The Vice-President (Finance & Operations) is the Chief Financial Officer of the Society, charged with ensuring the long-term financial stability of the Society in cooperation with the General Manager. To elaborate the annual budget, oversee any Society group assurance plan duly approved by the membership, as well as oversee the management of its revenue-generating operations.
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Name: Kathleen Bradley
Year: U3
Campaign slogan: Brevity is overvalued in politics; keep reading to find more than a slogan!
Candidate Biography:
I’m a philosophy-economics student finishing a minor in management with a serious passion for food and cooking. When I’m not cooking, I’m a food writer for Leacock’s Magazine, working at the Student-Run Café, or selling the benefits of local agriculture at the McGill Farmers’ Market. But contrary to popular belief, I do actually think about other things than food. My ideal day is probably curling with with Sartre or this week’s Economist, drinking really good coffee, and listening to Chet Baker. I fence and kick-box in the winter, and run up and down Mont Royal in the summer. I love picnics, engaging conversation, the really good Riesling. Anything else, come find me at SRC or Gerts and ask!
Describe your platform:
In the upcoming year I would like to:
- Continue to work on FERC’s recommendations for the Investment Portfolio to divest from unethical divestments
- Implement strategy for moving forward with ethical investments SSMU should be making so that SSMU is an environmental and humanitarian leading in investment strategies
- Build out conceptual framework of the SRC to include institutional memory, integrative research opportunities, and mandate while working with VP (Clubs and Services) to develop student space on the second floor
- Increase club fund and set mandated minimum within financial by-laws
- Implement more time sensitive funding application mechanism so that groups and clubs at McGill get the funding they need when they need it
Describe your qualifications:
I have worked under the Finance and Operations portfolio for two years; first, as a member of Operations Management Committee and then as the Menu Coordinator for the Student-Run Café. I am also the Finance Coordinator for the McGill Farmers’ Market and Executive of Second Servings, which has given me both the operational and financial background required for overseeing the financial portfolio. Opening on of SSMU’s major operations has given me intimate knowledge of the decision-making process within SSMU, and a good understanding of where the portfolio needs to go.
What are the successes and failures of this year’s SSMU and what would you have done differently?
Streamlining the Clubs and Services portfolio is something that Stefan Fong has worked hard on as VP C&S, and while it’s early days yet, I think that is a positive step forward. I also think Joey Shea has done commendable work within the UA portfolio given the tumultuous term she has had, both with issues of sexual assault and with equity. Neither are easy topics to breech, but she has tackled them in an earnest and productive way.
Student engagement was lacking in this, and many other, executive terms. It’s difficult to balance a full workload with an additional commitment to engage with the constituents you represent (especially when those constituents are often apathetic to the work you’re doing), but it’s a challenge every executive term must face with varying degrees of creativity and success. This year student engagement for the SRC at the executive level was lacking, meaning that little consultation about the conceptual mandate and space planning of the SRC was accomplished. This is an issue I will most certainly be addressing next year as VP Finance and Operations.
What are some key issues you foresee SSMU having to address next year?
- Student engagement! SSMU suffers on this point year after year, and it’s a difficult issue to address. How do we get students involved and engaged in a decision-making body that is, in its attempt to be democratic, destructively slow and inefficient?
- Developing an equity policy that is both respectful of the individual and the student body
- Settling in financially and operationally to the effects of the newly-signed lease
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