Christian 'CK' Kyle is running to be president on a platform centred around bettering academic support, the student experience, affordability and aiding clubs.
CK is a sixth-year geological engineering student who previously served as the Engineering Student Society’s president in the 2022/23 academic year. He is also the strategy and governance lead and the constituency relations and special project lead in the AMS president’s office.
On academic support, CK said he wants to create an exam database.
“We are actually the only major university in the entire country of Canada that does not have an accessible exam data basis for students, absolutely nuts,” said CK.
Compared to UBC, SFU, UofT and McGill all have exam databases.
To accomplish this, he would work with the clubs and constituencies to reach out to professors and get the students from the class to put together practice exams. CK also hopes to work alongside AMS tutoring to learn what classes have the highest demand.
With this, CK wants to work with the Centre of Accessibility to make a more standardized system of notifying students and professors as well as ensuring they clearly “understand what the terms are” to receive accommodations.
On student experience, CK said UBC lacks school spirit — pointing to the 2023 Academic Experience Survey, which reported 57 per cent of students feel no sense of belonging on campus.
“I'd really want to collaborate with the different constituencies and clubs to try to bring that together.”
CK said while the AMS cannot build a 60,000-member community in a year, it “can build the foundations for it.”
To support clubs, CK said the AMS could help amplify the resources and events clubs are planning by posting it on their social media accounts. While the management of clubs falls under the VP administration portfolio, the president can also support club promotion.
CK also said he wants to prioritize supporting the Indigenous constituency.
Last year, a successful referendum led to the creation of an Indigenous constituency. This year, the constituency did not have any substantial initiatives.
“This is gonna be their first year [of] full operations … I want to support them the way that I want to support every other group,” he said.
CK said he wants to aid food security groups on campus including Sprouts and those lesser known like Agora and the Engineer Student Centre Eatery by offering them the opportunity to order food at discounted prices when the organization places orders for the AMS Food Bank.
On restoring the AMS’ relationship with its resource groups, CK said the issue came down to the “AMS president [making] unrealistic promises about things.”
He said he would only “stand to do things I know I can do.”
“Let people do the thing that they're doing and help them do it and facilitate them … they've got all the stuff they need, just don't get in their way.”
CK is running against Alexandra Smith, Brandyn Marx and Shaun “The Bulldozer” You.
This article is part of our 2024 AMS Elections coverage. Follow us at @UbysseyNews on X (formerly Twitter) and follow our election coverage starting February 27.