Meet The Candidates: Joel Leavitt
SABRINA KOKOSAREVIC, MACINSIDERS. Joel Leavitt has based his platform on the five areas: student health and wellness, transportation, the environment, undergraduate funding and accountability/student unity.
Joel feels that the Campus Health Center has hit the nail on the head so to speak with their Mental Health Team and he plans to lend his hand to them as MSU President. What the Mental Health Team has proposed is a fall reading week around the third week of October seeing as stress levels of student’s sky rocket around that time period. Being concerned with the effects of stress on students, Joel and the Mental Health team would like to see the fall reading week proposal given the attention that it deserves by the student body.
There are many things that Joel believes need to be put before the student body and discussed; one of these topics is transportation on campus. As it stands now, the HSR buss pass that undergraduates currently enjoy is going to be voted on in March: to keep or not to keep, that is the question. Really, it is. As MSU President Joel plans to advocate in favour of keeping the HSR buss pass, as it helps off campus students get to campus, and helps on campus students get around the city without the hassle of digging for change all the time. The usage of buses instead of many individually owned vehicles also helps diminish our impact on the environment—another issue Joel plans to address as MSU President.
As Joel says, “Styrofoam is evil” and he plans to do away with it. He wishes to encourage student ideas as to what methods the MSU can use in place of the Styrofoam take-out containers that are used by McMaster eateries. Reducing the amount of garbage that students produce is often a challenge, but Joel has a proposition: A collaborated effort between McMaster and the Westdale community to keep the students and the surrounding inhabitants informed about the situation and possible solutions to the problem. What solutions do you ask? Joel proposes involving the companies that we tend to cater to so often, like Tim Hortons! If Tim Hortons were to allow customers to bring in reusable coffee mugs and charge them for a size smaller than what they receive (so you would get a large for the price of a medium, etc.) then the amount of garbage produced would be reduced.
Many students couldn’t tell you a detailed account of who the MSU are and what they stand for. Joel accounts this to a lack of publicity. The MSU budget is not publicly displayed on the web page and is, according to Joel, very difficult to locate at times. Students are not allowed to attend its meetings, only those of the SRA (Student Representative Assembly). Joel proposes that these barriers be removed and allow more student participation and access to the officials who run the MSU. This would mean greater advertising of meetings, a publicized MSU budget and more open forums that allow direct contact to anyone and everyone involved with the MSU.
To learn more and Joel and his platform visit his website at
www.joelleavitt.ca where you can also send him a message with any of your concerns.
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