SU Byelection: Cumming School of Medicine Representative

By Nikayla Goddard and Gayathri Peringod, October 15 2019—

The Students’ Union Byelection to fulfill the faculty representative for the Cumming School of Medicine is almost here, and knowing who your candidates are and what they stand for is extremely important. That’s why we interviewed all five of them — to give you a glimpse beyond their published platforms to provide insight into what we think of them. For the sake of fairness, we asked candidates all the same questions, touching on why they are in the program, what their platform looks like, what their experience is, how they fit the role, what the Students’ Legislative Council (SLC) is and more. None of the candidates have ever been elected to the Council before.

Voting will take place online through the my.ucalgary.ca Student Centre beginning at 9 a.m. on Oct. 16 and closes at 4 p.m. on Oct. 18, 2019. All University of Calgary undergraduate students registered in the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) in the Fall 2019 session are eligible to vote.

Jameson Dundas

Fourth-year Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) student Jameson Dundas has a sound platform built on the voices of his fellow students and has a strong knowledge of the faculty and what his role will look like. 

His five listed platform points revolve around BHSc support by matching junior students to senior students for HSOC writing help, allowing for summer UPasses for research students, Community Rehabilitation Disability Studies (CRDS) academic writing support, free or inexpensive UpToDate and anatomy lab clipboards for MD students and maintaining transparency. All his points appear to be thought out, relevant and achievable. 

He comes across as having good background experience to take the next step up to be med rep, with a platform that strongly revolves around ensuring each of the three Cumming School of Medicine programs are equally represented. His knowledge of each of the three programs, what their degree stream is like, where they are and what problems they are facing was strong. Dundas also says he has been an ongoing participant in student advocacy, including getting involved with the Student Faculty Liaison Committee. 

When asked questions about the Students’ Legislative Council, he also had a firm grasp on what they are about and what is expected of him in terms of involvement.

Jameson said it wasn’t his first time running for this position and each year he tries to speak with as many students as he can in order to incorporate views into his platform, which is a thoughtful endeavour all around that speaks to his commitment to obtaining the role.

Stephanie Feldman

Being the only Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies (CRDS) student running to be Medicine Rep, Stephanie Feldman brings a fresh perspective and a great deal of charisma to the table, if admittedly meagre ambition for substantive change in her term.

Feldman’s mental health initiatives are well-thought-out and clearly actionable, although not as ambitious as other platforms. She plans to bring loaner noise-cancelling headphones to students, as well as Mental Health first aid courses so that students can spot illnesses early on and clearly outlines her plan to get the funding for both initiatives from the Campus Improvement Fund. In addition, her Meet and Greet for students in the faculty appears to be easily implementable, although why a student representative would be needed to organize them is unclear. She also plans to improve the ease with which students can access opportunities like Crisis Prevention Intervention training, a laudable goal. Finally, her stated desire of continuing to ensure that class outlines are clear and detailed for CSM students seems achievable, and she appears determined to advocate for the needs of CRDS students from her position.

Overall, Feldman’s goals all seem feasible and the most substantive of them may indeed improve the quality of life of students, although it is unclear to what extent she will make a lasting impact on the faculty if elected.  

Pranav Khosla

Pranav Khosla brings with him a packed bag full of detailed plans and a big spoonful of ambition, although it remains to be seen how many of his goals can actually be achieved during his term. Well-experienced in public speaking, Khosla offered lengthy, point-by-point responses to each of our interview questions, speaking in structured themes with handpicked statistics to support his speech.

His route to giving CSM students a Summer UPass is decidedly different from Jameson Dundas’ plan, with Khosla critiquing the latter as an unfeasible option. By contrast, his own plan is to advocate for CSM students doing research in the summer to be considered as summer students in order to qualify for a UPass, a request whose viability has not been entirely justified by Khosla and remains just as unclear. Khosla acknowledges this, resolving instead to keep advocating for a Summer UPass regardless of whether it is achievable in his time as Med Rep.

The defining qualities of his mentorship and internship programs seem to blend into each other — with both serving to give CSM students a greater understanding of the working life of their desired degree — but both are innovative, achievable platform points that can be implemented during his term, as can his informational website.

Perhaps the only crucial element missing from his otherwise comprehensive platform is his plan to improve student life for CSM students. Whereas other candidates have been careful to make CSM students’ physical and mental well-being a priority in their campaigns, this element is missing from Khosla’s, who focuses his attention on improving the academic lives of students. Nevertheless, Khosla’s evident work ethic, rightful self-belief and keen eye for detail all make him a solid candidate for Med Rep.

Joshua Lee

Joshua Lee, a fourth-year Health Sciences student, was one of the candidates who was the most passionate about his degree and his faculty. He portrays a confident sense of responsibility about the betterment and maintenance of his program which he commonly referred to as a family. 

However, his platform points seem too simple. Lee’s platform points revolve around creating a clear mandate and responsibilities for the med rep position, hosting an online forum about SU Quality Money Projects and generating ideas for the Quality Money application and supporting and engaging BCR students. All of these platform points are either flat or better encompassed in other platforms, although they do certainly seem achievable because of their simplicity. He added his platform points will also be impactful not just during his term, but are actions that will last beyond his year.

He was also aware of the imbalance in representation between the three programs and is eager to ensure all voices are heard. He claims he has strong connections around the faculty that he will be able to work with to ensure his platform points are met, something he claimed no other candidates have set up as well as he does.

Overall, Lee is a safe choice and is certainly passionate about his faculty. However, his platform comes across as unambitious for how intense he is about improving his program.

Britney Wong

Most strikingly, Britney Wong is the first among all the Medicine Rep candidates to promise to fully donate her Students’ Union honorarium to her proposed initiatives in an effort to demonstrate the purity of her intentions. She is also the current Med Rep, of which we have proof, having seen her at weekly SLC meetings. Wong carries with her a bubbly, positive energy to go with her unbridled optimism.

Although it may make her seem unimaginative, Wong’s key goal to create a D2L shell for CSM students to suggest ideas for which she plans to advocate during SLC meetings is laudable, and her pet therapy and snack initiatives to improve the mental and physical well-being of students are clear actionable objectives to improve student life, albeit somewhat underwhelming. The most concrete substantive goal Wong has for her term is to create course reservations for BHSc cohorts for their required classes, a solution to a common grievance in the impacted demographic that seems to be attainable during her term, although its implementability remains to be seen.

Thanks to her SLC experience, Wong is more experienced in the functioning of SLC than the other candidates running for Medicine Representative. Her actionable platform ideas, unprecedented goal of including students in decision-making, and positive attitude all make her a reliable choice for Med Rep.

Correction: This story previously listed Britney Wong’s SLC experience as a mentorship. In fact, she is the current Medicine Representative alongside elected representative Siavash Zarezadeh. The Gauntlet apologizes to its readers for this error.