UNA Election - Candidate Profiles

Thank you candidates for responding to the survey!

Thirteen candidates for seven positions makes the task of figuring out who to vote for a bit of a challenge. Typical candidate profiles are more often statements of wishful thinking - "I will do this or that." First time candidates often over promise on what grand changes they might make. Incumbents tend to highlight what happened while they were in office and promise more of the same.  I'll trust the Campus Resident to cover the intentions of the candidates, here I'm more interested in who they are as people.  

In this post I reflect upon the responses the candidates shared. My highlighting here is not a ranking or a recommendation on how to vote.  For the moment I offer their responses and my reflections as one more piece of information for UNA voters to be able to make better informed decisions. One of the strengths of local area governance is the relatively small scale of our processes and the opportunities to get to know people who wish to be involved.

All of the candidate profiles can be found linked here.

The survey questions I drafted focused on what the candidates are doing now, how they came to be living in the UNA, and where they are from. This was achieved in four core questions. each individual responded somewhat differently, but essentially there are two groups: those who provided very terse answers (Cheng, Holmes, Kang, Mojdehi) that share very little about themselves and those who actually engaged with the questions in a way that reflects at least some part of themselves (Co, Gallo, Glassheim, Liu, McCutcheon, Ngieng, Prost, Watson).  This isn't a perfect categorization as there is at least one that falls somewhere in the middle (Gan), but it does give a general sense of them.

Answers to the 'how long have you lived in the UNA' reflect the relative newness and transitoriness of the resident population. Half of the candidates have lived here five years or less, while the remainder are evenly divided between  five to ten years (25%) and more than ten years (25%).  I didn't ask candidates their age or household status, but their answers, and my knowledge of them, allows me to say the majority are in the 20-50 year range and live in a family household with spouse and children. Four younger candidates live either alone, with their parents, or in their parents' home. And one candidate is in a household post-children with their spouse.

The candidates spent their childhoods in an array of places in Canada and globally.  This is reflective of our home (as a nation and as a locale).  Candidates originate in Argentina, Canada, China, Iran, and the United States. Several noted the similarities of the UNA to where they grew up (Gallo, Liu, Watson).  All talk about how they feel comfortable in their chosen home.

The three profiles that stood out to me (and I appreciate everyone will have their own preferences) are by Gallo, Glassheim, Liu. In each case I felt I got to know something about the person without 'campaign-style' stuff crowding their answers. In each case we learn something about their background - like Gallo's reflection on children playing in the park, Glassheim's thoughts about his City Councillor father, or Liu's sense of humour when speaking of her hometown. Behind these reflections we get a peek at what might shape their decision making on our Board. 

The next category are more combination of personal reflection and political engagement than the first three. In this genre of writing (answers to surveys during an election) all contributions are, of course, self-aware and written with the election in mind; it's just that some authors are more inclined to foreground this fact than others. In this group I place Co, McCutcheon, Ngieng, Prost, and Watson. Co and Prost, I think, are the most 'campaign' oriented. McCutseon and Watson show the strongest community connections and histories of involvement within the UNA community. They all highlight actions and issues that draw attention to their suitability to be director.  But we also see reflections of who they are in the types of things they decide to highlight.  

The briefer responses tell us information but not much personality. As I gave no guidelines (deliberately) I wasn't certain what to expect. As a faculty member who regularly tests learners I am familiar with how any one exam elicits a range of responses from one word in a field of empty space to tiny handwriting cramping over to the back side of the exam sheet. I also know that the long answer isn't necessarily the best answer. Sometimes, the pithy single sentence is the right and complete answer. Short answers, and I tend to be a short answer person myself, sometimes are flawed by brevity and the author's assumptions that their short hand is understandable to everyone (which isn't a good principle for writing).

I am struck by the sincerity of the responses from all the candidates.  Each in their own way steps up to the plate and offers a bit of themselves. Being a UNA Director is a 'small' job in the field of political positions; just the same it takes time, effort and humility to do it well.  Being a Director is to be a public figure and that requires being willing to share small bits of ourselves in the process. 

In a day and age where politicians and university leadership alike have PR handlers managing their images and communications it is refreshing to find local folks who care enough to be open, authentic, sincere, and responsive.   I look forward to hearing more from these people as the campaign continues.