Daniel Lam is a second-year atmospheric science major who has served as an AMS student representative on the Science Undergraduate Society. Lam believes his focus on student engagement sets him apart from other Senate candidates.
Describe your platform and what sets it apart from your opposition in a few sentences.
It’s split into four pillars — teaching and learning technologies, mental health initiatives, advocating for academic policy and student engagement. I think the big thing that separates my platform from all the other candidate’s platforms is the student engagement part because, for a lot of candidates, they want to talk about what they want to bring to the Senate. But for me, a lot of my platform is also looking at how we can improve student Senate caucus so that we can better hear student’s voices.
How have you been involved with the AMS before, and how will this help you?
Last year I was an AMS councillor — I was representing the Science Undergraduate Society. Midway through that term, I picked up a position as an earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences representative on the Science Undergraduate Society council. Both of these experiences are very beneficial to Senate because both involve me speaking on large bodies — AMS council is the largest governing body [for students] and Senate is the largest governing academic body of the university. Both of these have committees and the one that I’m specifically in right now is the Education Committee on the AMS and we deal with a lot of things like lobbying with Access and Diversity, for example. In some ways, we also liaise with the Senate.
What are the challenges facing this position in the upcoming year?
We’re entering the end of a triennial and so we want to try to get as much done as possible with the current projects. When transition comes in for the next year for the incoming faculty and alumni representatives, we can, in some ways, start off with a fresh plate. Senate’s been working on a couple projects right now … and so I see time as the biggest issue in this position for the upcoming year, knowing that we only have one more year left to try to complete some good projects before the next group of people come in.
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?
[The] Mental Health Network, definitely, because mental health is without a doubt one of the biggest issues on this campus right now and they do a lot of advocacy work. They’re sort of a network of groups on campus that have a similar goal of trying to improve mental health ... and I think that, going forward, a partnership between those guys would be very beneficial.
What three committees would you like to sit on as a senator, and why?
For me the first one is teaching and learning technology. I really want to see what their work is like in trying to implement the technologies that I have talked about. Second is academic policy committee because I think it ties in line very well with issues that are going on such as the fall reading break and trying to get that rolling. Third one is the senator ad-hoc committee on mental health. I think it would be a very good thing to sit on considering that it’s one of the topics students engage with the most on campus. If there’s anything that senate does that students engage with the most, it’s mental health. And so I think it would be a really good opportunity to be able to be there, be able to engage students on such a topic that is still sadly stigmatized.
Interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.