A record 79 candidates were vying for a position on the McMaster Students Union Student Representative Assembly general elections, which ended last Monday.
Seventy-nine candidates competed for 31 SRA seats across all faculties, the highest number ever.
Last year, there were just 41 candidates running for 31 seats. Two years ago, there were 50 candidates.
The highest number of candidates came from the SRA science and SRA social science faculties.
Twenty-five candidates ran for seven seats for science, while 16 candidates ran for five seats in social science.
In 2018, there were just nine and five candidates for the science and social science faculties.
Candidate turnout was higher than last year for other faculties as well.
SRA commerce had eight candidates running for four seats this year compared to five candidates last year, and the arts and science faculty had four nominees running for one seat compared to one nominee last year.
Voter turnout was markedly high as well. Twenty per cent of undergraduate students, or a total of 4283, voted in the SRA generals election, a dramatic increase from last year’s election, which saw 1064 voters.
Several current SRA members and winning candidates attributed the increase in candidate turnout to more effective advertising from the McMaster Student Union elections department this year, made up of chief returning officer Uwais Patel and deputy returning officer Emily Yang.
“This year, the CRO and DRO did a really good job in doing outreach. It was a lot of promotion, and it was faculty-specific promotion as well,” said Tasneem Warwani, current SRA arts and science representative.
“I think what they did really well was reach out to SRA members to ensure that they were reaching out to their constituents,” said Devin Roshan, current SRA health sciences representative.
One new initiative the elections team took on this year was sending faculty-specific emails directly to students to remind them of nomination deadlines and how many seats were available.
“On the MSU pages, social media-wise, I saw more promotion about it,” said third-year social sciences student Allie Kampan, who won an SRA seat. “More people were aware of it this year.”
Some faculties also tried to host more faculty-specific events encouraging students to run. For example, the social science caucus ran an event where they handed out nomination forms.
“I think the SRA reps made it more approachable this year,” Kampman said. “There’s a stigma around a lot of MSU things, specifically SRA, which is that it’s unapproachable.”
Roshan pointed out that increased turnout also comes from regular efforts through the year to educate students on issues and what the SRA is doing.
The health sciences election this year featured eight candidates for two positions, building off seven candidates last year after just two in 2017.
Students entering post-secondary education may also be becoming more interested in politics.
“Looking at the first years specifically, in my interactions I’ve had with them, they’re very passionate about getting involved,” Warwani said.
First year council elections this year featured a record high of 54 candidates running for sixteen positions.
Not all faculties saw a rise in candidate turnout. Humanities had only three nominees, meaning all three available seats were acclaimed. There were just two nursing nominees for one seat and four kinesiology nominees for two seats. SRA engineering also had just eight candidates for six available seats.
All of these faculties have struggled to put forth nominees in recent years, with seats often being acclaimed.
According to incoming SRA engineering representative Hawk Yang, one possible reason for the typically low candidate turnout is that the engineering faculty has a prominent engineering society, which often overshadows SRA engineering initiatives.
Nonetheless, as evidenced by the SRA statistics, the MSU is still seeing refreshingly high interest in student government this year.
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The beginning of June is an exciting time for Grade 12 students in Ontario. The first of the month marks the final day they are able to accept an offer to a university program and the beginning of the end of high school starts to feel real.
For future Marauders, June 1 is also the deadline for applying to residence. Students with academic averages above a certain point, 83.33 per cent for the 2017-18 school year, are guaranteed a spot in on-campus accommodation for their first year. Those with averages below this point are also welcome to apply. They are not assured a place in residence and may spend a large portion of the summer before beginning university in housing limbo: unsure of whether or not to sign a lease or take a gamble that they will make it to the top of the residence waiting list.
There are several reasons why this is a poor, outdated system, but many of these shortcomings are intertwined.
In order for these initiatives to have some gravitas on campus, the university needs to acknowledge, right from the beginning of a student’s first year, that they are worth more to McMaster as an institution than a student number and a grade point average.
As instances of mental illness and stress levels related to academics continue to rise, slogans about how students are more than their academic performance appear in support spaces from online communities to campus services. Multiple McMaster Students Union services, including the Student Health Education Centre and MSU Spark, lead initiatives that encourage students to have a balanced lifestyle that includes schoolwork, but not at the exclusion of everything else.
Currently, McMaster sends the opposite message for the arts faculties, Humanities and Social Sciences, along with Biotechnology and Process Automation. These are the only first year programs that admit students with academic averages below the 83.33 required for guaranteed residence. Other programs have acceptance averages around the residence cutoff, but none are clearly below that point.
For reference, Humanities and Social Sciences require a 75 per cent average. Process Automation and Biotechnology each require a 78. These are completely respectable averages that students need to work hard to achieve.
By granting these students admission, but not guaranteeing them residence, the university sends the message that it values these students, but not as much as someone with a slightly higher GPA. For arts students, this message coupled with the newly opened L.R. Wilson Hall and the revamping of the Faculty of Humanities brand sends a confusing message to incoming students about how much McMaster actually cares about what they have to offer the campus community.
This system of “who’s-in-who’s-out” of residence can be equally uncomfortable for those relatively few first-year students from these programs who do end up in on-campus housing. I lived in Les Prince Hall in my first year, and I think I can name almost all the other arts students in my building. In a building of almost 400 students, there were that few of us. It was one of the reasons I was never comfortable in residence, and if I could do my first year over knowing that I would be one of so few Humanities I students in my residence, I would likely have considered other options more carefully.
Basing a first year's projected university success on their high school marks is about as relevant to their deservingness of a residence space as household income.
The structures of high school and university education are different. Students who flourished in high school may burn out in university, while those with less impressive averages may flourish in the post-secondary environment. Basing a first year’s projected university success on their high school marks is about as relevant to their deservingness of a residence space as household income.
The irksome thing about McMaster’s current residence admission policy is how easy it is to fix. Currently, McMaster cannot guarantee every interested student a spot in residence; something the university is working on with the construction of the Living Learning Centre and other residence initiatives.
Until then, instead of having an entire system based on high school GPA, all incoming first years interested in residence could be entered in a lottery for residence space. If the university wanted to continue some kind of “reward” for students with higher averages, they could be guaranteed their first or second choice room style.
High school students should be rewarded for the hard work they put into their final year of studies prior to post-secondary education. But none should feel like their admission to McMaster has less merit than someone else’s.
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By: Lauren Beals
If you were walking through IAHS on Feb. 9, you probably noticed travelling bands of kinesiology students taking selfies on their trips across campus. Ignore your first impressions, as those dedicated students were not skipping class to capture the perfect Instagram moment, but rather documenting their exploration into health and wellness research at McMaster.
McMaster Health Crawl was a one-day event organized by the university to showcase different avenues of locally conducted, health-focused research. Throughout the event, researchers and staff provided guided tours through a selection of six state of the art labs and learning spaces across campus, giving attendees an inside look into how their students learn on a daily basis.
Jennifer Heisz, a professor with the Department of Kinesiology, encouraged her students to attend the event and record their exploits into the world of research. They were joined by other undergraduates, alumni, prospective students and curious members of the community.
Health Crawl was part of the School of Rehabilitation’s Building Healthy Communities Week. Featured researcher and physiotherapist Julie Richardson thinks that the Building Healthy Communities Week is important for future prosperity.
“This [research] has large implications not only for community health but for public health,” she said. “The population is aging substantially; everyone needs mobility … it just doesn’t happen by chance. Sometimes we have to do things to facilitate it”.
Health Crawl was also the fourth event in the larger “Big Ideas Better Cities” initiative, a yearlong series of events aimed at showcasing how McMaster’s research can help communities respond to modern challenges.
But it was not just ground-breaking research on display. Innovative campus facilities played a prominent role in the event, advertising McMaster’s novel approaches to learning. Annette Brown, Program Manager at the Center for Simulation Based Learning, gave attendees a tour of the recently expanded Simulation Lab.
Within the facility, students in the Faculty of Health Sciences learn clinical and communication skills through standardized patient programs, task trainers and re-created healthcare scenarios. The lab features a variety of practice environments including homecare rooms, standardized hospital rooms and a fully functional operating room complete with high fidelity mannequins.
For Brown the advantages of opening the center for tours was clear. “Often [one of the larger benefits] is awareness. If you are not in one of the programs … you may hear of other schools or hospitals that have these centers and wonder if McMaster has one, now you know.”
Photo Credit: Esther Barlow
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The results of the 2014 SRA general election were released on March 13 after two days of online polling. With the results, the Elections Department also revealed they had miscalculated the number of seats in Nursing and Science: Nursing should have two seats instead of one, and Science should have six seats instead of seven.
According to a memo from the Elections Department, the mistake was "admittedly the result of human error."
The error was brought to the Elections Committee, who voted to hold another election for a second Nursing representative. Despite the mix-up, the committee determined that a separate election will not be held for Science representatives. The top six candidates for SRA Science will be part of the Assembly, while the seventh, Mike Cheung, will not. Cheung was separated by four votes from Patricia Kousoulas, the sixth-place Science representative elected.
Before polling took place, a number of seats had already been acclaimed. The maximum number of seats for Kinesiology (2), Engineering (6) and Arts & Science (1) were acclaimed, and one seat of two for Nursing was acclaimed.
The results of the election are as listed below (elected representatives bolded). Candidates have five business days to make appeals before the results are made official.
SRA Business Representatives
Nolan Harrison (152 votes, 34.5%)
Tambakis, John (92 votes, 20.9%)
Mohamed, Sarah (86 votes, 19.5%)
Cheng, David (82 votes, 18.6%)
Laniado, Ari (28 votes, 6.4%)
Total votes: 262
Abstain: 32 (12.2%)
SRA Health Science Representatives
Mordhorst, Alexa 179 (44.1%)
Chivukula, Pardh 155 (38.2%)
Berditchevskaia, Inna 72 (17.7%)
Total votes: 235
Abstain: 12 (5.1%)
SRA Humanities Representatives
Soubas, Jessica 182 (21.4%)
King, Sara 127 (14.9%)
Lehwald, Katie 123 (14.5%)
Oliveros, Daymon 123 (14.5%)
Filice, Simon 122 (14.3%)
Towers, Matthew 110 (12.9%)
McGowen, Kara 64 (7.5%)
Total votes: 349
Abstain: 33 (9.5%)
SRA Social Science Representatives
Paul, Tristan 218 (16.9%)
Craig, Lindsay 192 (14.9%)
D'Angela, Daniel 187 (14.5%)
Gillis, Eric 163 (12.6%)
Jama, Sarah 156 (12.1%)
Thamphirasan, Nilen 133 (10.3%)
Ibe, Gerald 109 (8.4%)
Jamieson-Eckel, Esmonde 71 (5.5%)
Galindo, Cam 63 (4.9%)
Total votes: 485
Abstain: 29 (6.0%)
SRA Science Representatives
Brodka, Jacob 547 (15.5%)
Tweedie, Victoria 413 (11.7%)
Gill, Mike 393 (11.1%)
Mazza, Mirella 361 (10.2%)
Guarna, Giuliana 315 (8.9%)
Kousoulas, Patricia 294 (8.3%)
Cheung, Mike 290 (8.2%)
Abbas, Anser 284 (8.0%)
Hutchinson, Marty 254 (7.2%)
Clayton, Miranda 187 (5.3%)
Le, Paul 112 (3.2%)
Baiden, Gilbert 89 (2.5%)
Total votes: 836
Abstain: 18 (2.2%)
Arts and Science
* Acclaimed: Spencer Nestico-Semianiw
Engineering
* Acclaimed: Vikas Chennabathni
* Acclaimed: Ethan D’Mello
* Acclaimed: Alex Dufault
* Acclaimed: Jay Modi
* Acclaimed: Shen Seevaratram
*Acclaimed: Ehima Osazuwa
Kinesiology
* Acclaimed: Raymond Khavane
* Acclaimed: Taylor Wilson
Nursing
* Acclaimed: Mitchell Gillies
1 vacant
This article has been corrected to show that all six SRA engineering positions were acclaimed. The MSU's website listed only five names at the time of the article's publication.
A movement called “Bringing an End to Facultyphobia,” initially spawned by reactions to a Silhouette Opinions article condemning Kipling Pranks as discriminatory, quickly picked up momentum in preparation for an inter-faculty event on April 3.
But the event was not to be.
Zachary Strong, Engineering student and Facebook event creator, explained how health and safety problems prevented the actual event from occurring. He hopes for a physical, planned event during the week of April 8.
“It looks like the event is going to remain nebulous. It may not happen the way we envisioned it, but the level of discussion is there, so it’s something I’m looking forward to.”
Issue has been taken with the description of faculty stereotyping as a type of phobia. David Campbell, MSU VP (Administration), felt that “phobia is a bit overstated, simply because I think it compares it with homophobia and racial issues which go a lot deeper and have a lot of context to them.” Strong admits that this may not be the ideal word to describe the actions and behavior he has experienced or heard about second-hand.
The initial Facebook event referenced ending “Engphobia,” but it was later renamed “Facultyphobia” in order to include the wide body of students who may feel discriminated against or mistreated on the basis of their faculty.
Strong reiterated that he was intent on reaching out to other faculties, and dismissed the idea that this was an Engineering-specific phenomenon or that Engineering students would be a majority of the participants in the “End Facultyphobia” event.
The McMaster Engineering Society issued a statement on their Facebook account announcing that they had chosen to distance themselves from the End Facultyphobia movement, despite recognizing and appreciating the need to break down faculty stigmas.
“We feel it has grown out of hand and is turning out to be quite the opposite of the initial intentions to shed a positive light on our University and its faculties. We absolutely love the idea of a University wide event that fosters the growth and relationships between students. We don’t, however, think this is the proper venue or time to do so,” said the statement.
Campbell explained that while he appreciated the importance of starting inter-faculty dialogue, he believed there has been a continued decrease in faculty tension in the last few years.
Both Campbell and Strong specifically pinpointed Welcome Week as the primary vehicle for building and breaking down faculty stereotypes.
“From the planning perspective, it was a specific topic of discussion during training for faculty reps. Planners specifically discussed how cheers degrading a faculty help no one,” said Campbell.
But Strong has asserted that there is an absence of one forum for all faculties to report incidents of stereotyping. Part of his goal is for students to complete an online survey to share their experiences. The results of this survey will be compiled and sent to faculty societies and the Student Success Centre.
When asked if he felt airing these stereotypes could do more harm then good, perpetuating and introducing new stereotypes, Strong argued that, “Ultimately, the alternative is isolation, and that doesn't really help either, so there is a risk. But would we be any better off if everyone just stayed away and did their own thing? I would say no.”
