Lily Takeuchi is a third-year medical lab science student. While you might not have heard of this program before, Takeuchi readily admits that it is a small program, but this partially sparked her desire to run for the senate position. Takeuchi hopes that, if elected, she could focus on improving representation and engagement of all students in addition to mental health and student resource initiatives.
Describe your platform and what sets it apart from your opposition in a few sentences.
My platform mainly consists of focus on mental health, academic policy and improved student resources for student-led initiatives to do with research and educational training. One of the things that sets me apart is that I did transfer from science into a very small program of 22 students. That change has shown me how under-represented some departments can be. What I really want to focus on is translating everything that happens in senate to something that students can understand and get involved in.
How have you been involved with the AMS before, and how will this help you?
I haven’t been directly involved with the AMS, but as a constituency of the AMS I have been involved with the Science Undergraduate Society. This year, I served as their vice-president of administration, and that really involved three main aspects. One was codes and policy, the second was billing management for the Abdul Ladha Science student centre space, and interacting with clubs. A lot of those experiences, especially to do with code and policy, really translate into the senate role.
What are the challenges facing this position in the upcoming year?
Since this is the triennial year and the turnover is happening, I think that’s going to pose some major challenges. I know a lot of projects are wrapping up, and there’s a really big push to finish off those projects. I think this also provides us with a really unique opportunity to produce new projects and new discussions into Senate.
Who is the most important body or person you need to collaborate with in this position, and how will you foster a relationship with them?
Obviously, the AMS is someone we want to liaise with regularly, because they have the direct connections to all the constituencies and they have all the different departments. They’re a huge body that we want to liaise with and ensure that we can get the messages out that we need. I think making the information from discussions in senate more translatable to students would be excellent to see, and the AMS will play a big role in that.
What three committees would you like to sit on as a senator, and why?
I’d like to sit on the Academic policy committee because my experiences have been in code and policy and I really have to contribute, but also learn more about how the policies are implemented at a senate level. The second one I’d like to sit on is the mental health ad-hoc committee because I’d like to continue the great work that they’ve been doing over the year. The last one, I’d say the research committee, because I’d like to learn more about how we can improve student-led research initiatives at UBC.
Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.