Student Rep Candidate Interviews: Vlad Bobrovnyk

Vlad Bobrovnyk

Interviewed by Marion Lefèvre

What motivated you to run for the student rep position?

I decided running mostly because I enjoy helping people. That’s my thing. I’m not bragging or maybe that’s not the right word to describe it, but helping people is one of the things I enjoy doing. I have the time to be Student Rep and feel like I could do a good job. It remains up to the student body, of course, and whether they think I can do a good job. If they don’t think so, I won’t be elected, and that wouldn’t necessarily make me mad. Obviously, it’s their choice. I want to further the community and make the experience better for everybody. I have some ideas that I feel could totally do that, and I’d like to see them implemented.

Do you have any previous experience, relevant to the Student Rep position… Or not, as you prefer, that you would like to share with us?

Kind of. I basically worked in Human Ressources for 6 years. I would be the medium between the employees and the management, which I basically think you can equate to the administration and the students. That would be a good source of experience. I’m good at mediating between people. Also at my school, I helped out administratively with lots of the clubs, so I know how the administration is run and understand that there are some things they just cannot do. Obviously, if we wanted like a new building… We can lobby for it, but the administration can only do so much. That’s why I kept all of my campaign goals at things that can be done. One of the more difficult ones would probably be my first goal. It’s not arranged in order of priority but it would be to extend library hours, because I feel a lot of students are in need of that. Other things we can do as Student Reps, but that would be difficult because we have to coordinate with the administration on who would be taking care of the library, if they would be paid or not, when… That kind of stuff we can’t do ourselves: the administration has to agree.

What challenges are you expecting to overcome as a student rep?

I think that the biggest challenge that we have to overcome is dealing with an administration that might not necessarily want to do certain things, like my third goal, which is arranging kind of an assembly between the administration and the entire 1A body of students. Obviously not everyone would want to come out, but whoever would want to come out and voice their opinion. If not, there would be an anonymous link submitted earlier so that we can voice their opinion on their behalf. It would be basically for students to be able to observe the process. Maybe the administration does not straight up want to do it, but it would obviously take a lot of time. IT would not be that often, like a weekly thing, but I think it would be definitely productive to have it at least once every two months so that students themselves can engage in the process.

What do you think about the Student Rep campaigning process?

A lot of people have been taking it extremely seriously. I’ve been talking to a lot of people and sure, it makes sense to be talking about your campaign ideas, but you should not be posting about it every single hour, which is what I’ve tried to avoid. I’ve kept it mostly light because we are campaigning for Student Rep, we are not campaigning to become President of the USA. I’ve tried to keep it funny. I still have ideas obviously, I’m not campaigning as a joke. I still feel like a lot of people have been taking it… Maybe a bit too seriously.

What is unique about your platform?

My platform id mainly extended library hours, which I haven’t really noticed anyone else’s platform including, mostly because I think that they potentially don’t want to deal with administration in extending library hours.

It was an issue last year, which I ‘m pretty sure in the library hours being extended at least by a bit. Obviously, people are making use of it. This year during the exams, everyone was in the library until 10pm and everyone left at once. My thought is that since so many people leave literally when the library is closing, obvisouly they’d make use of the increased time. For instance I go home and eat dinner and then go back to the library. Then I come to the library and it’s open for an hour ir maybe 30 more minutes, so I don’t really get much time to study.

In three words, what is the role of a Student Rep?

Mediate with administration.

Miscellaneous question: what are you the proudest of in your hometown?

I’m from Victoria, and… I’m proud of the fact that everyone’s nice. Literally, you go to Victoria and it is the nicest city you’ll ever go to. Maybe not necessarily looks-wise but every person you’ll meet is extremely nice. If you ask someone for directions, they’ll definitely give you directions and won’t ignore you or walk away. Obviously every city has exceptions: we have the occasional criminal, but overall, in my city, everyone’s extremely nice. I hope that people see me in the same light.