Meet the student government leader candidates

By Ashley Clark

BELLEVILLE – The candidates for first-year and justice studies leaders at Loyalist College have been announced.

There are four students running for first-year leader and two running for justice studies leader.

On Wednesday, a meet and greet with them took place during Universal Break.

Student government president Heather Williams said the responsibilities of the leaders are to keep up good communication with class leaders, students and the school dean, passing any suggestions on to student government for consideration. They are also expected to attend board meetings and assist with programming of universal breaks and pub nights.

“I’m happy to see that so many candidates have come out for the positions, and (that) they would like to be involved with Loyalist and with the student government … the candidates look eager and they want to be on the board so that’s awesome. And they all look like they have great ideas that they could bring forward,” Williams said.

She, along with the candidates, are encouraging students to vote.

Alex Hoftyzer was the justice studies leader last year, and is running for the position once again. He said he wants there to be more awareness about student government.

“Voting for the student government doesn’t seem like a big issue. A lot of kids decide not to do it because ‘hey, what does student government actually do?’ These students don’t realize what we actually do for the school, like the bus stop, the Pioneer Cafe, the bleachers, those were all student government initiatives… So student government actually does a lot more for the school than people realize and that’s what I want to get across to people who may or may not be thinking of voting,” he said.

Voting for first-year leader and justice studies leader candidates will start on Oct. 4 at 10 a.m. and closes at 4 p.m. on Oct. 6.

Percentage of Students Who Vote at Loyalist College

Year	Winter Election	Fall Election
2011	8%	12%
2012	13%	11%
2013	N/A	15%
2014	10%	19%
2015	20%	17%
2016	14%	N/A

To help students vote, QNet News decided to find out more about the students running for first-year and justice studies leaders:

First-year leader candidates

Jeff Brophy, pre-health sciences

Age: 43

What do you like about Loyalist? “Small size. Friendly people. Use of technology. It’s just really well laid out. East to navigate.”

What needs improvements? “One of the things I want to do is take that fee – that one hundred dollars of free printing you get – and if people don’t use it, to be able to donate it back into either the sustainability or the student government… Maybe put it into like infrastructure, like chairs. It’s something simple, but I’m sitting in class on a 45-year-old chair in the pioneer building, and those chairs have got to go.”

“I’d like to make the campus, I think, the first non-smoking campus.”

“Desegregation of the bathrooms… (to) make the school more inclusive and tolerant diversity-wise.”

Why run for first-year leader? “Mainly just to learn something new and to meet other people, make connections. And also (to) make (my) resume more competitive.”

Favourite sundae topping?  “Strawberries and red skittles.”

Helene Brozowsky-Reinsch, photojournalism

Age: 18

What do you like about Loyalist? “Generally, I love the school so much… It’s so much better than my old school, so much better than my regular elementary school and then high school. It’s just, people are actually nice here.”

What needs improvements? “I already started a list of things that could be improved. So what I did was I went up to, probably just slightly over 300 students already, and so I asked them of things that can be improved … I have about two pages so far of things that people think that the school should improve on. So, thats how I’m going about it so that when I do communicate with the student government, or if I do by any chance become elected, then I’ll already have things that the students think should be improved in the school.”

Why run for first-year leader? “I was never a part of student government at my old school, but if I like being in a place, I like it to gain an even better reputation. Like, if I choose a place I would like … some people who might not consider it nice or whatever, for them to even be impressed by it. So, I mean it’s already a good school, but I think the fact that I chose this school, that means something, so I wanna think, ‘okay well let’s make it better. Let’s make everyone want to go here.'”

Favourite sundae topping? “It depends on my mood entirely, (but) I’m more of a smoothie person… when I was little, every time I would have ice cream I would always put gummy worms on it… I also like Oreo chunks.

Austin Gray, business administration

Age: 17

What do you like about Loyalist? “I think it’s awesome. It’s not too confusing. Like, the first couple of days I didn’t know how to get anywhere, but I can get almost anywhere now… Everyone’s really friendly. You can go up and talk to almost anybody and introduce yourself. I don’t feel intimidated here.”

What needs improvement? “(Nothing) that I can think of right now.”

Why run for first-year leader? “I was never really too involved in high school and that was something I really regretted. After I graduated I didn’t feel like I did anything. So, I wanted to get involved when I came to Loyalist and I went down to the club fair a couple Wednesdays ago, and one of the student council members approached me about first-year leader and they explained it to me. I thought it sounded like a good opportunity. It sounded like a lot of fun so I figured I might as well run for it.

Favourite Sundae topping? “Maybe, little Rolos… That was definitely the hardest question.”

Brendan Kelly, police foundations

Age: 18

What do you like about Loyalist? “There’s a lot of learning opportunities, a lot of different resources for students to help them in any way that they need help.”

What needs improvement? “Everybody probably says the Timmies line, but other than that, you know, I look around and there are so many more opportunities here than I’ve ever seen. I think it’s more about maintaining what’s good, rather than trying to find everything that needs to be fixed.”

Why run for first-year leader? “I’ve been involved with student government ever since I was in elementary school, all the way through my primary years and through high school … Being in cadets, I’m really big on leadership and I think that with all my experience in leadership roles, I think that hopefully I can do well in this role.”

Favourite sundae topping: “Sprinkles: ten out of ten. I love sprinkles.”

 

Justice studies leader candidates

Jonathan Chircop, first-year, paralegal 

Age: 29

What do you like about Loyalist? “There’s a lot of great activities that are on campus… I’m a huge fan of the commons; there’s a wonderful lady that works in there.”

What needs improvements? “The counselling services is a huge issue for me. There’s two counsellors and there’s 3500 students… I saw someone go up there crying and they had to turn him away because there was no one to talk to him.”

“I’m lactose intolerant and egg intolerant… I kind of feel like there should be more options (in the cafeteria).”

Why run for justice studies leader? “In order to make changes to those types of things you need to be on student government to start getting a foot-hold and make sure your voice is heard. Not just my voice, but all of us. I want to run because I want to be the voice for my fellow students.”

Favourite sundae topping? “I was really eyeing the Reese’s Pieces bit.”

Alex Hoftyzer (graduate of customs border services, second-year police foundations)

Age: 21

What do you like about Loyalist? “It’s a very close-knit community.”

What needs improvement? “The facilities are getting quite old… being justice studies leader last year and on student government, we’re slowly working towards improving the facilities. We did get the new bleachers last year, we got the new bus stop, which were both very important and very much needed. They’re re-doing the Pioneer Café, which will be a lot nicer – I’ve seen some of the plans, it looks very nice. We’re working towards getting a new athletic centre because our gym is quite old: the floors do need to be replaced sometime soon, hopefully, but that’s what we’re working towards.”

Why run for justice studies leader? “I really enjoyed doing it last year. I had hoped that a lot more people that I know would have applied for it because then I would’ve kind of just backed out and said ‘go for it I’ll vote for you.’ But I don’t know the other person who’s running for it very well; I’d like to get to know him a little more to see how he is. But just because there wasn’t a lot more interest I decided to run for it again.”

Favourite Sundae topping: “Probably just something as simple as chocolate sauce.”