Jack Saddleback, USSU president

What progress has been made on your platform?

“Over the summer, I have been really focusing on my four platform points, that being the mental health strategy, the sexual assault policy, student engagement and community engagement. The first two are definitely more concrete, the latter two I’ve been looking at ways to be able to bring that into the larger scheme of things, especially now that we are going into the full-on school year.

“The interesting thing about my platform and what I ran on is that I really wanted specific deliverables and those deliverables are coming along nicely. The latter two are very broad because I wanted to leave it open for those things that do come up throughout the year and as we are moving along, there is the Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre which has kind of taken a little bit of time to open up, which is understandable, construction happens. But I feel there is a lot of opportunity for the USSU, as well as the university, to work on student engagement as well as community engagement within that centre.”

If you could choose one superpower to aid in your exec role, what would it be and why?

“I would love to be able to clone myself at will because there are just so many events that you just want to be at and partake in, and if I could have like two, three or four of me at a time then that would be awesome!”

Kehan Fu, vice-president student affairs

What progress has been made on your platform?

“At orientation, food trucks are happening! That was part of my platform.

“Another part of my platform is to find ways to engage students at an institutional level without making it seem like we are all bureaucrats, so something that all four of us execs are trying to do this year, especially ideas that Ata has pitched, is to have us more out in the open. So starting in September, once students are back in schedule, every week one of us execs will be out in a common popular area; whether it is Place Riel, one of the different colleges, we’ll be there basically representing the USSU, giving it a face.”

What is a random fact that U of S students don’t already know about you?

“My dad was actually in charge of the panda reserve back in China, so I have indeed played with pandas. Pandas are actually scary as heck. Don’t mess with pandas. They are super protective of their families but they are also really cute.”

Ata Merat, vice-president finance and operations

What progress has been made on your platform?

“One thing I am looking for is getting plasma screens in Place Riel for bus transitions. Because buses now have GPS, so if you can have the university map with all the buses entering and exiting, so during winter time students do not have to go outside waiting for the bus, and if there is any delay it can give us an updated time online of when they are coming. Transit promised us the plasmas but they didn’t promise us when it is going to happen so hopefully we can get it going as soon as possible and we can develop the app or look of the program.

“I am also in the process of getting the LiveSafe app so we can monitor where students walk and at the same time, they are in touch with Protective Services and you can also report any sexual assualt or any incident. So mainly it helps with safety and sexual assault on campus.”

What is a random fact that U of S students don’t already know about you?

“All of us, the USSU exec, we all have the same middle name: Wilton. I am being honest. Probably U of S students do not know that.”

Gabe Senecal, vice-president academic affairs

What progress has been made on your platform?

“I ran on a student bill of rights so I have been working a lot on that, collecting all the different university policies, consulting with different people around the university and getting that ready for publication in the middle of September.

“Also, as vice-president academic affairs, I sit on a lot of different council committees, so I put a lot of time into those in May and June, but in July and August council doesn’t sit, so I had some time to work on other things. I’ve repackaged the student-at-large application process for students looking to apply to be on university student council committees. Hopefully that will increase the amount of students that want to apply for that as well as improve the quality of the applications.”

If you could choose one superpower to aid in your exec role, what would it be and why?

“Super speed so I could work even harder for students and get more done.”

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Photos: Caitlin Taylor/Photo Editor