Editor's Note
Hu briefly withdrew from VP student life race the afternoon of Sept. 23, according to an email sent at 3:20 p.m. by AMS elections administrator Keiko Prasadja. At 6:11 p.m., she sent another email to The Ubyssey to say that Hu "decided not to withdraw." The Ubyssey's news section will be covering this story as it develops.
Voting is open now and runs until Monday, Sept. 28 at 4 p.m.
Experience isn’t everything. But Matthew Ma Renzitti’s four months as the interim VP Student Life, and his time working in the events industry, make him far more qualified than his opponent, first-year Chengwei Hu.
Hu puts forward his youth as an advantage, saying that his experience is “authentic” and that he knows what “the lonely life is like.” This is not sufficient. Nor is not having attended any AMS function since starting university earlier this month, which leaves him unable to levy any cogent criticism or praise for any event, program, or initiative of the VPSL office.
The Blue and Gold Society is an informal body revived last year by former VPSL Kevin Heieis to revitalize student life in consultation with various campus groups; the society made recommendations to UBC at the end of Heieis’s term. When asked if the Blue and Gold Society was valuable, Hu said he would be “putting up posters” to inform students about it and allow them to decide if they like it. When directly asked again if the society was valuable, he said, “I believe it is,” but didn’t elaborate beyond vague platitudes about community. He doesn’t seem to know what the Blue and Gold Society even is.
Similarly, Hu seemed unfamiliar with Mental Health Week. When asked what he’d change, he spoke about a website that would connect students with group counselling — presumably all-year round. We had to ask him again to get him to speak to the event itself. He wouldn’t change a thing — not that he could name a thing about the event.
Meanwhile, Renzitti had well-formed thoughts about these programs. On the Blue and Gold Society, he thinks an annual or twice-a-year meeting allows them to raise the most important issues facing campus groups. An issue invoked at last year’s meeting was space booking — a concern Renzitti already has at least one solution for.
In collaboration with UBC Athletics & Recreation, QR codes will be placed at locations like MacInnes Field that will link directly to a booking form. For Mental Health Week, he found last year’s event too spread out, so this year he is planning to concentrate the event into three days shortly before the Term 1 exam period.
Hu’s flagship event proposal is the Nest Cup, designed to regularly connect students. The current Interfaculty Cup — a competition event between faculties that Renzitti has already planned with UBC Athletics & Recreation — allows students to choose whether to participate. The issue, according to Hu, is that it requires students to know about the event. His solution? Students will automatically be registered for a Nest Cup team which will compete monthly in events ranging from athletics to arts and music. (The Interfaculty Cup has historically included sport and non-sport events as well.)
This seems different for the sake of being different rather than an actual improvement on any of the AMS’s programming — which already has regular events every month.
With five years of event organizing experience, event organizing is one of Renzitti’s strengths.
We broadly agree with his philosophy of “[trying] new thing[s]” to ensure events appeal to a wider variety of students. From his 75 cent hotdogs for a yet-to-be-advertised doubleheader to celebrate the 75th War Memorial Gym anniversary to thematically diversifying traditional Pit nights and adding another weekly Pit event focused on live music, he seems to have a plan on how to deliver.
Renzitti sees AMS events as a service provided for students — not just an opportunity for profit. Achieving this requires creativity about how best to serve students while still breaking even, something we believe Renzitti might have.
Other than the Nest Cup, Hu proposed no additional events. Renzitti has already introduced new ones — like the football tailgate held on Sept. 11 and the Unsinkable Challenge scheduled for this Saturday — with more planned for later in the year.
The AMS’s largest event, the Block Party, has been over-budget for years, often losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Renzitti thinks the event can be kept within a reduced budget without sacrificing the event’s scale — an adjustment he is uniquely qualified to lead given his experience. He believes the AMS is being overcharged by the events company they currently use and is considering opening the bid to other companies to lower the price. He is also planning to secure talent sooner to reduce booking fees.
Hu, on the other hand, plans to make no adjustments to Block Party. Instead, he will run fundraising campaigns throughout the year to make up the difference between the event’s cost and revenue. These fundraisers might include donations, selling food and merch, and running tournaments.
Hu’s other major proposal is the “Nest Network,” which he described as a “full new system” that would serve as a dedicated “student community hub” — essentially a social media platform.
He brought this up throughout the interview, describing how it would be a place for people to vent and seek out mental health support from counsellors; find information on clubs; start fundraisers; create group chats; leave suggestions (presumably for the AMS, though that was unclear); and find like-minded students to attend sports games with.
An everything app, if you will, is a massive undertaking. Building a full social media and messaging platform that complies with necessary privacy requirements for talking to mental health professionals in just a few months is not feasible for an organization the size of the AMS. Any actual results would likely be half-baked and far more limited in scope.
The site would also enable what he called a “referendum,” allowing students to upvote and downvote ideas on the Nest Network. According to AMS Bylaws and Policy, referenda must have in-person polling stations, be approved by AMS Council or a petition and reach at least eight per cent turnout — that is, they have many more requirements than a social media post.
The most concerning policy proposal from either candidate was about drink spiking at AMS events. Neither could articulate a policy likely to increase student safety. Renzitti’s proposal was fairly milquetoast, if heteronormative: a strict zero-tolerance policy for any time a girl makes a complaint about a guy spiking a drink or exhibiting “weird behaviour.” It’s unclear why drink spiking would ever have a more-than-zero tolerance policy, given administering a noxious drug is an indictable offence under section 245 of the Criminal Code.
Hu’s main policy was to educate people by putting up “posters about why drink spiking is bad” and to require students to complete an informative module before attending events with alcohol. Hu holds the ludicrous belief that people spike drinks because they think “it’s only bad if [they] get caught,” and that they can “justify it in a way that they feel it's not as bad.” He said that if people can see why it’s wrong from the victim’s perspective, they won’t be able to justify it — and once they know it’s bad, they won’t do it.
This is absurd and extraordinarily disrespectful to anyone who’s been sexually assaulted or had their drink spiked. Student leaders should not be justifying sexual assault, rape, or any sort of predatory behaviour. This conception of assault would be disqualifying even for a competent candidate.
If anyone can prove why the VPSL position exists, it’s Renzitti. He is clearly qualified and has coherent ideas about his role. If Renzitti is elected, we think he’ll set up the office for future success.
Hu won’t. He is a political novice with a passion, but he’s been at UBC for less than a month. He’s been to zero AMS events and has seemingly made no effort to learn what the role does.
The Ubyssey’s editorial board endorses Matthew Ma Renzitti for VP Student Life.
The endorsement process
The Ubyssey’s editorial board reviewed candidate platforms, watched the candidates’ debate, and interviewed both candidates to determine whom to endorse in the VP Student Life byelection.
The editorial board operates independently of the News section and does not influence their impartial candidate profiles.
