Originally Posted by healthsci1

i found vishals year plan
https://www.msumcmaster.ca/content/d...an%2009-10.pdf
very little has been accomplished, i cant seem to comprehend why you think done a great job.

His term is not over yet. He may still accomplish some of his year plans. Of course it's not always possible to complete all the plans.

Originally Posted by healthsci1

i found vishals year plan
https://www.msumcmaster.ca/content/d...an%2009-10.pdf
very little has been accomplished, i cant seem to comprehend why you think done a great job.

Like Ben, I find it frustrating that people just vent online, and very little action is taken. Vish has been working towards his goals. Here's a summary, as I see it.

Water Bottle Free MSU: the inner tree-hugger part of me thinks this is a fantastic idea. From what I have heard, Union Market will continue to sell bottles of water, otherwise they will lose crazy amounts of money to La Piazza. Vish started the 'tap it' campaign as VP Ed (that's the retrofitting of water fountains to have a tap), and throughout his term as President, I have seen more and more of these popping up.

Community Support Fund: I haven't heard of any progress made on this. as an SRA member, I know that there is a "special projects fund" we can propose money to be taken from for our own campaigns (such as the for the $50 1280 giftcard for filling out the Your City Survey)

Go Green with MSU Swag Bags: This was awesome, because I got a free cloth bag and sweet swag. All of the MSU retail services which had plastic bags before, should now have cloth bags. Especially since now McMaster's campus is plastic-bag-free, I think this was an important step to take.

Green Roof: I'm not sure what is happening with this. I have heard that the Student Centre (particularly) wasn't designed to hold the extra weight a green roof would need. I think this is important though, so I would love to see something happen with this.

Media equipment rental: realized it's not really feasible. projectors and laptops are available for rental at Mills etc., but a camera has so many other obstacles. what if someone breaks a lens etc? there is talk of joining with the libraries to increase the laptop lending program, as it is definitely being used widely by students (and the laptops themselves are getting kind of old)

Wifi in MSU Space: every MSU space I have been to has WiFi. and 1280 was fitted with tons of outlets to plug your laptop into if need be.

increased bus service: all of the 51 buses going through campus are now the huge extended buses; before only little buses were on campus

Parking on Campus: this is an ongoing obstacle. the MSU has been in talks with parking and security all year. There is actually a meeting set up for next with with Terry Sullivan

internal review: being conducted right now. expect the results some time in March

talk back forums: Dish it to Vish

Arts and Culture Roundtable: this committee was never struck formally. although there is a sub-committee of the External Affairs which deals directly with Community Relations

rivalry: it was pretty good for the first part of the year, and then died off. sad, because I do think it increased McMaster spirit

Originally Posted by jmbauman

Like Ben, I find it frustrating that people just vent online, and very little action is taken. Vish has been working towards his goals. Here's a summary, as I see it.


Green Roof: I'm not sure what is happening with this. I have heard that the Student Centre (particularly) wasn't designed to hold the extra weight a green roof would need. I think this is important though, so I would love to seem something happen with this.

The "green roof" was installed on the new engineering building. How much of a part Vish actually played in this I'm not sure, but it was completed.

At least Vishal has not been arrested, unlike the University of Ottawa's President.

Originally Posted by Taunton

The "green roof" was installed on the new engineering building. How much of a part Vish actually played in this I'm not sure, but it was completed.

That was planned long before Vish became President. It is also not a "Greenroof" from my knowledge but a rain water collector.

Originally Posted by jmbauman

Water Bottle Free MSU: the inner tree-hugger part of me thinks this is a fantastic idea. From what I have heard, Union Market will continue to sell bottles of water, otherwise they will lose crazy amounts of money to La Piazza. Vish started the 'tap it' campaign as VP Ed (that's the retrofitting of water fountains to have a tap), and throughout his term as President, I have seen more and more of these popping up.

I will give vish credit for things, but not this one. The Water bottle project was started by the Uni VP Admin close to two years ago. Karen worked hard to ensure the university ran green, and her big issue was water bottle waste. Karen mentioned this to the Board last year when we met with her about trying to get any companies which are building new buildings on campus to have a contract stipulating that they must employ Mac students, be it Engineers, Commerce to manage the projects or do accounting for the business and such. We also touched on the Greenroofs and Waste Management in general.

If they want to have a water bottle free msu then they should start producing reusable water bottles (which were sold at short stop but I havent seen many there... not sure) And start an ACTUAL campaign getting students to use them. I don't think this will be too hard seeing as your alternative water source coming from the bottle is Dasani.... YULK!

Originally Posted by dkdk

At least Vishal has not been arrested, unlike the University of Ottawa's President.

Nor did he compile and initiate a lawsuit against the Canadian Federal Government for breaking United Nations Human Rights declaration/accord(Of some year) which Canada signed, one of the points of which were "Accessible higher secondary education". Which is a good thing I suppose?

These documents paint a whole different picture of the president.

If anyone doubted him before, read those and you'll see he's really trying to represent us. He's not in it for superficial reasons.

It's interesting that there were criticisms of him (November 15) of "overstepping his role" and being too personable and not professional enough. If anything, I think he's extremely professional and democratic (he hasn't done anything radical, really) so that's very strange. And for OUSA and CASA to state he's doing a bit more than he should be doing, is a little ironic.

It seems as if the president faces pressure to just agree to whatever the higher organizations want.

Thanks Huzaifa, this is awesome.

Originally Posted by Parnian

And for OUSA and CASA to state he's doing a bit more than he should be doing, is a little ironic.

It seems as if the president faces pressure to just agree to whatever the higher organizations want.

There are two sides to this issue. The first says that we have a Vice President Education whose full time job & pay(similar to the president) is to work on these OUSA/CASA issues. We also have an External affairs committee with 4-6 SRA/MSU members and a Part time Commissioner. It was the argument of some SRA members that these aforementioned parties are more then capable of going to these conferences and representing us by themselves.

They were of the belief that the President should work on local issues with McMaster administration and faculties. They were also concerned that apparently because of too much emphasis on external issues things like the SAC(Student Advisory Committee which is a meeting with Senators and Faculty Society Presidents and SRA Reps) didn't meet as often as it should have. Furthermore, a VP Ed is supposed to work on educational issues both locally and outside, people argued that the president should concentrate on local and let the ed give more focus on OUSA/CASA. That job would have been natural for him because he is a former VP Ed too.

The Flip side is that Vishal has lobbying experience via one year as Vice President Education hence he is very suitable to help out delegation at these conferences. So it would be natural for him to go with his experience. Having said that Vishal went to OUSA with the Vp Ed(Chris Martin) while at CASA It was the VP Finance Andrew Caterine who accompanied Chris.

On a random note the Internal Review by Vishal that was said to have been released during Mid January during Presidentials is still a work in progress so I cannot upload that here.

In reality, we are all here for our education. The MSU's MAIN focus as a whole should be on our quality of education. Don't get me wrong, I think our services and clubs are absolutely invaluable as well as managing our finances, but that's why we have a VP Admin and a VP Finance. Each year, our VP Education ends up having a large focus externally. In my mind, the President is basically a second VP Education but that should focus solely on our quality of education here at McMaster. There are some other responsibilities for sure, but most importantly I think the President needs to have a focus on the educational issues at our university. I think Vishal has done a bit of this - but I do think we need more in the future. A lot of a President's platform goals are ideas that fall under another staff member's portfolio - such as Mary's market stand - that would be significantly helped by the VP Admin as it is a service that the MSU would be providing to students. So I'm not saying that Presidents need to ignore their platform goals, but they need to realize that most of them can be accomplished by those working with them while they focus on the educational issues at home.