“WE THE STUDENTS”
CANDIDATE PROFILE

“Practical solutions to practical problems” are being offered by one of the slates of candidates for this year’s Students’ Administrative Council race.

“We The Students” is made up of Rocco Kusi-Achampong, Emoline Thiruchelvam and John Lea.

The three candidates think more student involvement is the solution for many of the University of Toronto’s pressing problems.

“Real issues affect real students,” said Kusi-Achampong, the presidential candidate on the ticket. “We have no time for political games,” he added.

Kusi-Achampong is president of the Black Students’ Association. He is in his fourth year of a joint specialist in political science and history, with a minor in philosophy.

His ticket’s vice-president education candidate, Thiruchelvam, is a third-year physical education student who has served on several committees in the faculty of phys-ed. A member of the Council on Student Services, she is also involved in the Varsity Centre project.

Lea is the candidate for vice-president operations. He is an international relations specialist in his second year. Lea has worked on the Attaché, an international relations journal at the U of T.

“I think SAC has done a lot, but not enough,” Kusi-Achampong said. The presidential candidate believes U of T needs “a SAC that truly represents all students.”

“I want to have greater student involvement,” Kusi-Achampong added. To get more students involved, We the Students plans to put student club presidents on a committee so that SAC has their input.

“Certainly, the students here are apathetic,” Kusi-Achampong said, adding that apathy is a problem common to many universities.

We the Students also wants to tackle health. “The health plan as it stands is a major hassle to opt out of,” Lea said. He plans to use ROSI, the online course registration system, to let students get a refund from the health plan if they don’t need SAC’s health coverage. Many students who don’t need the health plan lose their refund money by failing to opt out before the deadline.

We the Students wants to make ROSI a portal for greater access to student services. “There’s one thing that we all have in common: we all go on ROSI to pick our courses,” Kusi-Achampong said. But ROSI is not a SAC system—it’s controlled by the university administration.

We the Students wants to improve U of T’s health clinic. “Six doctors are crammed,” Kusi-Achampong said. “If we could negotiate to see if we could get medical students to volunteer at the Health Centre,” the system would become more efficient, he added.

On the issue of tuition, We the Students thinks there are limits to student involvement. “I don’t think any student government coming in can promise to freeze tuition,” Kusi-Achampong said. “We want to see a tuition freeze.”

The three candidates say they are neutral on U of T’s trial membership in the Canadian Federation of Students, a nationwide student union. “We’ll wait to see the CFS referendum.”

Membership in the Canadian Federation of Students: “We’ll wait to see the referendum.”
Tuition: “I don’t think any student government coming in can promise to freeze tuition… We want to see a tuition freeze.”
SAC’s role on campus: “We will act as the students’ voice, the students’ lobby group to the administration.”
The Varsity Stadium referendum: “We need a world-class athletic facility… Students are being asked to pay $29 million out of $55 million… Dip into the endowment fund.”

“TAKE BACK SAC”
CANDIDATE PROFILE

“Take Back SAC” wants to shake up the way things are done at the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC). The question is, do students care?

The Take Back SAC ticket is critical of the 2001-2002 executive. “A lot of us had been looking at SAC this year. We have some mutual friends. We were at the annual general meeting this year… It kind of descended this year,” said presidential candidate Noel Semple.

“Basically, [the annual general meeting] appears to have become an abuse of democracy,” Semple added.

Semple’s running mates, Andrew Hawkins and Kelly Smith, agreed. “It was the AGM that pushed us,” Smith said.

Semple is a third-year history student from Trinity College. Hawkins, the vice-president education candidate, is in his fourth year of an engineering degree. Smith, the V.P. operations candidate, is in her first year at Victoria, where she studies arts and science.

Take Back SAC says the current executive (Alex Kerner, Lindsay Tabah and Mary Auxi-Guiao) has not achieved a lot in its term of office. The high level of apathy on campus only makes the problem worse, the three said. “We spent a few days talking to people. Around campus, one person thought SAC was a person… SAC hasn’t done a lot to deserve visibility,” Semple said.

Semple, Hawkins and Smith say the Students’ Administrative Council spends too much in the wrong places. “Discretionary funding is about $750,000,” Semple said. By cutting SAC’s discretionary spending by 10 per cent, Take Back SAC hopes to “refocus” the organization.

SAC “should be able to connect you with services, clubs, legal and financial aid,” Hawkins said.

Take Back SAC says that by working with other student groups, SAC can cut spending while becoming more effective. “Right now, a lot of what SAC does, it thinks it has to do by itself,” Semple said, citing the recent Optic Biosphere party as “a financial failure and a social failure.”

“There’s no way that a party with a $10 cover and $7.50 drinks should cost $20,000,” he said. “Colleges and clubs are, to be frank, a lot more effective at keeping in touch with students,” Semple added.

The three candidates are critical of SAC spending on conferences. “The SAC president shouldn’t have to rent a van to get to Scarborough. They shouldn’t have to fly to Ottawa,” Semple said.

Smith thinks the suburban campuses are under-represented in the current structure of student politics. The Mississauga and Scarborough campuses “know a lot better than we do” about their own needs, Smith said. “They should be a much bigger part of this university,” she added.

Unlike most SAC presidential tickets, Take Back SAC is running in co-operation with a slate of directors.

“We’ve developed a policy platform and found people who support that platform,” Semple said.

Like the We the People ticket, Take Back SAC has no experience on the Students’ Administrative Council. Semple worked as a volunteer with Frontier College, an organization that promotes literacy. He worked in the African nation of Benin to teach reading and writing. Hawkins was active in the Engineering Society and the Blue and Gold committee. Smith ran a charity dance in her hometown of Windsor.

Membership in the Canadian Federation of Students: “We’re skeptical about the CFS… It’s a 58% increase in SAC fees.”
Tuition: “We’ll work to keep tuition down… One of the things we recognize is that tuition is not SAC’s decision.”
SAC’s role on campus: “Decreasing apathy and getting people to care… Everybody pays for it.”
The Varsity Stadium referendum: “We really want students to choose.”