Four Pages on the Dsu's Advocacy Debate Pg. 8-11
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Mar 7 - Mar. 13, 2014Mar 7 - Mar. • 146-20 FOUR PAGES ON THE DSU'S ADVOCACY DEBATE PG. 8-11 Cover by Amber Solberg Amber by Cover Mar. 7 - Mar. 13, 2014 • staff Ian Froese, Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Blum, Sports Editor [email protected] Daniel Bergman, Asst. Sports Editor [email protected] Joelline Girouard, Copy/Online Editor [email protected] Chris Parent, Photo Editor [email protected] Kristie Smith, News Editor Jesse Ward, Asst. News Editor Emily Davidson, Art Director [email protected] [email protected] Sam Elmsley, Opinions Editor Ian Fleming, Video Director [email protected] [email protected] Mat Wilush, Arts Editor Aaron Merchant, Business Manager Zoe Doucette, Asst. 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Editorials in The Gazette are signed and the Streeter feature are solely those of the person being quoted, and not The represent the opinions of the writer(s), not necessarily those of The Gazette Gazette’s writers or staff. staff, Editorial Board, publisher, or Dalhousie University. 1) Three weeks in a mental health ward—Ian Froese, News 2) Changing faces—Uytae Lee, Opinions 3) Student feels her voice was lost over sound complaint—Jesse Ward, News 4) Chief returning officer resigns before DSU election—Ian Froese, News 5) DSU votes to leave CASA, StudentsNS—Kristie Smith, News news news covers Dalhousie and the greater Halifax community. Contributions are welcome! Email Kristie and Jesse at [email protected] news Kristie Smith News Editor Grading this year’s DSU executives Kristie Smith OUR JUDGES: News Editor Elizabeth Croteau: Sexton Campus Director Ramz Aziz As you read this, the halls are lit- Chair of the Board of Operations tered with posters of tomorrow's Chair of the Executive Review VP internal student leaders and the hopefuls Committee who are running against them. While the VP internal has folio well, going above and But before anyone pops a Kit Moran: one of the smallest bud- beyond whenever possible. champagne bottle, let’s give a nod DSU Athletics Commissioner gets, Aziz has been able to He wasn't perfect, but what to the executives past. Our panel (directly under VP student life do a lot with his position he lacked in knowledge he got together to talk about the past Danny Shanahan) and that’s what put him made up for with enthusi- year and give a grade to each of Former VP student life candidate in the A-range. He had asm. He wasn't as policy- this year's executives. many small victories, all of wise as he could have been, Kristie Smith which amount to a substan- so he might need to study a Gazette News editor tial workload; Aziz helped bit more before running for (Mostly moderated) bring the summer UPass, top office. Overall, he was DSU app, redeigned the a positive addition to the website and more. He com- DSU. Sagar Jha pleted the tasks in his port- President Danny Shanahan B- VP student life Shanahan started off well. He did a good job with DalFest and Shinerama, arguably two of the biggest things VP student life deals with in their term. Come March, a lot of that sheen was gone. Opponents of Shanahan's argued that he ignored a chunk of his port- folio—varsity athletics. He was expected to keep it alive, maybe even improve the cul- ture, but nothing special happened during his tenure and athletes called foul. Sexton campus came to him during his campaign last spring and asked for study space, which they were promised. Instead of getting their second space, the old Sexton Campus Coor- dinator Office was repurposed to an office for the entertainment programmers. If Sha- nahan wants to succeed in re-election, he’ll need to better serve all of his constituents. The panel thought Jha grew the campaign promise, he has become most out of all the candidates. a better president. One criticism When he came into office, he was was that he’s seemed to retreat bright-eyed with enthusiasm, from the general student body in but only brought so many politi- his final months in office. This On the cover: cal skills to the table. Since Sep- hasn’t done much for his popular- Illustrator Amber Solberg took inspiration tember, he's learned the policy ity, but he did his job well and got from the Mortal Kombat video game fran- that goes with his job; and while a lot more done than he did in the chise for the 2014 DSU election issue. he hasn't come through on every beginning of his term. 4 news Mar. 7 - Mar. 13, 2014 • Aaron Beale Josh Cooke VP academic and external VP finance and operations Beale took on the ultimately The only executive to be nomi- too-tough job of trying to nated instead of elected, Cooke restructure the executive. He hit all the right points proce- argued his job, VP academic durally but missed the mark on and external, was too much for public relations and pushing the one person and couldn't pos- envelope. The building is still in sibly be done right. He proved one piece and the budget should it: he did the external part of balance, but no judge had the his portfolio well, with several sense that Cooke tried anything campaigns throughout the year new or did that little bit extra. and a good hoorah during the He balenced the budget and did provincial elections this past his job, but not much else. Fis- fall, but completely missed the cally responsible and honest in mark with the academic half. tough political situations, he Despite two years in the posi- could always be trusted to speak tion, he struggled the most with forcefully on behalf of the union policy and budgetary restric- instead of the executive, which we tions. At the most recent coun- think was pretty cool. cil meeting, when the union voted to leave its external advo- cacy groups, Beale was accused of helping produce an opinion paper that lied to the council, as well as misrepresenting the DSU to the groups it reviewed negatively. Love him or hate him, though, he came in with 2013-14 DSU executive portraits. goals and got some results. • • • Illustrations by Amber Solberg • Mar. 7 - Mar. 13, 2014 news 5 (E&A) A DECADE OF Per semester: $1 per full-time Your DSU levy student, 50 cents per part-time student DSU ELECTIONS: The money would go toward shopping list coordinating diversity and anti- VOTER TURNOUT BY YEAR oppression workshops for DSU What to know before you vote executives, councillors and staff, and working with the DSU pol- Sabina Wex The paper wants to return icy researcher to address equity Staff Contributor to printing at least 25 issues and accessibility issues, among (which has been recently cut to other topics. 23), improve its faulty website When students vote for the Dal- and produce weekly video con- housie Student Union (DSU) tent. The Gazette ran a similar South House Sexual executive this year, they will also question last year but failed. and Gender Resource be asked 10 referendum ques- Centre tions. The Gazette has looked Increase levy by $2.85 per full- into what the questions are and Dalhousie Interna- time student, $2 per part-time why each organization is asking tional Students’ Asso- student them. ciation (DISA) South House’s increases would Increase levy by $10 for interna- take their levy from $3.15 to $6 CKDU-FM tional students for full-time students, and from Increase levy by $1 DISA wants to increase the levy $1 to $3 for part-time students. The levy increase means full- for international students from As students’ needs for resources time students would pay $10 $5 to $15. The funds would go have risen, South House would per annum instead of the cur- toward further accommoda- use the money to increase their It’s been over six years since at the DSU president’s election.