Following AGM delay, SUS execs present their goal plans for increased student engagement, a new website, and more
UFV’s Student Union Society (SUS) released documents detailing the goals of its executives last weekend, after the organization’s Annual General Meeting was indefinitely postponed due to a failure to meet quorum earlier that week.
Available on the SUS website, three SUS executives have shared details of their plans to fulfill the promises they made during the election, as well as the progress they’ve made on achieving those goals now that their terms are more than halfway complete. The goal plans that have been presented were all written shortly after the current executive board assumed office last April, and the COVID-19 pandemic has since changed the timelines and feasibility of several goals.
Rajdeep Dhaliwal, SUS’s recently elected vice president external, has also not yet shared her own plan, but SUS told The Cascade that it will be made available online in the near future.
President
Jessica Levesque, SUS president, detailed several goals in her plan. The first is a new SUS website, with the goal of “building a stronger sense of campus culture and community” for users.
According to Levesque’s plan, the new website will be “outsourced to an agency” in order to keep costs relatively low and ensure quality. Improvements to the SUS website have been a goal of SUS executives for several years, but the overhauled site has yet to launch despite Levesque’s stated goal of an October 2020 release.
Speaking with The Cascade via email, Levesque said that work on the new website is “well underway,” and is set to launch by the end of 2020.
Another major goal detailed by Levesque is the adoption of the Ready Education app at UFV. According to her presentation, the app features integration with Blackboard and myCampusLife, and is intended to both increase student engagement and centralize UFV’s online experience into a single, convenient location. However, she stated in a Nov. 2 Instagram update that plans to adopt the app are “on hold” for the moment due to COVID-19, with more information to come sometime in 2021.
Levesque’s other stated goals include an expanded SUS social media presence, and the publishing of monthly president’s reports in order to keep students informed about what is going on within SUS.
Vice President Internal (VPI)
Duncan Herd, SUS VPI, said in his plan (dated July 2020) that he aims to focus on significant policy revisions during his term, as well as increasing transparency between SUS and the student body.
Herd’s proposed policy revisions, while not described in detail, include additions to SUS’s election policy to make it a “more robust and clear process,” updates to finance and governance policies, and more.
Herd also said that he wishes to establish better archiving practices within SUS, and to make documentation publicly available on SUS’s website. According to his goal plan, this will be accomplished by scanning and uploading documents related to board minutes, previous electoral records, policy changes, and more.
In a slideshow posted to the VPI Instagram account last week, Herd shared an update on these goals, stating that 34.2 per cent of his policy revision goals have been completed so far, and that 40 per cent of the documents required for his archival goal have been compiled. Herd further explained via email that there are still a large number of documents that must be located, scanned, and organized before the project is complete, and that he is also waiting until the new website is completed before the project is made publicly available.
Vice President Students (VPS)
Prabhpreet Singh, VPS, outlined several methods to increase student engagement in his plan. Some notable goals include “reducing obstacles” for those wishing to join campus Clubs and Associations (C&As) by moving all registration to myCampusLife, and hosting a “mental health week” where a mental health professional is invited to speak with students.
He also described several other events he hoped to host during his term, including online “e-gaming” events, “Meet a Prof.” sessions where students can question professors about their fields of study, and “VPS Connect” sessions for students to speak to him directly. Singh said via email that “VPS Connect” plans were affected by COVID-19, but that the “intended goal” of the program is being fulfilled, as students are reaching out to him and to the president, and that he is meeting with them “upon request.”
In an Instagram update on the progress he has made so far, Singh also confirmed that he is still working with UFV Student Life to run online events where students can play Jackbox Party Pack games together every other Friday.
According to his Instagram post, Singh has also successfully run two other events involving calligraphy and painting, and he is currently working on “a lot of diverse events … [that] will be released soon.”
He also said in an email that he has been successful in his efforts to streamline the process for C&A registration and has worked with a team to ensure that students will no longer need to register for clubs with both SUS and myCampusLife and can instead just use the latter. His report also said that he had met with at least one executive from “most” campus clubs as a part of his efforts to better work with C&As.
