Most students wouldn’t notice the work St. Thomas University Students’ Union president Megan Thomson is proudest of.
It’s behind-the-scenes work.
While not finished, she thinks the strategic plan is probably the crown jewel of her time as union president.
“Anytime you can grab on to a little institutional memory and keep it for an additional year, it will benefit the organization,” Thomson said.
The basic idea is that future unions will be able to look back at previous unions and build upon what was already done.
“More information forthcoming,” Thomson said about the plan.
She said it’s something she wishes she had when she was starting her term as president.
But that seems to be what the fourth-year interdisciplinary-theatre-and-society-honours student is going for: building for the future.
Another major initiative from the union this year according to Thomson was trying to improve relations with organizations in and outside of the STU community.
She believes all branches of STU – the administration, student services, and the student’s union are the ones she names – are all working to make the school better, but just go about it differently.
Thomson said she tries to go into meetings with these organizations positively, so what might have been an argument turns out to be a conversation.
“We were invited to sit on the (finance budget committee),” said Thomson, noting this is the first time in the last few years this has happened. “That was the moment I realized the way we had been approaching the administration has direct positive results.”
While she said she never gets in fights with administration, she said she often disagrees with them. The nature of these disagreements Thomson said she could not discuss as they happened behind closed doors.
Thomson said her biggest regret as president came even before the year began.
And it’s not about using the copyrighted Lion King logo for welcome week, the misstep that most students probably remember. Thomson regrets not being in better communication with her councillors throughout the summer.
Sending reports over the summer is something she’s supposed to do, but never did.
“The entire situation was dealt with an eye roll,” Thomson said about the copyright mishap – it was handled seriously and the situation passed quickly. “I do feel really bad about (not sending reports) because I would have loved to communication to councillor in the summer.”
However, yet again, Thomson said reports were just a minor mistake and no longer-term damage resulted.
Thomson said she cannot discuss what she thinks the future holds for the union as she’s planning on running for re-election and doesn’t want to be seen as campaigning before the election.
What she did say however is that she wants to leave the union in a position that, whoever is president next year, he or she can pick up right where this year left off.
“We don’t want to lose momentum.”
