2020 Board of Director's Forum
Written and photo by; Neema Mazonge
@neemamazonge
On the 4th of February, SMUSA held its Board of Directors Forum at 6 pm in the Sobeys Building. The event was attended by all Board of Director candidates and students who were curious to hear what these candidates offer. The Forum was recorded live on the SMU Journal Facebook page. To kick off the event, Mitch Archibald the chief returning officer for the SMUSA election gave a brief introduction of the night's events (introducing the agenda and briefs speeches) and main speakers of the event aside from the candidates. Dr. Rohini Bannerjee talked about the importance of governance and student experience and the importance of representation. Her key point was “the beautiful thing about university is you are allowed to be comfortably uncomfortable, there will be moments in governance where you will be uncomfortable” (Dr. Rohini 2020). She also gave words of encouragement to students who will be in rooms where they are the only one who looks like themselves or have a specific vision, do not give up and keep pushing because it is possible.
Before introducing the next speaker, Mitch talked about the importance of this year and having the first female president in 17 years and SMUSA’s first-ever female board chair and president team, recognizing the importance of woman leaders in SMU. Gifts were given to Dr. Rohini and Ms. Paula who then took over for the rest of the event. Ms. Paula Minnikin who is the long-standing advisor of SMUSA and has a lot of experience in governance gave the audience an idea of how the process will work which included: the order in which questions will be asked and the order in which candidates will answer. Each candidate was given between 2-3 minutes to speak. The audience was also given a chance to ask questions and all candidates were given 1 minute to answer the question and 30 seconds to answer re-battle questions if any. Presidential candidates in the audience were also allowed to ask only one question for less than 30 seconds to avoid past experiences of presidential candidates giving speeches during the forum.
The candidates who introduced themselves to the audience include Jacob Carey Paradis, Alex Wilson, Abhinav Gaur, Vimbayi Handara, Govinda Chaulagain, Joshua Sydney, Brian Tumusiime and Pearl Buyanzai. This year’s BOD candidates comprise of two women and six men. They were given an opportunity to explain why they were running for the Board of Directors. Some of the interesting topics that stood out and were a driving force for the candidates included mental health on campus, re-writing of the SMUSA policies to include a diversity and inclusion policy, the flexibility of SMUSA policies, the introduction of a sexual health committee on campus and health care. Questions from the board and the audience were then asked and the candidates each answered according to their vision and reasons for wanting to join the Board of Directors. At the end of the event, two members of the audience were awarded gift cards to Halifax Shopping Center for their participation in the day’s events.
For those interested in the upcoming events, the Presidential Debate will be held on Thursday, February 6th at the Scotiabank Theatre in Sobey Building. We wish the best of luck to all the candidates this year and may the best man win.