The AUSU Election is in full swing, and with it comes a Council Connection from the February 19th meeting, and Barbara Lehtiniemi’s article looking at how the election has affected her, even though she’s not a candidate herself.
If you haven’t already voted, you’ve got until 8:30 on Saturday, MST to do so. The campaign period seemed very short to me, and with 18 people running for nine spots, I had expected involvement to be quite intense. It came as a bit of a surprise then, to realize that only 14 of the people actually participated in the campaign opportunities, and even of those, not all of them bothered to answer all of the questions posed in the official forums, never mind the extra questions I posted in the regular forum so we could get to know the candidates at a little more personal level.
To help those few voters left who haven’t quite made up their minds yet (or are just hearing about this all now), I’ve put together a small chart with the name, faculty, and location of each candidate. In the PDF, the names are links to the candidate’s posting history in the AUSU forums, so you can look up everything they’ve shared with AUSU to decide if they’re who you want speaking for you. (Unfortunately, our website technology for the Voice simply doesn’t allow that kind of thing. Hopefully that will be changing in the next few months when The Voice Magazine receives it’s overhaul like the AUSU site did.)
Back on topic, things can get even more interesting if you google the candidate’s names, as you’ll find false arrests and paranoid schizophrenics among our candidates. But I’m constraining myself simply to the AUSU site, as people often have the same names, and I’d hate to prejudice someone where I’m not fully sure it’s deserved.
So, without further ado, and in alphabetical (surname) order:
You’ll note how many of the candidates are in AU’s faculty of business. This is especially concerning when you consider that AUSU representatives are requested when faculties are creating strategic plans. How much extra work will a Business faculty student have to do to understand the issues of the Humanities or Science & Tech or Nursing faculty students? I hope that whoever gets elected keeps this in mind and make the extra effort to include viewpoints from the other faculties. Otherwise AU could end up in a spiral where we’re losing students from other faculties because AU doesn’t know what they want or need, and doesn’t know what they want or need because we have fewer students from them to be representatives.
You’ll also note that four candidates, Heer, Lawrence, Romualdi, and Zhu are not links. This is because they have absolutely no posting history on our site at all as of Friday morning. Who are these people, and what will they say on your behalf if elected? I certainly couldn’t tell you, but if they don’t have enough interest to even explain to students who they are to get elected, I don’t understand how they think they could represent us.
Switching gears, I’m happy to announce we finally have a winner for the Voice Reader Survey that happened way back in 2013. Congratulations go to Laura B., our alternate winner, who has received the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (8.0″). Hopefully she’s using it to read The Voice Magazine right now. For those of you who didn’t win, my condolences, but remember that you’re going to have another chance, as now that that survey is finally complete, I need to finish the Voice Interest Survey, the one that will be going out from our new Facebook page and seek to find out more about what all AUSU members want?even those who don’t read The Voice Magazine right now.
Also in this issue, you’ll find the conclusion of our interview with Suzie LeBlanc, a look at the new styleguide for those of us who write on the internet, courtesy of The Writer’s Toolbox, Hazel Anaka discovering the world of Tea (welcome to the dark side, Hazel), rewiews, comics, advice, and more. Unfortunately, we do not have a Primal Numbers this week, but expect it to return next week as S.D. Livingston recharges her creative spark.
One thing which you’ll find new in this issue is the inclusion of some paid advertising. It is one of my goals to start developing independent funding for The Voice Magazine, so on page 10 and in the classifieds section you’ll find the start of these efforts. While AUSU continues to fund The Voice Magazine without controlling our content, having more than a single source of funding not only helps ensure The Voice Magazine’s survival, but can help readers and writers know that this is a safe place to voice concerns with AUSU Council, and that any praise they get from The Voice Magazine is unsolicited.
Is there something you’d like to see in The Voice Magazine? Or do you have comments on anything you’ve read? If so, feel free to write me at voice@voicemagazine.org.
Also, if you’re a writer, consider writing for us. We still need more content. In particular, I’m looking for people who can provide interesting serial fiction, music reviews, or good interviews with AU tutors or faculty. If you think you can handle any of those, let me know.
