Last night, 11 out of the 14 candidates for the student senator-at-large race showed up to exhibit their knowledge and plead their case for one of the five seats available. Shorya Goyal, Bardia Mohammadizadehand and Mankanwar Singh were not in attendance.
The candidates discussed institutional neutrality, severing academic ties with Israeli universities and both exam hardship and disability policies. Candidates were frequently in agreement on many of the questions, although some disagreements were had.
Incumbents Solomon Yi-Kieran, Kareem Hassib, Drédyn Fontana and Jasper Lorien highlighted their previous experience on the Senate and promised to continue their advocacy work if elected.
“My question is, where are the results?” asked newcomer Mohkam Singh Malik (ਮੋਹਕਮ). “Half of you guys are running on the same platforms that you ran on last year.” Malik repeated this refrain throughout the evening.
When discussing the potential creation of an ad-hoc committee to discuss institutional neutrality, Lorien said they are “extremely concerned about what institutional neutrality could look like and what it might end up doing.”
Yi-Kieran, Hassib, Fontana and newcomer Ananya Gupta echoed Lorien’s concerns that the implementation of institutional neutrality could be used to dismantle equity initiatives and hurt marginalized communities. Fontana added that mandatory neutrality could enable UBC to shut down important conversations.
Senate newcomers Zarifa Nawar and David Aminbakhsh, however, were more interested in what the committee would look like and were more open to discussion on the committee’s merits.
Malik was the only candidate who stated absolute support for the implementation of institutional neutrality, saying UBC should focus only on research and education. Newcomer Veeru Vaidesh Seethanaboyina said he supported neutrality in some regards, but not all, and newcomer Dianya Gao was the only candidate who said they did not have adequate knowledge to answer the question.
Τhe candidates were also asked if they’d support severing academic ties with Israeli universities. Lorien, Gao, Hassib, Aminbakhsh, Seethanaboyina and Yi-Kieran said they’d support severance. Fontana, Nawar, Gupta and Chan all said it was a complex issue for a number of various reasons. Malik said there was no chance of tie-severance ever passing even when the vote was raised this past summer.
“I think there's a bit of misinformation around what cutting ties actually means, or in an academic sense,” said Hassib. “What it means is that we don't have a Go Global course where we go dig up bones in occupied Palestine as an archeology course.”
When the newcomers were asked what policies they would hope to work on, most mentioned UBC’s exam hardship policy V-102 and UBC’s student accommodation policy LR7. The incumbents alternatively highlighted the work they hope to continue doing for these policies.
Aminbakhsh and Gao were the only candidates to not mention either policy. Aminbakhsh said he would focus on improving Workday while Gao said she “hopes to be useful” as a Senator.
On Generative AI, most candidates agreed that creating a sweeping policy from UBC’s current guidelines would be complicated and should require careful thought. Candidates also largely agreed UBC should have clear guidelines on Gen AI expectations for students, but they differed on the minutia of implementation.
Keanu, Hassib, Seethanaboyina and Aminbakhsh were the only candidates to say that all cases of AI should be handled on a class-by-class basis without any broad university policy, with Hassib saying pursuing a university-wide policy would be like “trying to do neurosurgery with a sledgehammer.”
All candidates also said they would push for more Open Education Resources although there was heightened disagreement surrounding the extent to which (and how) student senators should engage with students.
Senate candidates will debate again on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in the Pit before voting opens on March 7.
This article is part of our 2025 AMS Elections coverage. Follow us at @UbysseyNews on X (formerly Twitter) and follow our election coverage starting March 3.
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