Imprint gives FEDS Execs a final report

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- February 16, 2007

L-R: VPI Sai Kit Lo, VPEd Jeff Henry, President Michelle Zakrison, VPAF Renjie Butalid

by Michael L. Davenport

President Michelle Zakrison

Zakrison’s performance has been a mixed bag. If the grilling she received at this Monday’s Feds forum is any indication, some of her co-workers are not happy with her performance. From Monday’s forum:

Henry: If you were putting forward a significant motion to, say, a January council meeting for a major issue like the bus pass, where would you expect your co-vice presidents to find that information out? From the council package, or from yourself as president?

Royal: President.

Schubert: President.

Henry: Ah, it’s a pretty simple one, isn’t it? That’s not what happened here.

The common complaint about Zakrison is that she has difficulty separating her personal life from her professional life. While it is difficult for any politician with a small constituency to keep the two truly separate, students and councillors repeatedly asked her during her re-election campaign about her excessive attendance of social events compared to her sparse attendance of official meetings. In her defense, Zakrison has been willing to discuss Feds business in a wide variety of environments.

Zakrison’s fulfillment of her campaign promises have been hit and miss. As promised, Zakrison has held a “meet and greet town hall sessions” in the SLC great hall every month. And while some have criticized the town halls for lack of impact, one cannot really blame her for going through with the experiment.

Zakrison said during her campaign that, “I would be in favour of having a referendum on the Universal Bus Pass if it is clear that students have an interest in a bus pass that will likely be non-refundable.” She did spend time researching a non-refundable bus pass, but when presenting her research to council in January, she was unable to answer the councillors’ questions, nor was she able to establish when those questions would eventually be answered. Though she claims that the referendum on a non-refundable pass was turned down because councillors wanted a refundable pass, in reality they turned it down because Zakrison has not worked out details. In the end, a referendum will happen despite her, not because of her.

Zakrison had positive points, too. It was said of her that she is a good committee chair, and she was quite visible. Zakrison tried, but she could have done better.

Vice-president education Jeff Henry

When Jeff Henry ran for office, he didn’t run on a platform of visibility. He made it clear that he would rather get things done than stay in the public eye.

One notable accomplishment of his while in office was fighting against the mandatory submission of marks with job applications. Starting in fall 2007, including a transcript will only be mandatory if the prospective employer deems it to be mandatory. (It’s not a big concession, but it’s still an accomplishment to bend the university to the students will on anything.)

Henry is also on the steering committee for the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, the organization which lobbies the provincial government on behalf of students. On Henry’s posters from last year’s campaign, he said he would “ensure our lobby organizations are working hard for UW students.” In January he informed council of OUSA’s preparation for the expected, upcoming provincial elections, where no doubt OUSA will press to make education an election issue — so this is one promise kept, though some wish he weren’t away from campus so much.

When Imprint polled members of Feds for opinions, Jeff Henry was universally described as “hardworking,” “on top of things” and someone who “knows how to get stuff done.” One even went so far as to call him “inspirational.” Though many had trouble articulating quite what he does, it’s mostly because he puts attention into boring details which escape most people. His reports to council reflect his attention to detail.

Vice-president administration and finance Renjie Butalid

When Renjie Butalid was campaigning for office, there were three bullet points adorning his posters: “Facilitating the expansion of the Feds catering service operating out of Fed Hall,” “Investigating the feasibility of expanding into the silk screening business.” “Examining the possibility of a public printer in the Student Life Centre.” Not much progress was made on at least two of those fronts. In Butalid’s defense, as soon as he took office he was dealing with Greyhound’s action against the FedBus, and another lawsuit was filed against Feds (the fallout from a beating outside Fed Hall in December 2002) in only his third day in office.

One of Butalid’s greatest accomplishments is keeping the FedBus running, despite Greyhound’s determination to take it down. A lesser VPAF might have caved, but Butalid did the legwork necessary to keep the FedBus in operation.

According to Feds insiders, Butalid kept his cool during the numerous complex legal proceedings he had to deal with during his term in office. And since he deals with personnel issues, some of what he does must necessarily be kept secret.

Butalid has also been working on organizing the Aussie’s move upstairs, a move that some criticize as a waste of resources but other praise as a strategic business decision. So though he hasn’t done exactly what he promised during his candidacy, he has kept busy and handled his role well.

Vice-president internal Sai Kit Lo

“Increasing your satisfaction by supporting the notion for faculty societies and FEDS to join forces in order to provide better quality of services offered by every C&D and to devise a practical plan in reducing food prices.” “Broaden your views by running discussions, debates, speaker events, documentary presentations that increase students’ awareness on all issues such as politics, values, environmental sustainability and more.” There are three things those statements have in common: They both sound good on paper. They both appeared on Sai Kit Lo’s campaign posters last winter. And they both represent things that didn’t get done.

In fact, collectively Lo made eight promises on his campaign posters, few (if any) of which he kept. Society presidents complained that, contrary to his campaign promise of “strengthening your representatives [sic] … by developing a strong network and support system….” Lo proved difficult to reach. Committee of Presidents meetings were scheduled infrequently and with little notice.

When Lo was interviewed for Imprint midterm report, he stated, “I have no enemies — I always have win-win discussions with people.” However, his goal of being utterly non-controversial may have been his downfall. The issue that lead to his resignation was him barring the Women’s Centre from using the SLC great hall for The Vagina Monologues — a move he made because he thought some would find the performance offensive.

As was mentioned last week in “Sai Kit Lo resigns,” Lo did lobby the university to allow the fraternities and sororities to wear their Greek letters during clubs day. Fighting the university on behalf of the fraternities and sororities was a promise Lo made at one of the forums.