July Adventures: Hiking on the Interpretive Fire Trail

Photo: Reaching the peak at nearly 1,100 metres high following an exhausting 18 kilometre hike up.

Summer holiday should be a time which we relax and recover from the draining eight months of post-secondary education we have to endure year after year, right? In my opinion, of course! But one of the best strategies I think to recharge your mind and refocus your priorities is to try something new and stay fit! And that is exactly what I did this past weekend!

Thanks to the wonderful guidance of one of my fraternity brothers, he led a few brothers and I on a one-day hike on the Landslide Lake's Interpretive Fire Trail near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta.

UASU Councillor Report: June 2015

Photo: Focused and hard at work while at the 2015 Wellness Summit at the University of Calgary.

Hello everyone, 

With the heat pounding down on the city recently, I hope you all are staying cool and hydrated as you enjoy some of the exciting festivities the City of Edmonton has to offer during the summer! As for Students’ Council this month, there are a few exciting things that I would like to share with you all!

As I slowly begin to settle in on the Finance Committee, I jumped on the opportunity to proxy for Vice-President Bondarchuk to represent him on the Student Group Services Granting Committee for the four upcoming granting periods. This will not only allow me to contribute more to the committee as I have promised earlier last month, but also, enable me to connect to students and see some of the amazing things different Student Groups are working on throughout the year. Additionally, I was also appointed as a Member of Council to sit on the Students’ Union Awards Adjudication Committee. Throughout my first year, I was fortunate enough to have received funding from the University’s Entrance Awards. Thus, by being a member on the Students’ Union Awards Adjudication Committee this year, I hope to be able to give back to the University and recognize students for some of the great things they have done in community.

Earlier this month, several Councillors, Executives, and I had the opportunity to travel down to Calgary and attend the 2015 Wellness Summit at the University of Calgary. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me. Throughout the conference, I was able to hear from a series of student panelists from Alberta discussing positive strategies they have implemented at their home institution that has improved outreach on mental health concerns of students and support initiatives that has successfully targeted stress and anxiety. Furthermore, I also attended a workshop during the conference where we gathered working ideas on what will one day become the Alberta Post-Secondary Mental Health and Addiction Framework, an unified approach for how the province can address student health concerns. Before we left, we were also invite by some of the members of the University of Calgary Students’ Union to dinner as well as a tour of their Students’ Union Building. Over dinner, we discuss some of the differences between our Students’ Union, but most interestingly, we both identified similar concerns and issues that we all hope to address by the end of our term.

Lastly, back in Council, there were several exciting news announced. First being that the twenty-five market modifiers that were approved by the Alberta government last December has been rolled-back. As a result, students will be saving thousands of dollars in tuition in the upcoming fall and winter semesters. Aside from this, the Executives also formally presented their goals during the last Council meeting in June. I am incredibly please to finally see a more thorough presentation of their goals, and also, see how it aligns with the Students’ Union Strategic Plan that was ratified earlier this Spring.

Thank-you for reading this through, and I look forward to reporting back to you in July!

Until next time,

Alex Kwan

Students’ Union Councillor 2015-2016

GFC Councillor 2015-2016

UASU Councillor Report: May 2015

Photo: Selfie with President Samarasekera at her last General Faculties Council meeting in May 2015.

Dear friends,

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer free from exams and stressful assignments. Once again, I would like to extend my most sincere thank-you for electing me as your Science Students’ Union Councillor and General Faculties Council Councillor for this upcoming academic year.

This May has been a busy month for Students’ Council. During our first meeting, I was delighted to finally have the opportunity to meet all the awe-inspiring Councillors that I will have the honour to work with for the next twelve months. Everyone is extremely welcoming and enthusiastic on discussing student issues that concerns their constituents, but also, they were incredibly excited to share their goals and visions for Students’ Council this year.

On the business end of things, Council’s first order of business was to appoint a new speaker. With his experience working with the University of Alberta Students’ Union and knowledge on the Robert’s Rules of Order, I am confident Mr. Saadiq Sumar will be an competent and impartial Speaker that is able maintain order in Council meetings as well as ensuring that all our voices are heard during debate. Aside from this, at our first meeting, I was successfully appointed to sit on the Finance Committee this year where I will strive to attend all meetings and contribute to the committee as much as possible.

In the weeks following our first Council meeting, I was given the opportunity to learn more about Student Governance, and also, to get to better know some of the other Councillors at GovCamp 2015. Throughout this three-day retreat, I attended numerous workshops which I developed invaluable skills such as conflict management, asking effective questions, and setting up realistic goals. In addition, during the periods when there was no formal programming, I got to network with my fellow Councillors where I was surprised to learn that we all share very similar visions on topics such as student health and collaboration between our Faculty Associations. All in all, Discover Governance did a fantastic job hosting GovCamp this year and I strongly recommend all future student leaders to attend this retreat as it was pivotal for me transitioning into the Councillor role since I am relatively new to Student Governance at the University level.

After a restful week from GovCamp, Council was back in full swing for our second official meeting where I was successfully appointed to the Health Centre Advisory Group Board of Directors. By being a member on this Board, not only will I be able to further expand my passion on topics including the Student Health Services fee and student accessibility to health services on campus, it will also allow me to better convey this information to Council and students. Besides this, one of the most symbolic moments of my time on Council thus far also happened during this meeting when all of Council took the Oath of Office, in which we all promised that:

I am not here for me.

I am here for the people that lent me their power in exchange for a promise.

I will keep that promise to make decisions with their interest in mind.

I will vote after knowing the facts, not before.

I will use Robert’s Rules for their purpose, not my own.

I will oppose ideas, not people.

I will think before I speak, not speak just to think.

I will take the job seriously or not take the job at all.

I will represent my fellow students’ interests, not my own.

I am not here for me.

By taking this oath, I can truly affirm that “I am not here for me,” but rather, I am here to represent the thousands of undergraduate students who has lent me their power in exchange for a promise that their interests and voices will be heard.

As busy month drew to an end, the last thing on my calendar was the General Faculties Council (GFC) meeting. Although this was only my first meeting on GFC, it was also President Samarasekera’s last meeting. All through the meeting, President Samarasekera shared some of her most cherished moments she had while being on the GFC over the past ten years at the University of Alberta. Additionally, I was also fortune enough to learn more about what are some of the roles and responsibilities of the different governing bodies at the University such as the Senate. Despite the next meeting is nearly almost three months away, it will definitely be an exciting one as there will be a new President and new Provost in the newly renovated Council Chambers in September!

Thank-you for taking your time in reading this, and I hope everyone is enjoying the fantastic weather we had been having recently!

Best regards,

Alex Kwan

Students’ Union Councillor 2015-2016

GFC Councillor 2015-2016

The Pleasure of Ambiguity

I must admit I have always hated reading in high school English class—yet I enjoy reading poetry. Every time I am assigned readings in class, I dreaded it because I was basically forced to read books that were boring and were not interesting at all. What made it worst was that I was then expected to reiterate what my teacher thought was the “correct” interpretation of the text in some term paper or creative presentation. Believe me, I felt like I was pleasing my teacher’s ego more than learning how critically analyze English literature.

My love for poetry began when I realized poetry only takes a fraction of the time to read and comprehend compared to the other forms of literature that I was required to read in school such as novels, short stories, and plays. Naturally, as I read more and more poems, I adored it. Not because it was easy to understand, but instead, because it was concise. Rather than flipping through 400 pages to reach a final conclusion on the message the author is trying to convey, a poet is able to express the exact topic in just a few words or lines. Moreover, whenever I am reading poetry, I feel no pressure at all to believe that my teacher’s interpretation is absolutely correct, because with poetry, there are infinite ways to perceive and interpret those lines. With every word, every symbol, and every image the poet chooses, they all can mean something different base on your own personal interpretations. To truly understand a poem and bring the poets words to life, it really involves the whole of the reader including their senses, emotions, and imagination. Through this, poetry is able to communicate an experience or emotion in such a creative way that it moves us fervently and intensifies our knowledge towards human life.

Despite my love for poetry, I find it rather unfortunate that there are a lot of students I know who hate poetry. Perhaps it is because they see it as yet another task they must complete in order to pass the course. Often times, I would hear my classmate say something along the lines of: “I hate poetry, it is so hard to read and understand.” What I have concluded is that maybe they hate it because they are afraid of being wrong, or taking the risk of challenging their teachers. As I learned from one of my favorite poems, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, to really enjoy anything in life, one must be willing to take on risks and admit that we do not hold the answers to everything. Like poetry, life is ambiguous.