Comments on: USSU report cards

By: Isaac

Isaac — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:37:51 +0000

Josie Steeves, it's nice to hear from you. What are you up to these days?

By: JOS009

JOS009 — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:31:51 +0000

Its not surprising that this "journalist" mocks other Executives for not giving them enough stories to write about. I seem to recall an Executive that took a stance on making the life of students better by bringing the Place Riel renovations to fruition … must not be front page worthy.

Hmm, CFS, I seem to recall an issue when the Executive that brought in CFS took a side and where did that leave us?

No, no Executive took a side on issuing in the USSU Sustainability Policy, initiating the Mugging Campaign, or being more active in engaging students to what the USSU is and what it stands for.

Exam schedules out earlier … nope, that was never pushed by any exec.

Apparently there were no stories for The Sheaf … it must have been difficult not to be able to write about successes instead of controversy. I guess just another stumbling block in the lives "trying-to-be" journalists that will amount to Planet S and Verb. AIM HIGH!!!

By: @climbrandon

@climbrandon — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:31:18 +0000

When you allow your ideology to guide your conduct when in student politics, you must able to realize this. Obviously, it’s impossible to make every single student happy. Nevertheless, as a student politician, I think you should strive to represent as many students as you possibly can. Therefore, in my opinion, the only way to achieve this is to stay neutral regardless of your personal point of view.

By: @climbrandon

@climbrandon — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:30:54 +0000

In my opinion, regardless of your personal opinion, you should always work to represent as many students as you can, regardless of THEIR opinion. In the two examples that I have just mentioned, many students became alienated by their elected student representatives because of the controversial stances that the SFUO executive members have taken.

I do not agree with you when you say that neutrality is a bad, boring way to run a “student union”. Obviously, you’re a student reporter; I'm assuming that you thrive on controversy in order to feed your readership. However, the SFUO has an incredibly diverse constituency of over 30 000 undergraduate students. With that said, when it comes to personal opinions (or ideology), those should not be the deciding factor in the way you conduct yourself when you get elected to represent students, who don’t always share those same values, ideas, ideologies.

By: @climbrandon

@climbrandon — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:29:44 +0000

As a student from the University of Ottawa, I very much disagree with this statement in your article: "The previous two years had seen executives guided by a policy of neutrality — don’t take any positions and respond to students’ demands as they come (…) Unfortunately, this is not a practical approach to leadership. It is not inspiring to students. Nor is it, for that matter, interesting to cover as a journalist. People don’t want their political representatives to be a mirror, perfectly reflecting their own values and flaws. They want a lens — someone who helps them focus on problems clearly."