4 News March 22, 2006 + Over the Edge Interview with Your Future NUGSS President REBECCA CARMICHAEL COPY EDITOR Jillian Merrick was recently elected the new President of the NUGSS Executive for 2006/2007, with 60% of the vote. I had the opportunity to inter- view Jillian recently about her plans for next year and thoughts on NUGSS. Unfortunately, due to technical dif ficulties involving a tape-recorder, the answets to the first three questions are paraphrased, not Jillian's exact words. Rebecca: A pretty important issue this year has been the plans for the NUSC building, What are you plans for preparing for it next year? Jillian: I've been sitting in on the committee over the past month and I'm really excited about the plans for NUSC. We're planning on spending the Spring and Summer term defin- ing the needs of the students for the Student Union, building, then choos- ing and hiring an architect to meet our needs and design the space. We will be working closely with this architect. to ensure plans for NUSC are carried out as we want them to be, The previ- ous NUSC plan was more of an idea than a well-organized plan. This time around the plans will be much more well thought out. We will hopefully be holding a student referendum in October or November for students to approve a small fee increase to fund the building of NUSC. The student fee in- crease should be roughly about $10-15 per semester, which is more reasonable than the originally proposed $35 per semester. We will be doing research this summer to determine what an ap- propriate fee increase would be. R: You were pretty involved with bringing Sunday bus service to stu- dents over this past year, do you have any plans for expanding upon that? J: I really enjoyed my involvement with the committee for Sunday bus ser- vice. It wasn't just a NUGSS venture, it was something the greater commun- ity got involved in, such as Translink, PGPIRG and the UNBC Residence Council. I am planning on expanding and improving on this and other trans- portation initiatives for students. For example, we are trying to get the #15 bus running on 15 minute intervals during peak hours for next year, We are also working on non-bus related issues, such as encouraging carpooling. There used to be reserved parking parking spaces for students who carpool, it would be good to start that up again. ‘This can be done by a system of match- ing people up based on their schedules for carpooling. I wont be around to see it implemented, but Translink will be doing research next year on the feas- ibility of implementing a U-Pass in future years, R: What other plans do you have as NUGSS president next year? J: I'm very open to new ideas for next year. I'm especially interested in organizing lots of free, dry, on-campus events to bring students together, such as the Backyard Barbeque, In previous years having the Backyard Barbeque A Career in Public Health Bachelor of Environmental Health off-campus was all right, but it doesnt have the same effect as holding it on- campus where everyone can enjoy it together. Sure, we may not get as big name bands, but the feeling of student unity will be much greater if things like that happen on-campus. UNBC does appear to have a problem with student apathy. A lot of this comes from the lack of a space where students can come to- gether. The creation of the new student union building exclusively for students should hopefully improve this. I will also be researching different avenues of providing food services in the NUSC building. Improving communications, such as the NUGSS website, is another thing I will be working on. There is a paid position of communications ofh- cer available for anyone interested who wants to work on the website. This year we had someone from the computer club improving the discussion boards on the website. If students want to voice their opinions they can check out the now functioning message board lo- cated at www.nugss.com. R: “How do you feel about the new NUGSS board that was just elected?” J:“T'm pretty excited about it, I think there are a lot of really good, innova- tive people. One of the things I noticed about this past board was that typically a lot of student unions and services are organized by a lot of poli-sci students, but I noticed this year there were people from biochemistry, there were people from business, there were people from economics, there were people from poli-sci. They were from all different backgrounds, so you have all different kinds of perspectives, and I found that really balanced things, incredibly bal- anced. things. I mean, I wasn't on the NUGSS board before last year, but I know there was lots of in-fighting and things that went on, while this year there was none of that, because I think there was that really balanced approach to it. It’s going to be good again this year, because again we have psychology students, we have science students, not just the typical poli-sci domination of the board, because you have a little bit more perspective, I think NUGSS isn't always about the politics, there's differ- ent skills that all these different people from. programs can bring, but they kind of lack support. What I've no- ticed is that generally science students are very organized, they're very task oriented and get things done. So that really helps balance, [in comparison to] the poli-sci students, they're very good at sorting out all the issues, making sure all aspects are covered and talking about it. So basically it's good, we have lots of perspective on the board this year. Again, there is a good male to fe- male balance, as there was last year.’ R; “I know you've already answered some of this, but what sort of general direction do you see NUGSS going in? A lot of people were campaigning on change for NUGSS, where do you see that going?” J: “The campaign of change for NUGSS was a little bit confusing to me, because I think the structuré of NUGSS itself doesn’t really need to be changed. I think the problem is communication. For the group of 10 or 11 students on the board, it accom- plishes an amazing amount of work, Our general manger, she visited other campuses and student unions to get ideas from their student union build- ings, she was talking about how the number of people they have employed and the amount of work that gets done is nothing compared to what gets done here. There's so few people that you're so accountable for what you do and because you're always working with a smaller group of people, things really get done, I think the main thing we need to work at is making students aware of exactly what we do, it’s been year after year that people really have no idea what NUGSS does. Not only do we make people aware of what we do, then we have people who will find that they're interested in something and they'll want to participate. So there are so many different avenues that you can be involved in the student organiz- ation without actually being a director. I really hope to promote the different activities that we do and really promote more student participation, because the more people that participate, the better people will understand it, and the more they will get out of it.’ R:"Ts there anything else youd like to say to students?” J:Juse that I'm really excited about it, really looking forward to it.’ Pride UNBC Elections Are Coming TYLER CLARKE STAFF WRITER On March 29, Pride UNBC, the club that focuses on the gay, lesbian, bi- sexual, transgender, straight, question- ing, or otherwise undefined peoples of UNBC, is holding elections for pos- itions for the following fall semester. “They are usually held in Septem- ber, but we would like to get things rolling sooner, this semester,’ said the President of Pride UNBC, Nick Nagy, stressing the importance of things roll- ing sooner than usual, during the sum- met, as they hope to achieve “UNBC service” status, much like the Women’s Centre. In addition to this, they hope for an official space at UNBC, also sim- ilar to what the Women's Centre has. “Voter turnout usually just consists Fog rolls over the shoreline of Botanical Beach in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park. of our members,’ Nagy added, stat- ing that he hopes for a bigger turnout this year. With three prominent Pride members leaving at the end of the se- mester, it’s more crucial than ever to have a big turnout in applicants. The positions available, to anyone in the community, as it isn't restricted to the NUGSS rule of being restricted to students, include president, vice-pres- ident, treasurer, secretary, and drop-ins coordinator. The nomination process started last week, and run until March 27th, two days before the elections are held in room 1039 of the admin build- ing from 5pm until 6pm. Additional positions will be available for application in September, including web-coordinator, dance coordinator, recruitment coordinator, graduate rep- resentatives, among any other position amember can come up with, and would be interested in doing. Pride UNBC currently ‘consists of between 30 and 40 people, who meet every Wednesday in room 1039 for their weekly drop-in. In addition to this, a few dances are held every year, and they provide a peer-support net- work for students coming out, or hav- ing any life-difficulty they would like to talk about. Nagy orchestrates this. For more information on Pride UN- BC's services, activities, or elections, consult the official website; www.pride. unbe.ca, or e-mail them at pride@ unbe.ca. They are more than willing to respond, BELINDA Li