posted May 1: Incoming MSU president centred on students and student centre
The in-coming president of the McMaster Students Union (MSU) faces big challenges, the most significant of which is the opening of the new student center. Evan Mackintosh, 23, starts his one-year term today.
“The opening of the MUSC (the McMaster University Student Centre) is a great time of opportunity for the MSU. Students will know we exist and everyone will know where to find us.”
He thinks this will give the elected body a much more prominent and visible role, with increased contact with the general student body.
However, responsibility for sharing the costs of operating the new 158,000 sq ft facility (along with Hospitality) poses a major concern for Mackintosh and his executive.
In an agreement with McMaster University Centre Inc, the board that operates the three-storey building, the MSU is expected to pay the operating costs of its retail spaces – the convenience store, the bar/restaurant known as Quarters and the copy shop.
During 2002, the organization will pay $50,000, but Mackintosh says estimates have pegged those costs at $350,000 in ten year's time. “We will have to generate alternative means of raising revenues.”
This fall, the MSU faces another problem. Many first-year students will be 17 and 18-year-olds, under the legal drinking age. In addition to “the typical bar nights”, Mackintosh says the MSU will have to consider alternative activities to accommodate these students.
Other issues and challenges for the coming year include working with the University in the on-going battle with the provincial government for increased funding, improving teacher evaluations, increasing student-professor class ratios, increasing funding for student services, and implementing the recycling program on campus.
One new MSU initiative which Mackintosh hopes to have up and running by September is sure to be a hit with cash-strapped students. A proposed student reward program card (which operates much like an air miles card) offers card-holders an opportunity to accumulate points at a wide variety of participating local businesses. These points can in turn be redeemed at any participating location.
Mackintosh, who graduates this spring with a BA in English, has been active in student affairs since arriving at McMaster in 1998. He has served as president of the University's Humanities Society and was the Humanities undergraduate Senate representative in 2000. Most recently, he was the MSU Vice President, Education.
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