This year, we saw a field of 10 candidates running for the five senator-at-large seats. The UBC Vancouver Senate is responsible for most of the academic-related issues at UBC, like textbook costs, academic misconduct, exam hardship and other forms of accommodation.
Editor's Note: The new Editorial Board is a pilot project launched for this year's elections. From now on, that term refers to the group of journalists who write their views as a collective in the newspaper's name, linking us with centuries of newspaper tradition.
Our pilot Editorial Board consisted of Features Editor Elena Massing, Politics Columnist Maya Tommasi and AMS Columnist Quyen Schroeder, who served as the board's chair. Over the past few weeks, they contacted every candidate, held interviews, attended debates and studied platforms before deliberating among themselves who The Ubyssey will endorse. Their deliberations were private and isolated from the rest of the newsroom, including from me, the Opinion Editor, until drafts had been filed. Like all of our journalists, they practised according to the Canadian Association of Journalists' Ethics Guidelines.
— Spencer Izen, Deputy Managing Editor and Opinion Editor
The Ubyssey is endorsing candidates Bryan Buraga, Drédyn Fontana, Jasper Lorien and Zarifa Nawar. While not receiving our endorsement, we believe Jaiya Panchi and Ash Dennis were more qualified than the rest of the unendorsed field. Of the four candidates we endorsed, all prioritized policies V-102 & V-103 on exam hardship, V-135 on academic concessions and LR7 on disability.
Here are our thoughts on each of the candidates.
Bryan Buraga
Given his extensive background in McGill student politics — he was the student union president, a senator and a member of the Board of Governors — we expect Buraga will be a capable senator, if elected. Buraga demonstrated knowledge of our current Senate policies and procedures, and has vowed to continue working on long-standing policy priorities regarding accessibility through policy LR7, exam hardship in policy V-102, and policy V-135 for student supports. Buraga is aligned with the policy priorities of the Student Senate Caucus (SSC) and will likely work harmoniously with other student senators. Buraga believes the university is a place of radical academic and social change, and that institutional stances on neutrality and academic freedom should not be used as a "cudgel to prevent certain types of speech.” We think students are broadly supportive of this. His experience at McGill might allow him to bring fresh perspectives to increase the efficacy of the SSC. Being a new student to UBC, we are less familiar with Buraga’s style, so it’s still somewhat unclear what direction he might take — it was also disappointing to hear he hasn’t yet attended a Senate meeting despite being interested in the position.
Drédyn Fontana
As an incumbent senator, Fontana is knowledgeable of Senate procedure and policy. Though he’s the only student senator not part of the SSC, likely due to historic “bad blood.” Despite this, we believe Fontana has been an effective senator during his term and will continue to help move policy LR7 on accessibility and concessions. He is likely to continue the work he has started this year on the Agenda and Nominating Committees. While we are confident Fontana will be a capable senator despite not being a member of the SSC — and accept his justification for being outside the caucus — we were unimpressed by his interactions with certain fellow candidates in this race. We expect more maturity and less pettiness from our student representatives.
Jasper Lorien
If re-elected, this would be Lorien’s third term as a senator, making them the longest-standing at-large incumbent. They are likely to continue to be an effective student senator, aiming to continue advocating for the policies on accessibility and student accommodations which they have worked on during their previous terms, like LR7 and V-135. Despite having been an effective senator, we are concerned about their willingness to collaborate with other members. They used their time during our interview to criticize other candidates, which did not contribute to the effectiveness of their campaign or advocacy. We hope elected senators are able to get past needless pettiness in the name of effective governance.
Zarifa Nawar
Nawar is a Senate incumbent and current AMS VP academic and university affairs, where she has been effective delivering change. As an incumbent senator, Nawar has worked on policy V-130 with other student senators, and aims to continue working on policies LR7 and V-135. This is in line with other student senator priorities. We were not impressed with her stance on cutting ties with Israeli universities, as it was needlessly convoluted and opaque, making it unclear where she stands. Despite saying she will “rise above [internal disagreements] in every single case,” like some others, she demonstrated unnecessary pettiness towards other candidates during our group interview.
Jaiya Panchi
While The Ubyssey is not endorsing Panchi, she did demonstrate decent knowledge of Senate procedures and policies, focusing primarily on syllabi policy V-130 for AI policy and V-103 on mandatory finals for 100 and 200-level courses. We felt that Panchi did not have as strong a grasp on Senate policy compared to the first four candidates, but that she would still be a competent, if unremarkable, senator. As the future VP AUA, having a role on the Senate would help her better advocate for policy changes regarding the AMS, though that in itself is not enough to earn our endorsement.
Ash Dennis
Like Panchi, Dennis hasn’t quite earned our endorsement. She demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of Senate procedure and policy, primarily discussing policy LR7, which focuses on disability accommodations. She also proposed to advocate for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, though it was unclear how she would go about it. While definitely knowledgeable, Dennis did not seem as qualified as the candidates we chose to endorse. She, like Panchi, lacked any senatorial experience — she’s a decent fifth choice, but between her and Panchi, we are not recommending one over the other.
Ian Chung
Ian Chung was unavailable for either of our interviews with Senate candidates having been on exchange this semester. His platform is lacklustre: recording lectures, limiting textbook prices and creating new research opportunities. Nothing other candidates haven’t said before. Other points, like expanding housing supply, are outside the scope of the Senate and fall under the purview of the Board of Governors. Chung is a candidate with uninspired promises who isn’t on campus to participate in debates or engage with students. Even if you agree with him, there are candidates with the same promises who are more deserving of your vote.
Luca Jenkin
Luca Jenkin is a first-year student seeking to represent students as a freshman senator. He showed up to all interviews and debates, but Jenkin’s platform includes little more than having a “more restrictive AI policy” in coursework and pressuring UBC to cut ties with Israeli universities. While he clearly has thoughts on some Senate policies, his lack of knowledge about governance would limit his effectiveness. We appreciate Jenkin’s participation in campaign events, but he has never attended a Senate meeting and has limited understanding of Senate procedure. We do not believe Jenkin would be an effective senator.
Sultana Razia
Sultana Razia has served as a student senator before, so she should have some knowledge of Senate proceedings. However, she seemed to only know the Senate she left, not the one of today. Razia was unable to answer questions about recently-passed policies that directly related to some of her goals. In particular, she proposed that a generative AI statement be included on syllabuses so students explicitly knew what was acceptable use of the technology. Unbeknownst to her, a revision of Policy V-130 was approved earlier this year, requiring syllabuses to include a statement on generative AI. Razia also vowed to lobby for policies like extended library hours — a tough ask given the university’s financial struggles and her having no proposal for how to pay for it.
Editor's Note: Razia also serves on The Ubyssey Publication Society’s Board of Directors. The board has no control over The Ubyssey’s coverage.
Elisa Nasimi
Other than their name, little is known about Nasimi. They didn’t submit a candidate bio to the AMS Elections team or respond to any of The Ubyssey’s emails. Unless you’d like to gamble on a mystery senator, you shouldn’t vote for Nasimi.
Editorials are opinion essays, and while they represent the views of the Editorial Board, they may not speak for every person at our newspaper. They are subject, however, to the same standard of fact-checking as anything else in our report.
