Hello concerned student,

I agree that I have not discussed finances specifically within my platform, save for the 5-year plan. The primary reason for this is that these responsibilities fall under the portfolio of the Vice-President finance. I would like to address your assertion that "The MSU will only start functioning towards better sustainability if we have a president with a backbone who is half competent with accounting and numbers and can analyze the current situation well". While I agree that any strong President requires a backbone and the ability to think both critically and analytically, the position of VP Finance exists so that the President needn't be a financial expert - which I certainly do not feign to be.

Having said that, I certainly do agree that the President needs to have a general understanding of these issues so that they can effectively set the direction and priorities of the organizations. As such, I have included an explanation of WHAT the problem is. I have not included the specifics of HOW I plan to fix it, because this would be an initiative I would address collectively with the VP Finance (2010/2011), Business Manager, Comptroller and Finance Commissioner as outlined in the 5-year plan. Having spoken with several people who are highly familiar with the financial structure of the organization, I have come to understand that what has been missing for several years is timely financial reporting to the SRA and effective analysis of variances between budgets and actual performance.

The MSU president is one of 35 members of the SRA, but the president is also, as you say, the figurehead and face of the organization. That leadership must include ensuring an effective link between planning, implementation and program evaluation. It should be impermissible for an operation like 1280 that is intended to generate net revenue to lose about $800,000 over two years. Revenue generating departments are meant to help offset the costs of other services provided to students (e.g. ERFT, Ombuds, club funding, etc.). I believe the MSU president needs to be working with other members of the executive and full-time staff to effectively oversee MSU departments and maintain the important accountability link to the student body by reporting regularly on what is going well and what needs to be done better; I have addressed this need by the creation of a regularly maintained Presidential blog that would speak to specific concerns such as these.

Though I concede that it would be preferable to have the skeleton of a 5-year plan already laid out with specific initiatives to address the current financial situation problems, this needs to await the election of the VP Finance. Furthermore, I am still awaiting the Internal Review from incumbent President Vishal Tiwari, which I hope will further illuminate the reasoning behind the MSU's financial woes.

I am discouraged by your sentiment that I have "played it safe"; what I have done is identified real problems and proposed realistic and attainable solutions to these concerns. To me, playing it safe entails finding high profile student concerns such as SOLAR and tuition, and making promises to lobby the required institutions for betterment. Personally speaking, in the world of government, "lobby" tends to be a euphemism for maintaining a facade of addressing student concerns without actually accomplishing anything. My platform has been carefully constructed to be sustainable and achievable, to help regain student's faith in the organization and to set the precedent for future years.

I'm glad to hear there are students who are so invested in their school's future, and are sufficiently concerned to interrogate the candidates. Thanks for your question, please let me know if you'd like me to further elaborate.

Mary Koziol
imaginemoremary.com

Hey Mary,

I feel bad bringing this up as I do think you are a phenomenal person and I like your platform, however, it is a concern that I've heard from a few people that I would like to see addressed.

From the classroom presentations I have seen, you are present, yet members of your campaign team do the talking. What is the reasoning behind this? It gives me some concern since the President should be able to represent themselves and the MSU both to students and the University Administration in a large group or individually.

Again, I don't mean this in any way as an attack, I just really feel as though your response is something many students would want to see.

Sincerely,
John

Hi John!

Not at all, thank you so much for bringing this up in a public forum where I can properly address it.

I have been visiting classes starting at 8:30 am and continuing every hour until night class *WITH THE EXCEPTION* of attending my own classes - at the end of the day, I am still a 4th year student with a degree to complete.

I have been sending representatives because I am hoping to reach as many students as possible. One thing in particular I've asked my representatives to stress is visiting my website, imaginemoremary.com so that they can become more familiar with my platform. However, I believe personal contact is cardinal to any Presidential campaign, and over the next week and a half, I will continue to visit as many classes as possible and reach those students who have yet to see anyone but a representative of mine. I understand the illusion this creates; that I am too lazy or unmotivated to reach out to students myself, and instead am relying on my hard-working team. I assure you this is not the case, and over the next week students will see more and more of me!

Most of the classes I've spoken to personally have said that I am the only candidate who has spoken to them yet, whereas other classes have seen every candidate BUT me; evidently, I am following an unorthodox class-visiting trajectory.

Thanks for your question and for helping to contribute to a positive campaigning environment! Mr. Wade has a fantastic team behind him.

Mary
imaginemoremary.com

I just re-read your question and noted I might have misinterpreted your question - whenever I go to a classroom visit with fellow team members, it is *always* me who does the talking.

Perhaps students are mistaken in thinking I am there? I certainly agree that if someone is unable to speak in front of a large group of students, than they are likely an ill-fit for the position of president.

Does the logo remind anyone else of the new Waterloo logo? :O

http://www.universityaffairs .ca/ma...arketing.j pg

Originally Posted by micadjems

Does the logo remind anyone else of the new Waterloo logo? :O

http://www.universityaffairs .ca/ma...arketing.j pg

A little bit.
The sad thing is, Mary's logo is much, much better.

(No offence to Mary. It's just that a university should have better graphics than "80's laser W")

Well Since I never got a reply on Miss Koziol's Facebook thread I'll post my questions here in hopes that it get's noticed.


#1

Hey Mary,

I believe the Jobs Portal that you want to implement already exists: We DO have the MSU Job Portal for MSU Services and most importantly OSCAR for Any McMaster or GTA related Job postings.

OSCAR is an immense tool for anyone trying to find jobs or volunteer opportunities with the features it has and the support it receives from Career services which is dedicated McMaster Service with a huge budget; It is actually even more functional in my opinion then alot of Third Party Online Job Portals; Plus it is a MacID system so it also is the safest tool out there. Since most people I know are unaware of it I think our resources should be better spent working with Career Services to increase awareness for that.

I also highly doubt the long term sustainability of having Craigs list type system made with the current MSU website service provider. I have been highly unimpressed with ORBIS systems(The Web developing service MSU uses) in the time I have been within the MSU and I clearly don't think it can handle what you are describing. On a random note ORBIS has been known to promise alot of functionality but In a conversation I had with someone from the Laurier Studet Union(Who wanted to Implement ORBIS run Evote in 09) they shared the same feelings about ORBIS and their inaccurate promises.

I do like your platform point about MSU made Documentaries for social awareness clubs though!

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Just a question about your "Green plan". The green thing has almost become a buzzword for Presidential candidates for years now and promises to work with MacGreen and Office of Sustainability have become cliche; yet the fact of the matter is that a cursory look at Globe and Mail Survey's over the years has shown Mac to lag far behind other Canadian schools. Can you please specify what all comes under your research for the green umbrella?

As for Green IT; atleast the Mac's we use at Mills/Thode have a very good "GreenStar" certification that is usually superior to even the latest Windows based PC's. Other then that the manufacturers we use are members of Electronic products stewardship Canada (www.epsc.ca/about) who adhere to industry regulations on disposal. Furthermore, ironically I temped for UTS in the summer in an odd job dismantling components from computers which were then separated into different categories and at least as I was told disposed with the manufacturer and not throw in a landfill. I'm assuming that is their policy.

If the above wasn't what you were specifically referring to can you please elaborate on your lobbying plans for Green IT?

Thanks,

Huzaifa

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Just a quick point about the Express line at Union Market point. I talked to the Union Market Manager Julie Compton yesterday about this idea(Since it sounds so good on paper) and she reckoned that herself and previous UM managers have considered this idea but they have dismissed implementing it because of the fact that most people prefer to use Plastic at UM and hence those lines would be unfeasibly long. But if this is an idea you had thought up sometime ago I'm assuming you could have approached Julie as an SRA member about it?

Hence I was wondering, you mentioned that your platform is very research based and it does positively reflect with some of your points but for this one did you ever talk to the manager?

Mary,

I'm a little concerned with your plan for a MSU online marketplace. The Facebook marketplace is already widely used and quite good. Users can limit their search to the McMaster network, or expand their search to other areas if necessary (i.e. look to see if a UW student is selling a book that no one at Mac is selling). On top of that, the McMaster online services have a stigma with Students.

If you do indeed create this forum what will it actually provide for students that they don't already have and how will you get students to actually use it? Also, have you assessed the costs for building and maintaining such a site? Without letting advertisers in, how can you offset these costs? Will students have to pay a fee to use this site like with the failed Undercovers experiment?

Thanks for your time, hope to hear from you.

Sam Dick
MTENGIII

Following are responses copied and pasted from Mary Koziol: Imagine More facebook group

Hi Huzaifa,

A couple points about the job portal aspect of MacsList:

-currently, the MSU is working towards switching the MSU website so that to view the site, you must login with your MacID, which will enhance the security of MacsList

-MacsList is not meant to undercut OSCAR in any way, the jobs and volunteering opportunities listed on MacsList are going to be MSU-centric; club presidents and MSU service managers will be able to easily post opportunities which are catered to MSU members and students will have one central place to check for current opportunities

-we have consulted with Pauline Taggart (MSU Network Administrator) and she has assured us that the current MSU website can support MacsList


PS I really like the idea of MSU clubs documentary nights too!

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Huzaifa,

I instead talked to the assistant manager. She expressed that there might be some problems with its implementation, but that it was a possible alternative to the current long lines experienced by students. It would need a test-run to determine whether in actuality in ran smoothly, so until then I can give no definitive answer. However, I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Thanks for your question, your inquiry skills continue to impress me!

Mary

The MSU website is not switching to MacID. They are attempting to investigate the possibility of that. The University is not going to give up MacID information to the MSU, because the MSU does not have any proper security measures in place.

I for one will be fighting very hard against this measure as I have seen the lack of attention given to security within the MSU. Please stop hawking on about that point, it is unfeasible and very unsafe for the security of students.

Next, Pauline Taggart's claims about the power of the website are likely overstated. It's not Pauline's fault either, as she is going off what Orbis (the company who makes the software for the MSU site) has said.

Orbis has also said that they can easily construct a collaborative calendar that can accomodate the thousands of students plus the hundreds of clubs/student groups so that students can subscribe to calendars etc.

This is cutting edge software that only Google has brought to the internet.

Also, the Wilfrid Laurier Students Union attempted to move to online voting with Orbis' assurances that this is feasible. A few months later, they are still on physical voting booths as Orbis' could not back their claims up, and WLUSU has moved away from using Orbis.

The MacList idea cannot work because the MSU does not have the technological infrastucture. It's fooling nobody to state these things because all we have to do is look at the shoddy state of the MSU site. Our campaign sites are more intuitive and feature packed than the MSU website.

Can someone on MI please change Mary's name to the proper spelling - Mary Koziol...the main link says Mary Koizol right now. Thanks

I've tried, I don't have the admin abilities to do so. Chad has been notified, and hopefully he will get the issue fixed shortly!

Thanks for letting us know tho!

I just fixed it.. something must be up with your account then :S

edit: So I did the edit on his post but it's not showing up in the top header.. Chaaadd!!! fix this! kay thanks!

Originally Posted by deadpool

The MSU website is not switching to MacID. They are attempting to investigate the possibility of that. The University is not going to give up MacID information to the MSU, because the MSU does not have any proper security measures in place.

Mac hates giving away any information! Look at the marmor! They wont even give us grad lists!