Board of Governors: Azim Wazeer, Sean Heisler

First of all the obvious: don’t vote for Blake Frederick. You would think that after all of the things that he has done wrong in the past year he would realize that this whole ‘leading’ and ‘making policy’ thing might not be his forte. I guess not. I mentioned him along side my definition of a zealot in a previous post: ‘Someone who, having lost sight of their goals, redoubles their efforts’ and that is exactly what Blake has done. He made the delusional comment that ‘no permanent damage has been done to the AMS-UBC relationship’.

Whatever he is smoking, I want some. How does the UBC Admin feel about Blake and the AMS consequently? Like we are a joke. See letter from President. End of story.

For me Azim was the easy pick. I’ve worked with him for two years on the Senate and he has been a passionate advocate for both international students and UNA community relations. There isn’t any candidate who is better suited to the job. I don’t think I need to say more about his knowledge of the overwhelming UBC system or his ability to be a rational, clearheaded advocate. Exactly what we need.

The choice then fell between Guillaume and Sean. I’ve worked with Sean at Senate and he is certainly capable of doing the work effectively on the BOG. I’ve also worked with Guillaume on AMS Council and seen how good he can be at representing his faculty at that level. For me, the difference between the two isn’t work ethic, platforms, or rationality. The largest difference is experience at an ‘upper university level’. The small, often sad world of the AMS is a different beast entirely than the Senate/BOG. The experience needed to operate at the BOG level is greater than that of Senate and to jump into it with no experience within the Exec of AMS or Senate isn’t going to serve Guillaume well. It was a tough decision for me and that’s what it came down to.