Recap: Vice-president administration candidates promise increased transparency, new income

    By
    Jasmine Gidney
    -

    The St. Thomas University Students’ Union held the vice-president administration debate on Feb. 25. The two candidates, Tyrique Hamil and Matt Oram, talked about their platforms.

    The candidates and their platform

    Tyrique Hamil:

    Hamil is a third-year economics and international studies student. He has three main points for his platform, as summarized below:

    • Financial stability
      • He wants to increase the revenue of the Students’ Union without relying on student union fees by approaching businesses for sponsorship for the union programs or use the creation of the Economic Growth Council to generate revenue.
      • He wants to create the Economic and Growth Council to research or create sponsorship and business opportunities to prevent the increase of the student union fee and eventually reduce it.
      • He said he wants to create a plan to reduce students’ union fees through business or sponsorship venture funding.
    • Invest in mental health services
      • He said he wants to make mental health services accessible to students on and off-campus by creating a hotline or hiring on-call mental health specialist(s).
        • He wants to focus on making services available during times like weekends, holidays and nights.
        • He will use the Students’ Union’s funds to fund this.
    • Strengthen government practices
      • He wants to give select committees, along with the finance and governance committees, the ability to launch an investigation into malpractice performed by any member of the Students’ Union

    Matt Oram:

    Oram is a third-year student and the current vice-president administration for STUSU. On his Facebook page, Oram said he “developed a passion” for working on behalf of students and aiming to enhance the student experience.

    If re-elected, Oram said he wants to continue initiatives he began this year. He also wants to develop new initiatives surrounding the clubs and societies at STU, and initiatives surrounding students’ engagement with the Students’ Union.

    He has three main areas of focus, as listed below:

    • Enhance transparency of duties
      • He said he wants to create Instagram accounts for each of the STUSU executives so students can interact with them and stay updated on what they’re doing.
      • He wants to post weekly condensed reports of the vice-president administration’s activities on the STUSU website so students don’t have to rely on the SRC meetings or its minutes for information
      • He wants to expand the operational and governance information available to students by creating public, summarized reports of committees so students don’t have to rely on reading the SRC minutes
    • Support clubs and societies
      • He said he wants to make the clubs and societies page of the STUSU website more accessible to students
      • He wants to improve access to events, services and spaces by increasing student consultation
      • He wants to reform the Clubs and Societies executive training to make it effective
    • Magnify student engagement with the Student Union
      • He wants to make the STUSU committees accessible and appealing by creating a “centralized and simplified” application process.
      • He wants to maximize membership of committees by engaging with various school media sources, such as The Aquinian, to promote these committees.
      • He wants to ensure each committee member has the opportunity to participate in an effective and knowledgable manner by developping committee training

    Check out our livestream of the debate here.

    The debate: