Renjie Butalid

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- March 28, 2008

Above: University of Waterloo student leaders with Mike Duffy, keynote speaker at Federation of Students Leadership Gala 2008

Feds honours UW’s student leaders; Imprint seeks them out

James Damaskinos

There are a lot of myths surrounding the nature of student leaders. How do they get through their schoolwork and their extra-curricular work? How do they manage to keep smiling despite all the stress? Do they need sleep? Are they superhuman? Do they consume high amounts of meth? For most, the distance between a student and a student leader can be considerable and for some it is even considered incommensurable.

Let me assure you that the 10 winners of the Federation of Students Leadership Awards are not, in fact, superhuman. Nor do they ingest any amount of speed whatsoever — to my knowledge — coffee is another story. So the question remains: how do they do it? The answer is not self-evident and for each individual student leader it is different. In general it requires patience, organization, a strong support network, and a willingness to try new things.

Renjie Butalid has certainly left his mark on the University of Waterloo. On top of being one of the founders of the Laurel Centre, he is currently the director of development for the organization. The Laurel Centre is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the talents of current entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs alike. The Laurel Centre’s mentorship program focuses on providing education for up-and-coming potential entrepreneurs. Furthermore, Butalid has been a Senator-at-large, a Feds councillor and a St. Paul’s don.

That crucial first step can be the key to launching you into a fruitful career of student leadership. According to Butalid, being a don in St. Paul’s was the vaulting point that gave him the gumption to step up to the plate in later years. Butalid explained: “I applied and was accepted to be a residence don in my second year; it was this early boost of confidence that allowed me to actively get involved with numerous clubs and organizations on campus for years to come.”

Environmental activist Rob Blom offers a refreshing, laid-back outlook on being a student leader. Blom has been involved with Imprint at varying levels, ranging from being involved with the editorial board to being a member of the board of directors. His strong passion for environmentalism has been strengthened through his involvement with the University of Waterloo Sustainability Project (UWSP). In addition to all of this, Blom has been involved with MathSOC and Waterloo Public Interest Research Group.

It’s easy to get self-absorbed and lose yourself in the hectic day-to-day routine of student life. So how does Blom pull it off? Simply put, he doesn’t let the stress get to him. Blom states that “daily studying, volunteering, meditating and midnight strolls can all be accomplished. There is more time available in a single day than most people think, it’s just a matter of time management and you don’t need a fancy scheduler for that either!”

Matt Heppler is also an integral member of the UWSP community and a recipient of a Student Leadership Award. Heppler saw that would-be vegetarians had no support through student-run services and founded UW Vegetarians to fill the gap. Motivated by the altruistic desire for genuine change, he realized that there are a lot volunteer opportunities available to students who want to pursue activism. However, Heppler reminds potential student leaders that there may be difficulties to overcome in their pursuit of activism. “There will be growing pains when you start to get involved,” Heppler said. “Just be sure to push through them because the rewards are endless.”

Kristin Valles is another force for active change in the University of Waterloo community. Valles has been involved with the Out in the Cold Project in order to raise funds for the homeless in our community. Despite the great opportunity to focus on poverty outside of Canada Valles prefers to focus her attention on the homeless and impoverished within our community. Valles states that her “main goal has always been to bring a little more reality to people, get people to open their eyes to the struggles of others.”

Valles has certainly had her ups and downs throughout her university life. A strong support network was crucial for helping her get through the difficult times. “My greatest struggle was when my friend came to me about her attempts at suicide.” Valles explains, “It affected every aspect of my life and academic career, but I pulled through with the help of my friends and family and my don.”

Caitlin Cull has an expansive resumé of volunteer positions. She has been involved with the Feds council and a member of the Feds board.

She has also taken an active position in the Diversity Campaign Steering Committee. Moreover, Cull has been a member of the Education Advisory Committee. Managing such a long list of accomplishments has been tough and Cull attributes her success in these pursuits to her ability to organize and schedule. Cull also states that: “When I am involved in extra-curricular activities, which give me purpose, I actually do a lot better in all aspects of my life. I get lots of sleep and exercise and I have a lot of energy and somehow things always get done.”

Stress-management is a contentious topic for most students and both Allan Babor, president of the Arts Student Union, and Claire Van Nierop, VP Social of the Arts Student Union, are fully aware of this. They have both been integral leaders in the ASU. The duo were involved in creating and organizing the Free Hugs Campaign. Van Nierop says that: “The Hugs Campaign is extremely valuable to the UW community. The hug is an international symbol for support, love, friendship and kindness. What student, during the stressful exam season, doesn’t need all four of those things?”

It appears as though the unanimous message of the winners is that getting involved is the key to success in all areas of student life. Feds Leadership Award winner, Steven Hayle, echoes this statement: “I would tell first year leaders to get involved as soon as they possibly can. It could be through something like running for a first year position with your student society or residence council, or by joining a club and volunteering for a campus service.” By taking an active role in the community at large students can garner strong relationships and are given access to an extensive set of resources that will prepare them for years to come. As tired as it sounds, it is important to remember that the journey of a thousand miles always starts with the first step.

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- March 30, 2007

Referendum results

Results from the Federation of Students and Graduate Student Association’s referendums have been announced. Details after the jump.

Federation of Students referendums

U-Pass (turnout: 33.9 per cent of 20,929 )

Yes – 4056
No -  3002
Decline – 44

MathSoc Fee increase (turnout: 22.2 per cent of 4137)

Yes – 529
No – 391
Decline – 0

Graduate Students Association referendum

U-Pass (turnout: 46.4 per cent / 1476 of 3178)

No: 766 (51.9%)
Yes: 700 (47.4%)
Declined: 10 (0.7%)

Follow-up to the referendum results will be published in the May 4, 2007 issue of Imprint. Stay tuned!

***

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- May 4, 2007

U-Passed

by Adrienne Raw

On March 28 and 29, University of Waterloo students voted to implement the U-Pass. The plan will provide students with a bus pass for the Grand River Transit (GRT) system for a fee of about $50 per term. The GRT had already promised increased service if the bus pass was approved.

Despite widespread debate on the subject, only 33.9 per cent of the student population turned out to vote. That may seem like a disappointingly small percentage, but Feds President Kevin Royal claims it’s actually fairly high. “To my knowledge,” Royal said, “the U-Pass referendum saw the largest number of eligible votes cast in any election or referendum, throughout all of the history of the Federation of Students.” He added that while 100 per cent voter turnout is always the goal, “this is not always achievable or realistic.”

Drew Adams, chair of the Yes committee, pointed out that “The turnout in Feds elections has been steadily dropping for some time and the U-Pass referendum more than doubled the February election [turnout].” Adams feels that this turnout demonstrates the importance of this issue to students. “Student apathy isn’t the problem,” he said, “and when issues come forward that will actually impact students they will make sure their voice is heard.”

Of the approximately 7,100 students who voted, only 57 per cent voted “yes” to approve the pass. Both Royal and No committee chair John Soltys agree that the results reflect the wishes of the student population. “Feds will be respecting the will of the majority of its constituents in implementing the bus pass,” said Royal.

“It was obviously a close vote and an issue that students on both sides felt very strongly about,” says Adams, “but I think this is a fair representation of what the student population wants…”

Adams reports that the Yes committee is pleased with the results of the referendum. “We would have been pleased either way,” he said, “because the goal always was to allow students to vote on this long-standing issue, but we’re definitely very happy that the outcome went our way.”

“There are a ton of benefits of the pass,” said Adams. He see the biggest ones as health and environmental benefits for students and the community. He also said that “for many students the biggest [benefit] will be having a safe and reliable way home from class or elsewhere.” Having already graduated, Adams won’t benefit from the bus pass but he said he would definitely have used the bus pass if he were returning for the fall term.

The Yes committee will have no further official role in the implementation of the bus pass, but Adams is keeping up to date on the progress being made. He plans on staying in contact with both Feds and the GRT and providing feedback where he can.

The No committee is not nearly as pleased with the results of the referendum.

“Obviously we’re upset about the result but we were not surprised by it,” said Soltys. He added that miscommunication during the campaign and a shortage of volunteers may have weakened the No committee’s message. “I feel that the idea of a U-Pass leaves a positive first impression on students and so instinctively many students voted Yes without considering the deeper implications,” he said.

According to Soltys, the No committee was disadvantaged from the start, “when the Feds had the meeting to decide who would chair the Yes and No committees I was the only person there supporting the No side of the issue.” The small number of members left the No committee scrambling during the campaign.

“Given more time we could have been much better organized,” Soltys said.

Currently, members of the No committee are trying to set up a way of determining how successful the U-Pass is. “We feel it is not enough to say the U-Pass is successful because more students are riding the bus,” said Soltys. He wants to know whether students are actually travelling beyond a 20 minute walking radius of UW, or whether students who normally walk or bike are taking the bus instead.

Soltys is one of those students who are not going to benefit from the introduction of a bus pass.

“Where I live,” he said, “there is no frequent bus service that accommodates my work and school schedule.” He sees the bus pass as “a luxury only a few students will use and even fewer students actually need.”

Nonetheless, the student population has spoken, and the majority vote is in favour of the bus pass. In an identical referendum held by the Graduate Students Association, graduate students voted on the same issue and rejected the bus pass with about 52 per cent of the students voting “no.”

Now that undergraduate students have approved the bus pass, Royal has the job of overseeing its implementation. The process includes receiving approval of the bus pass fee from the Board of Governors and finalizing the contract with GRT. As of yet, details are unclear on how students will use the bus pass. Royal was unable to confirm whether the bus pass would be a separate card, or an addition to the Watcard. “Both the contract and system of implementation discussions are ongoing,” he said, “and it would be premature to comment on the nature of either.” He can confirm that students will need to be registered as full time undergraduate students in order to receive the U-Pass. All major developments will be made available to students and the media, so students can follow the progress of the bus pass.

The goal is to have the U-Pass ready for use by the Fall 2007 term. “It will be the top priority of VP admin and finance, Del Pereira during the Spring 2007 term,” said Royal.

Feds executive will also have to deal with students concerns about the bus pass and its implementation. During debates about the U-Pass, students presented a number of issues, the mandatory fee among them.

“The biggest concern about the bus pass implementation,” said Soltys, “was that the bus pass fee would be mandatory… Even students that have no use for a bus pass will have to pay for it.”

Royal confirms that the fee will be mandatory and that there are no plans to discuss a refundable fee. The referendum result constitutes a binding contract the Feds executive must uphold. As a result, any sort of refundable bus pass isn’t an option — at least, not until the end of the three-year contract with GRT, at which point the bus pass will be re-examined.

Royal is sympathetic to student concerns and will actively seek to see them addressed. “As a component of the U-Pass,” he said, “we are creating a working group which will work to address issues raised on an ongoing basis surrounding the bus pass, its implementation and its associated service improvements.”

At the end of the three-year period, Soltys hopes that statistics will be available to either prove or disprove the claims of the Yes committee. If statistics show that the promises made by Feds, GRT and the Yes committee have not been met, Soltys believes that students will have the opportunity to re-examine the bus pass.

Royal confirmed that “a review would be conducted in three years’ time, after the current agreement expires.” It would then be the responsibility of the 2009-2010 Feds executive to determine whether another referendum would be held.

Until then, students who support the bus pass can celebrate the increase in services and students who don’t support the pass can buckle down and prepare to shell out another $50 per term.

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- March 23, 2007

by Michael L. Davenport

Walls around campus have been peppered with posters, debates on Facebook groups are heating up, and forums are being held. And it’s all about everyone’s favourite political issue: the U-Pass.

As with all Feds referenda, both “yes” and “no” committees are formed, both charged with the task of raising awareness of the issue, and defending their point of view. With this particular issue, the rift between the yes and no sides comes down to utility: the “yes” side believes that all students will benefit from a pass, while the “no” side maintains that this is not the case at all. Public debates are held such that each side may attempt to establish their viewpoint as truth.

The first forum was held on March 21 in the SLC Great Hall. However, the debate was somewhat one-sided, as the “no” committee was absent.

John Soltys, chair of the “no” committee, said he was unable to attend because of a conflict with a class.

The non-representation of the “no” committee didn’t stop the “yes” committee from making their point of view heard. Headed by ES councillor Drew Adams and Planning Students Association president Garett Stevenson, the pair spoke to a small but accumulating crowd.

One of the first arguments that Adams made was that the pass would be cheaper than driving. “Maybe you drive to campus. You’ll save $114 off the cost of your parking pass if you [had driven], plus gas and maintenance. You already pay $50 per tank of gas. If you leave your car at home for two weeks — the money you would have spent on the tank of gas, you can spend on the bus pass. And who knows, you might still use it.”

However, when Imprint did catch up with Soltys, he disagreed. “The reason people drive is because it’s not feasible to take a bus. It’s because they live far beyond the reaches of the public transit system, and these service improvements won’t benefit the people that drive because they’re so sparse and spread out. These people that drive live in Elmira or Chicopee or the suburbs or some area where bus service is inept at best. And they’re going to derive almost no benefit from this. All of these “improved routes,” they’re only going to be around campus, and they’re going to be screwing the people who live beyond the reach of the transit. And they’re paying for nothing, essentially.”

Adams is quick to point out how inexpensive the pass is compared to other deals. After compiling costs of similar bus passes, he found that university students who have a pass pay $83 on average for it, some universities much more. Brock students, for instance, paid $120 for a four month pass in 2003. Emphasizing the low cost, Adams said, “If you take it once a week, one return trip a week for a term, you are going to see the benefit, the pass will pay for itself, and it’ll be a reliable ride that’ll always be there for you.”

Said Adams: “Instead of a few cab rides home from the bar, take the bus and save the $50 that way.” But it’s exactly this idea Soltys finds repelling.

“It’s not necessary,” he said. “I don’t really feel like paying for your trip to the bar, quite frankly. And I don’t think it’s fair to the people who can derive little or no benefit from it. There are people who get literally absolutely nothing out of this. Taking their money away for a luxury for others is unfair. Because it is a luxury…to get to the bar back and forth.”

Adams stated that taking the bus is an environmentially friendly means of transportation which students should be encouraged to use. Fiscal conservatives point out that “walking” is an even more environmentally friendly means of transport. However, Adams pointed out that for the “smog days” in the summer, taking the bus (thus not spending long periods of time outside) can be advantageous.

Both the “yes” and “no” sides are guilty when it comes to flawed assumptions or misrepresenting facts. When current Federation of Students vice-president administration and finance Renjie Butalid asked the “yes” committee how students who have no use for the pass could possibly save money, Adams replied that the proposed pass is much cheaper than the current adult pass, which is on order of $200 — completely ignoring the fact that only a small number of students actually buy such passes now. Adams also said that there would be a 15 per cent tax credit for the pass — but that is still net money out of students’ pockets.

Moreover, the “no” committee’s posters contain misleading or outright false statements. One poster claims that “When Laurier got a U-Pass, service did not improve,” (emphasis theirs) when in truth improvements were made to Routes 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, and iXpress. Another poster claims that only 15 per cent of students ride the bus, but those statistics are from 2001 — the more recent 2006 study pegs bus ridership at 32 per cent – and at that, the survey reports on the percentage of students to ride the bus to campus, not ridership overall.

Yet another poster claims that “The city of Waterloo is willing to give us a cheap, refundable bus pass that will work for everyone. But only if you vote ‘no’ to get a fairer plan.” In reality, any refundable pass would have to be administered by Feds; GRT would see the same lump sum of money whether students have a non-refundable pass or a slightly more expensive refundable pass. Feds would have to accept liability — or even potential financial losses — if large numbers of students requested refunds.

The no team didn’t show, leaving empty chairs and lonely mics.

Butalid has released a document outlining the potential methods of authenticating students, justifying his decision to use the WatCard readers (the item responsible for the $9.50 fee). Soltys expressed concern at both this investment in infrastructre (possibly locking us into a bus pass in the long term) and the fact that the refundable pass idea hasn’t been fairly presented to students.

GRT has already signed a “letter of intent” which is legally binding. Assuming students vote in favour of the pass, GRT has already committed to approximately 27,000 hours of service improvements, including improvements to Route 8, Route 13, and the iXpress.

There are two more forums scheduled, both taking place in the SLC Great Hall: one on Friday, March 23 at 11:00 a.m., and the second on Monday, March 26 at noon. Also, there are Facebook groups both for and against the pass for both undergraduate and graduate students (with debate in the “no” undergraduate group in particular) as well as debate happening in the uwaterloo Livejournal community.

Hopefully between all these different media, both sides will have presented all the arguments by the time the issue comes to a vote — to be held from 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28 to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 29.

photos by Michael L. Davenport

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- March 9, 2007

by Michael L. Davenport

It was once said that the U-Pass issue wasn’t a question of if a referendum would be held, but when. Now it’s not a question of when you are going to vote, but how. The Federation of Students is holding a referendum at the end of the month, tentatively scheduled for March 28 and 29. Feds referendums typically have “yes” and “no” committees, each debating its side of the issue and raising public awareness of the referendum. Expect the campus to be carpet-bombed once again with posters in the near future.

ES councillor Drew Adams circulated a petition back in January, gathering approximately 2,500 signatures in two days. While the petition was never “officially” submitted (and thus the actual referendum question is different from that on the petition students signed), Adams met with Feds vice president administration and finance Renjie Butalid, as well as the Feds board of directors. Adams’ success in accumulating so many signatures in such a short span of time was enough to convince Feds to resume negotiations with Grand River Transit last January and work out the details of implementing a pass.

Adams is pleased with the result. “A lot of progress has been made since the issue was brought to council in January and I’m very pleased with where we stand now. The issue wasn’t how a referendum would come about but rather that there would be one this term. Ultimately, I think the system Feds has chosen to move forward with will be very beneficial to all students involved but what’s important is that students will finally have the chance to decide for themselves on the issue.”

Feds math councillor Eric Logan, who also sits on the Feds Board of Directors, commented on the progress: “The question on the petition was far less specific than what we have brought forward. In the past two months, the executive has been in extensive negotiations with Grand River Transit, to the point where we expect a signed letter of intent from GRT by week’s end, completely laying out what students can expect if they vote in favour of the bus pass. Indeed, this has allowed us to write a very specific and unambiguous question.”

The motion reads, “Do you support a Universal Bus Pass (U-Pass) at a cost of $41.08, plus an
administration cost of not more than $9.50, subject to increases due to inflation and student demand, to be paid by each full-time undergraduate student per academic term, scheduled for implementation in September 2007, and which will be reviewed in three years?” Most students following the issue expected a fee near the $40 mark, but to some the additional $9.50 “administration cost” comes as a surprise. It was also, in part, why Feds was concerned about Adams’ petition, as it made no mention of administrative fees.

Wilfrid Laurier’s bus pass is simple: students show their OneCard and they get on the bus — but that system would never work for UW. “The University of Waterloo, and I want to stress this, is very, very different compared to other schools…in the sense that we have a lot of different categories of students on campus,” Butalid said. He went on to explain that with co-op students, grad students and part-time students all holding a WatCard, our authentication process would have to be more complex than Laurier’s. “We’re still in the process for determining what the price point should be for that administration cost.”

“The reason we set [the referendum question] at $9.50 is because we thought that would be the maximum. It could potentially be lower,” said Butalid. The plan that students would actually pay in September has not been finalized.

Several ideas were considered for keeping track of which students had paid the fee in a given term, including mailing out stickers to be applied to WatCards or another piece of identification entirely. And though those options would seemingly be cheap (i.e. not requiring a $9.50 fee), in reality they are a logistic nightmare. Instead, the $9.50 will go towards equipping all busses with a WatCard swipe system.

“What that entails is a WatCard reader on every bus — we’re budgeting it for 210 busses, that’s the figure the region of Waterloo gave us. Every bus would have a WatCard reader system, and it would be connected online to a server at the Watcard office which has information from the registrar’s office, as to the [valid] student ID numbers,” Butalid said

It may seem elaborate, but seemingly cheaper systems would incur other costs. Butalid spoke of the chaos that would ensue asking 22,000 students to pick up a physical bus pass, or mailing out 22,000 bus passes by hand. “It would have to be done every term. It would be a very tedious task. And then we’d have to deal with the fallout of students not getting their bus pass, not getting it in a timely fashion, and complaining that they’d already paid for it.”

Butalid credited Bud Walker of UW’s office of business operations for swaying him in that direction. Walker made the case for technology, saying, “What you want to do is try and minimize the manual intervention to a system like that. The more things you can do in an automated or electronic fashion, the better. [...] We’d want to try and do as much electronically, because it has more integrity if you do that than manual systems, which are more prone to individual errors.”

Butalid also praised the other benefits to this system. “The simplest model would be to use modern technology. And I think Waterloo’s always been innovative in that aspect.” He pointed out that this technology would allow Feds to track ridership and see where service improvements work best.

Neither Walker nor Butalid thought the September deadline was an impossible challenge, as much of the infrastructure for the GPS WatCard reader system is already in place. Consider that it is currently possible to charge a Waterloo Taxi to one’s WatCard.

Not only will undergraduates be voting on a referendum, but graduate students will be holding their own bus pass referendum concurrently with the Feds referendum. Ian McKinnon sits on the board of directors for the Graduate Students Association and has been taking care of the U-Pass issue from his position. Said McKinnon, “What happened during all the negotiations is GSA sat in on them, [and] GRT said we can hop on board with whatever decision Feds makes.” He went on to explain that it made sense for the GSA referendum to piggyback on the notoriety the Feds referendum was sure to get, and be on board for the bus pass from day one rather than try to get in on the action later.

However, the GSA referendum question reads, “Do you support a universal bus pass for full-time graduate students with a non-refundable cost of not more than $48.60 per term subject to inflation, provided there are significant transit service increases and there is a review of the fee in three years?” The strange case is that the “transit service increases” is dependant on the success of the undergraduate referendum; there are 22,000 undergraduate students but only 3,000 graduate students.

If the undergraduate referendum question is voted down there will likely not be a bus pass for graduate students, no matter how their referendum vote goes. Three thousand do not have the same bargaining power as 22,000 or 25,000, and will likely not be able to get the services increases on their own.

Butalid commented, “If the referendum fails, I will only have one more month in office, so what I will do is highly recommend to the next Feds executive, is to look at the possibility of a refundable bus pass. Or not even refundable, but an opt-in bus pass.” We already have those opt-in passes for $148 for three months, but Butalid holds out hope that we could get a better deal. It seems that no matter the outcome of this referendum, the U-Pass will be a persistent issue on campus in the coming year.