By James Keller
It’s really been quite a year for the Students’ Union. And looking back, there’s a healthy mix of triumphs and failures to fill the time between May 1, 2002 and now.
The past year saw a controversial houseboating trip, bitter infighting and impeachment proceedings, a tent city and massive protests (at least, by U of C standards), government lobbying, plenty of CBC radio interviews, differntial tuition, more free movies on Monday nights, cover charges at the Den, and, ongoing, drawn-out reaction from election defeats. Full of ups and downs, the year is over and we see ourselves looking back.
While the news section reports on the actual happenings in and out of the SU offices thus far, the opinions pages are able to get down and dirty. We get to evaluate the politicians.
As we did earlier in the year, we looked at pages of reports, conducted interviews when neccessary, and used the extensive knowledge that comes with following campus news for an entire year. Below you will find quick assessments of the job the five executives did for the past 12 months (and some for less time). There are no ratings or letter grades, just our opinions–honestly and unapologetically.
For the first time in recent memory, the president-elect is a sitting vice-president, which means that we can start marking her performance right now. It isn’t unfair to look ahead at Jayna Gilchrist’s year as president with the past few month s in mind. Hopefully, this will keep her on her toes and open up more opportunities for self-improvement.
Of course, whether or not it does, you’ll see in eight months when we open up the pages again to rate a new pack of VPs.