Dear Fellow Political Science Students of Concordia, My name is Gemma Acco and I would be honoured to represent you as the President of the PSSA (Political Science Student Association). My goal is to have a more informed and engaged student body. All my plans outlined below seem like a lot of work… HOWEVER I am a determined individual with great passion for these improvements. I truly believe that students need to feel like they are a part of a community, not simply go to classes and go home. I would like to see more participation and this is how I think we can achieve my goal. Students need to be made aware of this great resource and tool at their disposal. The purpose of the PSSA is to empower their students so they can become successful individuals in their personal and professional lives. I would love to see the PSSA work for its many Political Science students! I saw a huge difference from my first year to my second year with regards to the PSSA. Perhaps my first year was due to my fear to go up to the 12th floor and present myself… perhaps it was due to the lack of information provided to me… BUT my second year saw many events, social and academic, and more engaging team that I got to know and was inspired by. Based on my personal experience, while also taking the suggestions of my peers, I came up with the following points in order to maximize the capacity of the PSSA. Lastly, I would like to pick up on the great groundwork they established and liftoff with a few projects of my own! My experience: • In CEGEP, at O’Sullivan College of Montreal, I was the President of my class for the whole 3 year program, relaying messages to my peers and assisting in many volunteering opportunities such as Open House (promoting my school to prospective students), Spaghetti pour Haiti, Canadian Breast Cancer Fundraisers, etc. • Delegate of the PSSA Model United Nations team that competed at the Queen’s University Model United Nations 2014. I represented the delegation of Togo on the Security Council and won “Best Dressed Female Delegate Award” out of 100+ participants • Student-at-Large on the Appointments Committee of CSU 2013-2014. My responsibilities included interviewing candidates, improving the functioning of the Appointments Committee, taking minutes of meetings, etc. • Volunteer at numerous events such as CSU Speaker Series with Gael Garcia Bernal, Conference for Urban Biodiversity, etc. My platform: • Maintain and improve the relationship with the Political Science department, Political Science Graduate students o Ensure that the professors know us by first name and promote our association in the first 2 weeks of school (with the Ambassadors visiting the classrooms) o Work with the Graduate students to hold more academic AND social events • Improve the current Ambassador Program: o Prepare a concise handbook for the Ambassador Program to make sure they know all their responsibilities and establish the guidelines that the Executives wish to convey to Political Science students. This will ensure that the fundamental message will remain the same and no basic information will be forgotten. o Having the current Ambassadors and Executives (with shift-rotations) visit every class (from 200-level to 400-level) for the first 2 weeks of school. This will ensure that we reach out to every single student. o In these visits, the Ambassadors are mandated to collect the contact information of 1-2 students per classroom. These will become the Classroom Representative(s) of the PSSA. o The task of the newly created Classroom Representative (CR) is two-fold: 1) vocally relay the information from the PSSA Newsletter in the class they are responsible for; 2) Present themselves to the PSSA General Assembly o Work with the professors to ensure that the CR did indeed fulfill their task by asking them 1) Do you know who your CR is? 2) Did you feel that the CR had a weekly or minimally bi-monthly presence in the classroom? • If the answers to these 2 questions are affirmative then the CR will be able to add this task to their transcript as a volunteer academic position. • Should they not show up to the G.A. then they will automatically default on this possibility • Open the PSSA for more student input by: o The Ambassador V.2,0 Program mentioned above o The Classroom Representative Program o Suggestions box and email o Enforcing the office hours of the PSSA Executives o Emphasis on the committees such as the Social Committee • Establish more cross or multi-disciplinary events: o Networking events with other departments o Debates with other departments • Most importantly: 2 job fairs – one in the fall semester and one in the winter semester o This will ensure that students know that they can do with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science • Career opportunities, students will know what the future holds for them in terms of jobs • Graduate degrees, students will know what graduate programs are available and the requirements to enter into such programs • Establish a working group on the question of accreditation of the PSSA. This topic warrants more attention and investigation into the process itself. o As the students have the final say on this process, I would like to have a document/flow-cart for them to see the pros and cons of accreditation so they can make the most informed decision If you have any other questions, please contact me, I would love to answer you!
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 16:57:27 +0000
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