The St. Thomas University Students’ Union hosted a vice-president student life and vice-president administration debates in advance of the spring election set for March 8.
Alex Nguyen is the only candidate for STUSU’s vice-president administration position while Victoria Young is STUSU’s only candidate for the vice-president student life position.
Vice-president administration
Nguyen is a second-year political science student at STU from Vietnam and the international representative for STUSU.
Her summarized debate points are:
- She said she wants to go digital and place QR codes around campus to ensure easy access to information about clubs and societies to connect students online and offline.
- She said she wants to add a frequently asked questions page to the STUSU website for students to have access to information about how the budget and STUSU works.
- She would advocate for financial support through the New Brunswick Student Alliance and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, and campaign for more support for international students.
- She said next year, she wants to advocate for an international student award with a bursary and would work with the international office to secure the funds.
- She said she wants to have check-ins with members of clubs and societies to understand their difficulties and how to help increase student participation.
Vice-president student life
Young is a third-year political science student at STU from Manitoba and the at-large representative for STUSU.
Her summarized debate points are:
- She said she wants to make all activities, events and services accessible to students on and off-campus by ensuring they are available via livestream, recording or Zoom.
- She said she will allocate a certain amount of time each day to serve students, answer emails and plan events.
- She said she wants to work with STU’s sexual assault prevention committee to create a welcoming campus, bring awareness and believe the survivours.
- She said she wants to bring jack.org, a national organization focused on mental health and suicide prevention, to STU. She said the organization would bring in leadership roles, new ideas and approaches to mental health, connections with other universities, guest speakers and training opportunities.
- She wants to work with the University of New Brunswick to create a Safe Ride tracking app, similar to the one created by Fredericton Transit, to ensure a clear and reliable schedule.
- She wants to provide naloxone kit training, which temporarily stops overdoses and opioid poisoning, for residence staff and coordinators.
- She wants to increase campus food bank donations through initiatives like giveaways and contests to build a sense of community around doing something good for the community.
