Mike Bridge
As someone who has spent the past 3 years of my life getting extensions for essays and applying for aegrotats I consider myself an expert on the University system. Having spent the past 3 days fixing the many typos on the A-Team website I am also now an expert at proof reading and fixing things at the last minute. I will bring all of this and more to the role of Education Vice President. Your EVP should be someone who can put politics to the side and focus on advocating for the quality and fairness of your education.
What’s wrong with education today?
Its crap. We have all experienced those lecturers who after 40 years at University still don’t know how to turn the lecture theatre lights on. We all know what its like to have a tutor whose qualification was stolen from a weet-bix box and who gives out grades as consistently as a chimpanzee. When ranked alongside Universities of the world Vic consistently fails to impress. We spend millions of dollars and the best years of our lives at University and we deserve better.
How will you make a difference?
I will:
-Allow ALL students to evaluate the performance of their lecturers and make the results available to the public.
-Lobby the hell out the University to consult students in the lecturer employment process.
-Continue to advocate on your behalf if someone gives you a rubbish mark or has treated you unfairly.
The Education Vice President should be hell bent on making sure that you get value for money in your education. My priority is to make sure that the lecturers and facilities available to you are of a world class standard. Vote A-Team.
Paul Brown
Well it’s 11.13pm and I’m still working! I’m the current VUWSA Welfare Vice President (WVP) having taken over from Heleyni Pratley. I was originally elected in to be Education Officer B but I was co-opted to WVP with the full confidence and support of the executive, feed back has been good too. I was also a former president of UniQ and I now have my own new club.
My this is rushed! I will push for accountability and completion of tasks not just lip service. I stand for representation with class reps, faculty delegates and rep groups getting my full support. I will put out the student guide on time unlike this year which we are still waiting on and I aim to develop effective working relationships with those who can and will support the students of Victoria.
What’s wrong with education today?
Representation is a big issue at the moment with the class reps system being a bit of a mess and requiring some attention—knowing what the problems are I can fix them. We also need strong well funded rep groups to insure the diverse student population is represented.
The cost of living is also a huge problem for students and that is where campaigning for a universal allowance will come in. As the living costs loan hasn’t increased since 1992 this is a real issue for students simply trying to live. Students struggle to balance work and study and the stress of it all causes many students to drop out before completion of their degree. There’s not enough space to write everything!
How will you make a difference?
I aim to have a class reps database developed so that it can be tied into our website for class reps to register their details with VUWSA after the are elected—this would save administrative cost and hassle.
I would also like to put the student guide online to generate more hits for all the subsequent VUWSA websites. This would be promoted on fliers in Study at Vic day packs.
Advertising can be sold year round for this website and it can be made more current with data being added at the end of tri one straight away.
I have a million ideas but no time to mention them thanks to a word limit but I will make a difference by simply slogging my guts out and actioning projects that can be seen through to completion.