By Michael Scoular and Megan Lambert (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 25, 2015
Sunny Kim
Third-year, criminology
What kind of background knowledge do you have of Senate?
I haven’t worked directly with Senate, that’s why I wanted to pursue this originally, so I can get more involved in the academic side of decision-making on campus. I’ve read some of the minutes to get an idea of how it’s run.
What students do you feel you’ll be representative of on Senate?
As it said in my description of why I’m qualified, I have worked with different departments at UFV. I’ve worked with International, but in my position at Student Life I’ve worked with different groups on campus. I’ve spoken to, for example, the African Culture group that they have, it’s called “Black Connections,” with them, if I ask them what kind of academic changes would you like to see, they said, okay, we want to learn more about African history. There are components in some classes, but there isn’t much in the program for African history, so we’d like to see more of that. I’m also looking into our ESL programs: are they designed to the best of their abilities so that they can help students who have not much exposure to the language? Is it preparing them to the best of their abilities for the transition to academic programs? Things like that.
Do you mostly prefer face-to-face like in your work so far, or will you have other ways of hearing what students care about if you’re a Senate rep?
I think there are other ways, if you’re involved in committees on campus, but, for me at least, face-to-face really helps me understand what kind of things they will like to see more at UFV.
You mentioned you’ve looked at the minutes; are there any other particular topics that would come before Senate that you’re interested in?
One of the things that I’m interested in is that they’re looking into how to partner up with K-12 programs. So, how do you partner up with high schools? So, helping them transition from a high school into university. So they’re looking into bridging those gaps and encouraging more participation from high schools to university. I attended a learning forum last year where they were talking about changing, potentially, the structure [to] less about grading systems, but more about institutional learning outcomes: how do you develop skills, and not necessarily just focus on grades. So for me, yeah, the K-12 vision is something that I’m definitely looking forward to.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
