[Chad]

Candidates for MSU President are:

• Jacob Brodka (Second-year Life Science) (Website)
• David Campbell (currently MSU Vice-President Administration) (Website)
• James Dowdall (Fourth-year Math and Statistics) (Website)
• Adrian Emmanuel (Fourth-year Life Science) (Facebook)
• Daniel Fahey (Third-year Integrated Science) (Website)
• Haman Man (Website)
• Rory Yendt (Second-year Engineering) (Website)

VOTING HAS STARTED and will remain open until 5:00pm on Thursday, January 31st. Students will receive an email to their McMaster email account with a link to the ballot. There will also be an electronic polling station in MUSC in front of William’s from 10:00am-3:00pm each day, should a student wish to use it.

Besides voting days, there will be two important events during the campaign period:

First, a Presidential Pub Night will be held at 5:00pm on Wednesday, January 23rd, in TwelvEighty. This will be an informal debate, with an opportunity for students to meet the candidates running for MSU President. Complimentary appetizers and soft drinks will be served, all ages welcome.

Second, the official Presidential Debate will be held on January 29th from 12:30-2:30pm in the MUSC Atrium. This will be a formal debate, moderated with questions to the candidates and opportunities to rebut.

For all election related information, please visit the website of MSU Elections.

In addition to voting for MSU President, there will be two referendum questions appearing concurrently on the ballot; one concerns a potential decrease of a fee supporting CFMU 93.3FM and the other asks students if they would like to create a $0.90 per student levy to support the McMaster Marching Band. The exact wording of the referendum questions is as follows:

CFMU 93.3FM
"Are you in favour of lowering the CFMU fee from $17.29 to $12.50 per MSU member, indexed to CPI, for the 2013-14 fiscal year?"
YES / NO / ABSTAIN

McMaster Marching Band
“Are you in favour of implementing a mandatory fee of $0.90 per MSU member to support the McMaster Marching Band?”
YES / NO / ABSTAIN

For any and all questions regarding the referendum or the campaign for MSU President, please contact:

Steven Thompson
Chief Returning Officer
[email protected] .ca
905-525-9140 ext. 24118

[huzaifa47]

Thoughts anyone? Questions? I'm not on a campaign team but I can clarify stuff/answer questions in the most fair way possible. MI used to be a major campaign zone for candidates (I distinctly remember back in 2010 we had multi page threads) but that practice has died down in the past couple of years.

[kaitotst]

I support the Space Maroon Empire

[SweetyTweety]

I like the British one.

[jon.john23]

just out of curiosity and reflection, wht did last years president do, like any major improvements to student life or fulfillment of promises...

coz personally, i never head of Siobhan Stewart again after the election

[ashleighp]

Could someone post links to the websites that have been set up by any of them? I didn't have my phone with me today to snap pictures of the URLs and was too hurried to write anything down.

[mike_302]

I don't know how to post this question for a response from all candidates... But:

What I really liked about MDL was his attendance at essentially all of our Eng student society meetings. He was constantly aware of what we were up to, and since this kind of meeting is when student issues are often brought up/addressed, he was really useful in this way. Do any of the current candidates plan on scheduling attendance at these meetings? (By "these meetings" I mean any faculty student society meetings, which is where all other student issues should be coming up to... Even though I do understand that not many other faculty student societies really do this well...)

[jim1]

Originally Posted by ashleighp

Could someone post links to the websites that have been set up by any of them? I didn't have my phone with me today to snap pictures of the URLs and was too hurried to write anything down.

Jacob Brodka:
http://www.brodka2013.com/

David Campbell:
http://davidcampbell2013.com /

James Dowdall:
http://jamesdowdall.com/

Daniel Patrick Fahey:
http://dan4msu.ca/

Rory Yendt:
http://roryyendt.com/

Originally Posted by jon.john23

just out of curiosity and reflection, wht did last years president do, like any major improvements to student life or fulfillment of promises...

coz personally, i never head of Siobhan Stewart again after the election

Thanks for pointing this out..i would like to know as well.

[Kudos]

Originally Posted by jon.john23

just out of curiosity and reflection, wht did last years president do, like any major improvements to student life or fulfillment of promises...

coz personally, i never head of Siobhan Stewart again after the election

Word. I think the only decent president since I got to Mac in 2008 has been MDL. Otherwise, a whole lotta nothing gets done, people keep promising the same stuff that never comes to pass and we keep turning up to vote in depressingly low numbers.

[MD-L]

Well... that was heart warming. Thank you.

Honestly, it's a very strange job. The platform is an important part of it, but what you actually have to do or should do is so much more than that. The platform really in my mind should be more of a reflection of what that person believes is important.

There are a few things at play.

#1. The University Administration: This is something that is hard to unpack because administrators are all different and all have different aims/goals. Ultimately as President you may have to lobby them to enact change. Not just on platform points, but let's say you think that students should have more input in a specific decision, or disagree with a decision of theirs, you have to be able to sit across from someone who has been doing that job for years, and can literally wait you out for 1 year to move on to what they want to do. It is incredibly challenging and not always something someone thinks of when deciding who to vote for.

#2. Staff. There are full time staff members that help manage the union, part time managers, and employees. Think of all the services, and businesses, and then how they are all managed. It's alot. It isn't the President's job to essentially manage all of this but they must be able to handle any problem that may arise, and also work with these individuals to create any changes they believe are necessary. Firings, Hirings, Deficit's, Surpluses. As President you have to wear the decisions of the organization as ultimately the student body elected you to be their representative.

#3. Students/student groups: This is the reason why you do the job in the first place. If you can't connect with students and don't care to then the job isn't for you. You have to meet with and tap into the multitude of student groups on campus, and listen. Finding out what is going on in the campus is one of the most critical if not the most important part of the whole damn job.

Anyways I hope this helps. The position itself can create change if in the hands of a competent and passionate person.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by jon.john23

just out of curiosity and reflection, wht did last years president do, like any major improvements to student life or fulfillment of promises...

coz personally, i never head of Siobhan Stewart again after the election

https://www.msumcmaster.ca/posts/114

[starfish]

Originally Posted by MD-L

Well... that was heart warming. Thank you.

Honestly, it's a very strange job. The platform is an important part of it, but what you actually have to do or should do is so much more than that. The platform really in my mind should be more of a reflection of what that person believes is important.

There are a few things at play.

#1. The University Administration: This is something that is hard to unpack because administrators are all different and all have different aims/goals. Ultimately as President you may have to lobby them to enact change. Not just on platform points, but let's say you think that students should have more input in a specific decision, or disagree with a decision of theirs, you have to be able to sit across from someone who has been doing that job for years, and can literally wait you out for 1 year to move on to what they want to do. It is incredibly challenging and not always something someone thinks of when deciding who to vote for.

#2. Staff. There are full time staff members that help manage the union, part time managers, and employees. Think of all the services, and businesses, and then how they are all managed. It's alot. It isn't the President's job to essentially manage all of this but they must be able to handle any problem that may arise, and also work with these individuals to create any changes they believe are necessary. Firings, Hirings, Deficit's, Surpluses. As President you have to wear the decisions of the organization as ultimately the student body elected you to be their representative.

#3. Students/student groups: This is the reason why you do the job in the first place. If you can't connect with students and don't care to then the job isn't for you. You have to meet with and tap into the multitude of student groups on campus, and listen. Finding out what is going on in the campus is one of the most critical if not the most important part of the whole damn job.

Anyways I hope this helps. The position itself can create change if in the hands of a competent and passionate person.

I think #1 is the biggest problem in terms of actually implementing platform points. The general student body doesn't really understand that the MSU president's power is very limited when it comes to enacting a great deal of things (for example, a fall break). They can push for it to happen, but they only have one year to do so and a lot of "big" changes take more than that. Then the student body doesn't see change happening on the timescale they expect, and grow apathetic. Most of the things that the President does aren't really noticed by the majority of the university.

[mike_302]

Is there a place I can post a question for all candidates and have it answered?

[biglandfarm]

let the race of beauty and popularity start!

[Phaint]

Originally Posted by biglandfarm

let the race of beauty and popularity start!

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