Hey Everyone!

As many of you may or may not know, the SRA by-election is coming up on Thursday October 22nd, 2009.

Voting starts at 9:30 am and finishes at 4:30 pm.

My name is Richard Cioci, and I am running for the only open seat for SRA Science.



A little bit about my campaign:

A large portion of my platform is based upon SRA exposure and communication to students.

A disturbingly large number of students, especially 1st and 2nd years don't know what the SRA does much less what it is.

My focus will be to develop permanent channels of communication to the student body on the current issues of the SRA.

I expect students to get involved, but I can't expect every student to decide to go online to the McMaster site, go to student government, SRA, then SRA documents, download them, and then read them all to find out what's in the now.

I have been asked how I plan to do this. Starting with short abbreviated summaries of issues brought to light at SRA meetings, I will work to have it posted on facebook updates, notes, public display boards, macinsiders, (more frequently) on the SRA blog, and if all goes well a semi-permanent spot in the Silhouette. Once I've gotten to that point, I would evaluate where students are on the scale of being informed and continue from there.

For example, most students that I've spoken to don't know that the University Affairs committee will be evaluating the 12 point grade system at McMaster, and I know that many people have strong opinions about that.

But too many don't know what's happening, and that's the problem.

From there, my campaign is focused on improving and maintaining quality of service for SOLAR.

There are many places for improvement with SOLAR, not always with the volume it can handle but moreso on how students are treated once they get into SOLAR and maintaining a standard of quality (not getting kicked out over and over).

After speaking with many students and some professors, automatic waiting lists for courses will be one of the initiatives I will look into for SOLAR as well; firstly, if it's truly desired by students, and secondly, how it would be implemented.

I have a lot more ideas for improvement, but right now I'd like to focus on these two, especially the increasing exposure of the SRA.

You can check out my facebook group here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7273290 1576


You can also email me at [email protected] om if you want to discuss any of my campaign.


Science poll stations will be in the BSB lobby, it only takes around a minute to vote.

So please take a little time and vote for someone you think will do a good job, or even abstain to show that you're not confident in anyone, just vote.


Also:

Other Polling Stations:

Arts & Science: Commons Lobby
Engineering: BSB Lobby
Humanities: Mills Library
Kinesiology: DBAC
Science: BSB Lobby (this is me)
Social Sciences: Student Centre (by Williams)

Also, check out the msu Elections page for other information:

http://www.msumcmaster.ca/servicesan...lInfo/main.htm



Don't Forget to Vote!!


- Richard Cioci

You're right, I have no clue what the SRA is/does.

Good luck!

Good luck Richard!

I'm sorry, in my excitement to explain my campaign I sometimes forget to explain what the SRA is.

The SRA is the main legislative and governing body of the MSU. It has a total of 35 representatives. Each faculty is represented by a number appropriate to their size. Science has 9 seats (correction: 6 seats), one of which is open right now.

The SRA votes and decides on a large variety of items concerning students, from policies, budgets, anything. They decide on renovations of the campus pub, and on approving changes to services. If it's an issue that affects students, you can bring it to your SRA rep.

The SRA also has committees which are in charge of 'evaluating' specific areas of the MSU and providing recommendations and changes to the SRA.

You can check out one of the meetings, there is one this Sunday at 6:30 pm in Council Chambers (Gilmour hall Rm 111).

Originally Posted by aviaf

Science has 9 seats,

Correction... Science has 6 seats. Otherwise, good work!

I'd like to make a note on something you said in your original post, concerning the 12-point grading system review that the UA Committee is doing. I sit on that committee, and I'm also co-leader on that project.

The bulk of the work hasn't been started yet. I've been doing my own research on other grading systems... once I have other options to present, then I would ask students about their opinion on the current system.

The reason being: sure, students will have an opinion on the current grading system, but unless I have alternatives to offer, then what benefit will my survey provide me? That students either like or dislike the current system... I won't know anything about what they might prefer as an alternative. The goal of the review is to determine what our constituents want, and to provide a recommendation on the subject which would then be lobbied towards the Administration.

So yes, students do need to hear more about the SRA and what we do, and I applaud your sentiments on the subject. The example you used however, is not quite accurate, since they will know about the project, once we're ready to approach them on it (ie they don't know about it not because they aren't necessarily looking, but because we're not really trying to let them know about it just yet).

Yes, that is a valid point, but I still think that the mere fact that it's going to be happening this year is important for students to know, regardless of whether they would be polled later on