Having already served one year on the Board of Governors, incumbent Irene Enyedy has already learned the mechanics of the board and feels that she will be a more effective representative this year. After her passionate plea at the tuition decision and insistence on creating a new committee to study tuition sustainability and communicate with the provincial government, this may well come true.
Since entering office, she has attended every Board of Governors meeting and met one-on-one with four of the 17 non-SU members. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues, she had to leave the October meeting before the tuition discussion and served on only one committee–which never met.
This year, she is pushing more community and corporate involvement, advocating in-class presentations from business and corporate events to showcase student research. Bringing the student loan program to the board is another priority.
While she readily acknowledges she has done a poor job communicating with students and being aware of student issues this year, she promises to do better by talking with concerned students individually. She has even gone as far as approaching strangers and having them sign her nomination package.
After a slow beginning, she has finally shown some initiative and deserves the chance to finish what she started. Hopefully, her committee will be effective in bringing concerns about tuition to the attention of the provincial government–if she can make the meetings.
How will you identify student issues and how will you bring those issues, once identified, to the BoG?
“That’s one of the things I didn’t get to do this year because I was trying to learn the position. This year, I’m going to talk one-on-one with students. I’m a little bit more easy-going and open to talking to students at random, finding out what they say. I do promotions on campus as well, so I’m kind of used to that sort of thing, giving out passes.”
How will you enhance the effectiveness of student representation?
“Because I’m there for the second year, that will automatically enhance student representation. My four areas that I’m looking for students is directly related to things most people are looking for as well as directly beneficial to students.”