Andres is a Political Science student currently in 4B. His initial involvement on campus was with the St. Jerome’s Students’ Union as a First Year Representative. He went on to serve the Union as Treasurer and Vice President. He was also involved with the Arts Endowment Fund last year and has been the President of a student club for two years. This year he is part of the SLC Management Board and he is the Ontario Undergraduate Students Association (OUSA) campus coordinator. In this function he is in charge of implementing the OUSA campaigns on campus as well as lobbying local politicians.
Platform:
I want to thank you for taking an interest in The Federation of Students policy and in my campaign. The role of the Vice President Education is complex, as the Vice President Education must balance their time between issues with the university administration and issues with the federal and provincial government. The following is a highlight of points that I think are important to a successful year for the Vice President Education. They are of course not the only issues that will be dealt with in the year, with things like elections that can interrupt the responsibilities of the office and shift priorities.
Continue to Lobby Federal and Provincial governments to increase funding for undergraduate students and hold the provincial government to their election promises on post secondary education.
The year after an election is important for making sure that education related campaign promises do not fall of the priority list. We must also continue to put pressure on both levels of government through our lobbying associations and through unilateral efforts taking advantage of our geographical proximity to the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Work to enhance education opportunities outside of classes. Opportunities like participation in conferences, guest speakers, etc. including working with the other executives, societies, faculty and administration.
I believe that there are many enriching opportunities on campus presented by various groups that provide students with great learning opportunities. It is important that we recognize these and foster more learning opportunities. This can be accomplished by partnering with the other executives, our club, societies and faculties to facilitate these events.
ELPE (English Language Proficiency Exam)
I will advocate for drastic improvements to the ELPE program. I feel it is unfair for students to have to take this test during exam time and in this way have added pressure during their first exam period. A solution I am proposing is to have the ELPE written online during the summer, once they are admitted. This would free up resources that can be reinvested in the writing clinic for the benefit of students. It will also have the benefit of reducing paper waste on campus. The other benefit of writing it in the summer is that students who require writing help will be identified sooner so they can receive help sooner.
Represent students at OUSA and CASA making sure that these organizations remain focused on serving the unique needs of Students at UW, like co-op.
At our lobbying associations priorities are set every year on what the lobbying objectives and the campaigns that will be run. We need to continue to make sure that these priorities reflect the needs of Waterloo students. Taking leadership positions in these organizations is important so that our priorities end up as our lobbying groups priorities.
Advocate for the elimination of differential fees.
Students in unregulated programs like engineering and accounting who pay higher fees and then take elective courses in other faculties like arts end up paying the higher fee than other students in the course. Because this is legal under the government guideline we need to address this at the government level while continuing to bring it up with the university administration.
Co-operative Education
Co-op continues to make Waterloo a unique university. We need to continue to have a good working relationship with the co-op department and have strong representation on the Co-op Education Council.
Quest and Jobmine
These services are important to our students and we would like students to have greater input into how they look and work. We want to gather recommendations from students on how to improve these systems in order to be able to present them to the University when they update the systems.
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