She’s four-foot-nine, has a penchant for pickle-munching and refers to herself as a “meatball.” Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Matt McMillan are like night and day, but in Seaside Heights, the time between downing that last cup of “Ron-Ron Juice” and picking scraggly extensions out of your hair before falling into bed can be fuzzy, to say the least.
McMillan has been out and about this semester, travelling across the country and province to lobby and advocate on behalf of students. The most notable achievement this semester is the changes to Alberta student loans, making them more accessible to students. This win was achieved because of student advocacy on part of McMillan and the Council of Alberta University Student Union.
Another success for McMillan this year has been the Get out the Vote initiative. Currently, over 6,400 students have pledged to vote in the upcoming provincial election. McMillan has been successful in identifying barriers to voting. For example, this year, resident students will have difficulty voting, as they must be moved out of residence 24 hours after their last final exam and most will be gone from Calgary before April 23. The mailing system in residence can;t allow for mail-in ballots, leaving many students without a voice. Although nothing can be done about this issue currently, McMillan is letting the government know it is a problem.
Despite his successes, he is not accessible to students. McMillan reported that he spent 15 out of office hours interacting with students. Although it is difficult to be accessible to students with a job that involves a lot of travelling off campus, McMillan needed to communicate with students to let them know what he is up to. An acceptable vodka-cran-to-gorilla-juicehead ratio at Bamboo bar doesn’t just happen — there needs to be some effort made.