Today’s guest post is by Matthew Corker, a recent alumnus and prolific leader in the UBC community. He offers his insight into candidate selection for those who don’t have the time (or patience) to wade through the verbiage of candidate platforms.
Straight up: I haven’t read the platforms of the candidates running in this year’s AMS elections. I haven’t gone to any debates, visited their websites, or even joined one of the many “vote for me” groups on Facebook. But, most likely, neither have you. You believe you have better things to do.
So do I. (Plus, being an alumnus doesn’t let me vote.)
But voting is important, so let’s make the process of choosing who you should vote for painfully simple. (And, yes, I used this technique when I started as a student.)
Step 1. Check to see if they provided a blurb to the elections committee for you to read.
When you sign in to vote online, you are able to click on the candidate’s name to see a photo of them as well as a brief summary of their platform/themselves. If they don’t have a blurb, they probably have a good excuse why they didn’t meet the submission deadline. You’ll probably also hear more of their good excuses if you end up voting them in.
Step 2. Write down a list of 4 key words that resonate with you when you think of a strong leader/representative for students.
They could include things like: community, activist, together, fight, support, advocate, collaborate, against, challenge, work with, involve, repair, I, we, etc. Skim through the candidates’ summaries to see if they include any of the terms you wrote down. The language they use is a good indicator of the perspective they’ll bring to the table.
Step 3. Write down 2 issues you want to see resolved (or focused on) in the coming year.
This could include:
- The south campus development
- The new SUB project
- Effective communication with students (aka no more UBC spam e-mails)
- Tuition costs
Skim through the candidates’ summaries again to see their take on those issues. If they didn’t include anything on the issue you deemed important, move on. If you don’t have any “important issues” may I suggest drawing inspiration from what the students told UBC to focus on (through the 2008 NSSE survey):
Issues UBC needs to address inside the classroom:
- Improving the quality of course instruction by professors
- Ensuring a better fit between course content, assignments, and tests/exams
- Increasing the number or variety of course offerings in your major
- Reducing class sizes overall
Issues UBC needs to address outside the classroom:
- Expanding and/or improving the quality of academic support services
- Providing students with more opportunities to undertake research with faculty
- Providing a better social environment for students
- Improving the quality/availability of study spaces
- Increasing contact with professors outside of class
Step 4. Skim for any previous AMS, Board or Governors, or Senate experience/exposure.
I second Geoff’s quote in this post: “If you want to take the job seriously, you have to get engaged with it before you get it.” Candidates should at least have some experience in or exposure to working with UBC’s administration or representing students at a high level. These are, after all, some of the highest positions in student government at UBC.
Step 5. Check out their pictures.
Ask yourself: “Would I feel comfortable approaching this person on my way to class?” You should be able to answer yes.
By this time, it’s probably been 7 minutes. Proudly click submit and go back to the “better things you have to do.”
I should note that some may judge these techniques as superficial and not based on enough information. I remind those people that humans have an amazing ability to make reasonably accurate judgment calls on very little information. (When a snowball is being thrown at your face, do you stop to ‘analyze the complexity of the situation’ or do you just duck?)
I would also like to remind those people that they don’t have to heed any of my advice when the time comes for you to vote. You can read the blogs, talk about it with your friends, and visit the candidates’ websites in advance to get more informed about the people that will be representing you on stage at Orientations in front of thousands of students and around the boardroom table with UBC’s decision makers.
It’s your call. It’s your 7 minutes.
Happy voting!
Full Disclosure: Matt Corker, BCOM’08, is an active blogger about community, leadership, and the odd UBC-related news at http://thatsacorker.com and follows the UBC blogosphere quite diligently. He was never involved in the AMS as a student, but was very involved in other organizations like UBC REC, Residence Life, JDC West, and Varsity Rowing. He now works with Alumni Affairs in the Faculty of Science at UBC (and also for NoMoSolo).
Justin Yang
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