MSU Presidential Candidate Platform Overview: Zachary Thorne

In his campaign Thorne aims to make substantial changes to the operations of McMaster, including with regards to infrastructure, healthcare and the environment 

Zachary Thorne is a sixth-year computer engineering and society student running for McMaster Students Union President. 

Thorne’s platform covers a wide variety of issues, which he has organized into 10 major categories: infrastructure, economy, healthcare, environment, communications, education, transportation, legacy, national security and morale boosters.  

Thorne’s plans for infrastructure involve constructing more bridges around campus, turning TwelveEighty Bar and Grill into a bowling alley and installing more indoor waterfalls.  

One key infrastructure idea that resurfaces throughout Thorne’s platform is his Doors Initiative. In order to address hallway congestion and entryway traffic, Thorne plans to replace every existing door on campus with a revolving door and, further, to triple the number of doors on campus. In his platform, Thorne also stated that this would help McMaster University to become the first university campus with more doors than wheels.  

Thorne’s economic plans involve introducing Willy Dog hotdogs to every restaurant on campus and solving inflation. With regards to healthcare, his platform proposes asking students to take their shoes off before entering buildings and being permitted to cook their own food on campus, to prevent students from ingesting undercooked food. Environmentally, some of Thorne’s priorities are solving climate change and introducing new snow day protocol.  

Thorne has several communications ideas, such as addressing students over a PA system in daily morning announcements, so that students feel connected to the MSU. Regarding education, Thorne has one key idea, which is to change the MSAF into an unlimited “LSAF”, allowing students to take an “L” on assignments. 

Thorne also advocates for changes to transportation on campus, such as changing the shuttle bus route to make it longer and more scenic. With regards to the legacy section of his platform, Thorne argues that William McMaster should not be the only person with a statue and he advocated for statues of every McMaster student across campus.  

In the national security section of his platform, Thorne provides a detailed plan for improving the security of two-factor authentication, including a voice recognition test and a chess match against the computer for access to login details. Finally, the morale booster section of his platform advocates for universal coffee cards on campus and MSU-mandated screenings of televised events on the MUSC television.  

More information about Thorne’s platform can be found on his website.  

Voting for the MSU presidential election takes place from Jan. 24 to Jan. 26 using the Simply Voting platform and more information about the election can be found on the MSU elections website.