from someone who’s been to a couple of these before.
First thing’s first—candidates need to know their audience. USC councillors know their stuff, so don’t try to fool them. This gang know what the finances of the USC are and what’s feasible. Some of them are idealistic, and some are jaded—but all of them care about this organization and the students it oversees. Many of these students are already on campaign teams as well. What I’m trying to say is these friendly looking people pack a bit of a bite, and know where to place it. There’s a time and a place to talk about warm fuzzy things, but this place is about the issues.
Claire McArthur attempted to make her points using frequent television analogies. Which would have been great if her audience had watched as much TV as she does. And if they didn’t have access to Twitter to pick on her.
She threw her “real student” pitch well. She frequently mentioned things like her finances and her parents. McArthur also showed a more than passing knowledge of the USC, mentioning things like the presidential initiative fund and her meetings with several managers. The knowledge of the USC came as a bit of a surprise.
Her weakness, on the other hand, was her rambling responses, and the fact that she didn’t always answer the question. For example, when she was asked about changing the USC’s brand to reflect the university’s, she explained how much she loved the school and quoted Shakespeare. She also appeared confused on initiatives which were already in place. She explained the USC should have monthly meetings with administration—the president currently has regular meetings with several key members of administration, and sits on several committees which feature key members.
Logan Ross seemed underwhelming during the debate. She avoided several questions and appeared unsure for several as well.
She frequently praised the current council, saying she would continue the peer phone line and supporting the current council’s habit of sending out surveys. Ross aimed small and relatively feasible with her platform, which she could have highlighted more in the debate. For example, she mentioned she would lobby for recycling to be a higher priority on campus, but failed to mention how this would actually happen.
Ross has learned to use her lack of experience to her advantage, however. She explained how she would be able to stay in touch with students after becoming president, and also noted her desire to continue using the tools of the current USC, such as Facebook, to communicate. She also explained being a student at large allowed her to critique it, and make it more accessible. She mentioned having town hall style meetings, because students at large cannot currently speak at USC meetings.
Jon Silver clearly showed he was at ease with the crowd and knew what he was talking about. He frequently mentioned specific people who he has spoken with, showing his knowledge of the organisation.
Jon Silver spent a good chunk of his answers praising past executives. He praised past vice-presidents of university affairs for their lobbying work, because it takes so long to make the university move on an issue, for example. He also frequently dropped his extensive USC knowledge, including a shout out to former president Fab Dolan, who tried to sue the university.
Silver mentioned he would trust his managers and his team, frequently mentioning he “was not the expert.” While this is true, it sometimes undermined the point he was trying to make. For example, he mentioned when choosing to offer a new service, he would consult with partners in the community so the service would be feasible. This is the smartest idea when you’re in the president’s chair, however to the average student it may sound like an excuse.
Adam Fearnall let his experience shine this meeting. He often highlighted his role as Huron University College Students’ Council president. He noted this was a similar position to what he was going for as USC president. He neglected to mention some of his main campus USC experience however, which may lead students to think of him as “the Huron kid,” and not a Western student. This also meant he failed to share some of the USC knowledge he currently has.
Fearnall came off as one of the most approachable candidates during the debate. He openly admitted when he did not necessarily know the answer to a particular question. He frequently told stories about his peers and his Grade 1 self, making it sound as if he has actually spent some time with students. This also included acknowledging that many students were involved at Western, just not in the USC.
The USC presidential candidates’ videos launched last night at 12:01 a.m. and have since wracked up several thousand views (err, well, most of them). A large chunk of the view counts are likely from the Gazette editorial board who watched, re-watched, critiqued and discussed each video meticulously. Tonight, the news team sat down to finally hash out what we thought of each of them. Here’s what we had to say:
Adam Fearnall
Fearnall’s take on the viral video Move by Rick Mereki might not have been so apparent if he had been the only candidate who was inspired by the video style (more on that later). At 3,250 views at the time of our evening pow-wow, Fearnall’s video was the second-most popular of the four, which could be a nod to the high-quality editing of the video, the fairly strong message and “the sneeze.” His message—basically that Western students are great and he can represent us—may be vague and rhetorical, but at least the video has a message at all. It doesn’t say much about his platform or experience, but it does show him connecting with real students and the fun, lively side of student life, which at the end of the day really is in the USC president’s portfolio. The cameo by Rick McGhie pre-hip-surgery doesn’t hurt, and the variety of shots was appreciated—however our news team felt the lift at the end was a little too monarchical, rather than presidential.
Claire McArthur
Unfortunately, McArthur’s video didn’t go over as well with our news team. While we appreciated the decent quality of the video, the effectively catchy song choice and the fact that she was trying to demonstrate her fun side by connecting with students, the video fell short. It came across more as McArthur trying to convince her voters that she is more popular and has more fun than them. The main message of the video seemed to be “look at me, look at me” with nearly two and a half minutes of McArthur laughing, high-fiving, hanging out in Conron Hall and eating a raw head of lettuce (as all typical Western students do). The video concludes with her living it up at a bar, in true Premier Life fashion. At the end, our news team felt we all deserved more than this video.
Logan Ross
Ross’ video was cute but underwhelming. With only 1,038 views at the time of our critique, it was the lowest-viewed video of the bunch—by a few thousand views. Looking at the video, it’s not surprising why—the rant portion tipped the video way beyond an acceptable viewing length, was poorly-lit and fell flat. While we were impressed that Ross presented actual platform points in her video—the only candidate to do so—and was humble and honest about her lack of experience, the overall message got lost. What we did learn from the video is that Ross has friends who are on exchange, likes a lot of stuff about Western that has nothing to do with the USC (exchange program, Rick Mercer’s visit) and seems to be Andrew Forgione’s biggest fan. Although she claims that being a student is the only requirement for being a great USC president, after watching this video, we think it may take a bit more than that.
Jon Silver
The concept for Silver’s video was good—unfortunately Adam Fearnall did it better. The longer cuts and slower pace hurt the overall feel of the video, especially when juxtaposed next to Fearnall’s quick cuts and upbeat pacing. There were some appreciated cameos, including one of the Gazette itself, but these likely went unnoticed by the average student, who more likely only noticed the nod to Ceeps. And while the overall quality of the video was crisp and well-edited, there wasn’t really any message—at all. In fact, there wasn’t even a word of dialogue. At 4,305 views, it was the most popular video of the bunch, but overall our news team felt it was too safe and lacked any real substance. All of this might not be as noticeable had two candidates not done essentially the same video. That, and he wasn’t wearing a coat outside in the winter—we like common sense in our USC presidents.
Your Say
Now, we want to know what you think of the videos. Leave a comment below and vote in our poll for which video you liked the best:
It’s officially that time of year again. Tonight, to a crowd of about six—including their own campaign teams, the Gazette and BPC—four candidates officially announced they are running for USC president.
Two guys and two girls, each with different backgrounds and levels of involvement with the USC, should make for an interesting campaign race. Here’s a quick breakdown of the candidates at first glance:
Adam Fearnall
Continuing the trend started by Omid last year, the USC’s speaker is throwing his hat in the ring this year. Holding a more visible role on council (i.e., sitting at the front of the room every council meeting) could be an advantage, although history shows it’s not enough alone to win an election. But this kid already has a presidential line: his previous positions have included president of the Huron University Students’ Council. His quiet, gentle demeanor betrays that this candidate is a force to be reckoned with.
Claire McArthur
Beaming from the weekly galleries of Premier Life, you may already recognize this vivacious bundle of energy. A Twitter aficionado, with over 3,000 tweets under her belt, McArthur obviously has a lot to say. It will be interesting to watch how her social media campaign shakes down—expect fun videos and outrageous tweets. But she has a serious side too, she’s also an active social science soph eager to make the leap to the head of the pack.
Logan Ross
A third-year science student and current science soph, Ross doesn’t have a huge presence on campus or a ton of experience under her belt. She may seem like the underdog with her quiet presence, but often these types of candidates can surprise us early—or late—in the race and suddenly surge to the top. I wish I had more to write about Ross, but unfortunately there’s not much else to say. Somehow I expect that to change very soon.
Jon Silver
As student representative for the Board of Governors—a two-year tenure—Silver regularly rubs elbows with university elites, including the big C, Amit Chakma, and his worship Joe Fontana. This should mean he’s comfortable working with and representing students with higher-ups. He’s outgoing and well-dressed, with a Forgione-esque way of making you feel like you’ve been friends for years, which as we’ve seen before can be powerful tools in an election where many of the voters have never heard of any of their candidates before they saw their photo in the Gazette.
On Wednesday night, councillors gathered in the newly-dubbed Mustang Lounge to discuss the University Students’ Council next three-year Strategic Plan.
“Welcome to the Academy Awards,” Adam Fearnall, speaker of council, quipped once all had assembled, gesturing to the twinkling light curtain that hung behind him.
Strategic plans are basically a “Where do we see ourselves in three years?” Councillors spout out suggestions, research is conducted, and in the end the plan is created. The new plan will be the fourth of its kind—2002 saw the creation of “From Gauntlet to Stairway,” followed by “Built to Lead” in 2006 and “Vision to Lead” in 2009.
The meeting kicked off with President Andrew Forgione (sporting a maturing moustache), vice-president campus issues Marissa Joffre and vice-president university affairs Patrick Searle discussing the importance of the plan, followed by a flashy video to the tune of the 1990s hit “Praise You.”
Interesting fact from the video—apparently the USC, founded in 1965, “built” the Gazette. Not like our slogan is “Since 1906” or anything. Maybe the USC should hire a fact-checking intern, in addition to the Food and Beverages intern?
But it turns out the new plan doesn’t actually exist yet, nor has it been named—although Forgione suggested the title of “Forging Forward.”
Instead the meeting evolved into more of a recruitment session for volunteers to conduct a student survey in off-campus neighbourhoods.
On the afternoon of Saturday, November 26 councillors will go door-to-door in student neighbourhoods handing out surveys to the unfortunate ones who happen to be at home. Oh, and they’ll have a chance to win an iPad if they fill out the survey.
Forgione noted they hope for a 35 per cent feedback rate, and will focus on targeting the student demographic that doesn’t vote in USC elections.
With the formal portion of the evening over after only 15 minutes, the floor was opened for questions from councillors.
Alex Lu, accessibility commissioner, asked Searle how they would distinguish student housing from non-student housing.
“This will be a great opportunity to meet our neighbours,” Searle laughed, indicating they wouldn’t be able to differentiate between houses.
After questions from all the usual councillors—Stephanie Sugar, Andrew Shaw, Laurence Batmazian and Neha Chandrachud—Jonathon Silver, charity orientation commissioner, asked the question on everyone’s mind—how much will the survey cost?
The answer? $5,000, according to the executive.
The money will come from the USC’s contingency fund, or “rainy day money” as they explained it.
Still, while $5,000 may seem like mere pennies in the grand scheme of the USC budget, it’s still $5,000 being spent on a “harvest lunch” for volunteers, and T-shirts and scarves.
Is anyone really going to question a councillor’s authenticity and refuse to fill out a survey if they aren’t wearing a special t-shirt and scarf? No. The general student population knows no one besides councillors would bother giving up their Saturday afternoon to help circulate a student survey.
Although, maybe this will be a new disguise for the laptop bandit breaking into student houses.
The survey will formally launch on November 14, so stay tuned if you’re abnormally keen to fill it out.
I was already planning to attend the University Affairs standing committee last night. It wasn’t because of Pat Searle’s expressed enthusiasm over the Access Copyright discussion, or because Jon Silver has this strange habit of making Gazette members feel like welcome, wanted participants at standing committee meetings, rather than “those scary journalists who take notes in the back of the room.” No, the reason I wanted to go to this meeting came from a brief mention at the last USC meeting of a “third party” requesting “funds” that was passed to the UA committee. Sounds juicy.
The “third party,” Big Brothers and Big Sisters of London and Area, kicked off the meeting with a presentation about all the good they do in the community and a request the USC put a referendum to students asking for a $2.00 levy on their student fees to help support this organization.
Wait a minute. Haven’t we been here before?
I wasn’t the only one suffering from déjà vu. After thanking BBBSOLA for their time, the committee started discussing the moral implications of the USC even posing such a referendum. The same moral implications the USC wrestled with during the SRP referendum debacle.
But, didn’t we already deal with this? Turns out a motion for a change to the bylaws outlining specific procedures for third-party groups seeking referenda was passed at the first council meeting of the year on March 30. The changes were sent to the bylaw committee and then…nothing. UA agreed Silver should talk to the by-law committee to get an update on the changes, since yes, we did already deal with this.
After that was sorted out, the other big news was indeed Access Copyright. It’s a complicated situation that’s difficult to slog through in any medium, and this post is definitely not the place. As a general synopsis, Access Copyright is a group which acts as a middle man between post-secondary institutions and publishers. Over the past year, changes in their fees have caused many post-secondary schools to end their affiliation with the group and seek other ways to gain copyrighted materials. So far, Western hasn’t opted out, but they have made changes in the fee they collect from students and are waiting for Access Copyright to finalize some decisions before they know how much money they owe.
For details and updates on the intricacies of the university’s contract and user fees, stay tuned to the Gazette news section where they will be keeping an eye on the situation and breaking it all down.
Or talk to Pat Searle. That’s not a joke, he’s done a lot of research and currently sits on a board representing you, the students, to work out what the school should do with regards to Access Copyright. Send your questions and concerns his way, he’s a veritable expert on this sticky situation.
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