To the editor:

This year, as in past years, University Students’ Council presidential candidates have presented platforms full of proposals and promises to make the USC more responsive to students, to guarantee the USC will hear student voices and react to our suggestions.

It’s one thing to hang a suggestion box outside your office — which is the equivalent of what current and past presidential candidates have done, and an entirely different thing to be able to find things all students care about, or all students are affected by.

Most of the university fundamentals are beyond USC jurisdiction — the type and number of courses a department provides, well maintained libraries, student aid, and large-scale renovations. In light of this presidential candidates need to recognize they aren’t going to revolutionize the school and focus on reaching out to more students by building an even better sense of school spirit and community through initiatives that perhaps get more students out to varsity sports games.

On this note of reaching out to more students, candidates would also do well to recognize elections have the problem of being very insider driven. The majority of people who vote in USC elections are already on residence, faculty and departmental councils, charity organizations, senators etc. Then there’s the by-and-large uninformed population and the students who won’t vote.

This group of people, who go to class but don’t really hang around campus, are the students presidential candidates should be reaching out to. The problem isn’t that the USC isn’t listening to, or accountable to students. The problem is a lot of students don’t care enough to say anything.

So candidates, you’ve got your insiders attention, now go get everyone else’s — stop promising you’ll listen and go out and start the conversation. And fellow students, we can’t expect more from the USC unless we give them our support.

Imagine a USC president that could say, “95 per cent of students voted, and most voted for me.” That sounds like a mandate to get things done.

—Miles Hopper

Political Science IV