“The IEC [Independent Electoral Commission] has decided to withhold the results until next week, and will continue updating you. We apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your patience.”

That set the tone of the email that the Independent Electoral Commissioner sent out to candidates Friday morning, with many of them already convening to hear the results of the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) election.

If you were hoping to learn who the new Board of Directors would be, it seems as though you’ll have to wait until Monday at the earliest.

The email came at 10:21 a.m., which was the first any candidate had been told they’d have to wait for results. It was originally supposed to be announced at 11 a.m., and the sudden postponement had them frustrated and anxious. The only indication in the original email was: “Please recall that the IEC mentioned results would be released today, assuming there were no conflicts in doing so.”

While no official reason was given, the original email was followed by another at 4:14 p.m. noting that ballots would be reopened due to an error that accidentally closed voting 10 minutes before its deadline.

“The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will be re-opening the ballot for the Executives and At-Large Directors, and Referendum Questions as a result of a technical error that led to the ballot being closed at 11:50pm as opposed to 11:59pm last night. To ensure the fullest accessibility to the voting process, the ballot will be reopened on Monday at 12:00pm to 12:09pm. You will receive another email with the appropriate link to the ballot at 12:00pm on Monday.” [sic]

The Peak reached out to the IEC for an official statement, but had not heard back at the time of publication.

We are withholding results until next week and will continue updating you. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

— SFSS Elections (@SfssElections) March 31, 2017

“I was very shocked,” said sole presidential candidate Hangue Kim. “We were all really ready to hear the results and just getting that email was a ball drop. I understand if there is some kind of reason, some kind of conflict that does occur, but [39 minutes before] is just too soon.”

This sentiment was shared by other candidates, including Jimmy Dhesa, who was the only candidate for vice-president student services. Dhesa’s comments came before the 4:14 p.m. email.

“I think everyone is kind of anxious to know the results, especially with final studying going on,” said Dhesa. “People want to get all the election stuff out of their head and gear in for finals, and there’s a little bit of a worry that if there is some sort of re-vote or something necessary, in addition to what the candidates have already put their work into, I think they’re scared it might eat into more of their time.”

Kim, who also responded before the second email, pointed out ahead of time his hunch that the delay was due to the ballot being closed early.

“One thing that came up is potentially the time. The survey ended nine minutes before the deadline, so that might play a big factor in it. And a few complaints from students coming in over students going around with laptops, securing votes. I think there’s a potential conflict for that,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of things that go on in these elections.”

The election ending early was also a big issue for Dhesa.

“I got word from a bunch of students who said they couldn’t vote because they were trying to in between 11:50 and 11:59 and the survey said it was closed,” he said.

Dhesa said that not only is it important for students — whom he specifies are paying members and deserve the right to vote — to have the option to vote up until the last minute, he knows from personal experience how important it can be.

“I was told by last year’s IEC that my tying vote came in at 11:58, so pretty much right at the end of the vote. If the voting period had ended, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to go to a re-vote and be on the board this year,” he recalled.

Current SFSS President Larissa Chen isn’t running in this year’s election, and is only invested as a student. However, her take on this is that even though there could be a very legitimate reason, the communication of all this has not been handled as well as it could — for both telling candidates and the voting student body.

“I think the key concern that a lot of people have is, ‘So it’s postponed, but really, what’s going on?’ And in terms of that, I think that a lot of concerns and criticism come from curiosity. I think that the IEC — just like any other body — has a responsibility to update students on what’s going on and be available to answer questions, if anything,” she said. Chen made these comments before the second email was sent out.

“It truly is the responsibility of the IEC to ensure that the elections are run in a timely, fair, and efficient manner.”

Students will receive another email on Monday to vote.

Brandon Gill didn’t expect to have trouble converting his grades from his transcript after graduating from SFU in 2016. “I feel like going to SFU puts me at a disadvantage when I try to apply to these grad schools because we are so different in how we grade and how our transcripts look,” he said.

If you have never ordered an official transcript before, you may not know that SFU’s transcripts do not display a final percentage in a course, only a letter grade.

Gill explained that this can become problematic when other post-secondary schools begin to examine your transcript when applying for graduate schools, as each of these post-secondary schools use different percentage-to-grade equivalencies. “For me, I am going to be, at minimum, losing five to eight percent in every single one of my classes,” depending on which grading scale is used to convert his letter grade.

While Gill has questioned why only his letter grade could be displayed on his transcript, SFU registrar and executive director, Rummana Khan Hemani, explained that only official letter grades can be displayed on an official transcript.  

In a statement to The Peak, Hemani stated that, “while percentages may be used to determine a final grade, they are not part of the official grading system. This means that only letter grades, and not percentages, can be assigned as final grades. As such, only letter grades and their equivalent grade point values appear on the transcript.”

Gill is not the only student who has questioned why his percentages in each course cannot be displayed on his transcript. SFU student Mandie Dhesi added, “I’ll be applying to law schools within the next year and one of the issues that goes against me as an SFU student is SFU’s grading scale. When you’re applying to law schools, not just within British Columbia, but in the whole of Canada, SFU’s grading scale doesn’t convert equally.”

She also stressed that in contacting law schools across Canada, many have explained to her that they will take the “lowest percentage in that letter grade” range in order to calculate a percentage.

“It’s instances such as these where letter grades are too ambiguous. And as a student, I’m working to obtain a certain percentage in a letter grade; it should be shown,” said Dhesi.

Gill added that, because SFU’s grading scale is different from many universities across Canada, which may require a B or B+ average to apply for graduate school, not providing a percentage attached to a letter grade “creates a vagueness. If I get any letter grade, whether it’s an A or a B, it’s vague as to determine how [I] actually did.” Dhesi agreed with the statement.

Hemani also stated that “the reverse side of the official transcript explains how the SFU grading system works to prospective post-secondary institutions students may be applying to.”

The Peak contacted the University of Victoria’s law admissions officer, Janet Person, and in a statement she explained that “for the purposes of evaluating law school applicants from SFU, we take the letter grades as reported on the transcripts and convert to the 4.33 grade point system exactly the same way that SFU does.”

However, the University of British Columbia minimum admissions requirements require “a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC) in third- and fourth-year courses.” According to their website, however, it is not specified whether SFU’s B+ (80-85%) will be converted to such a range, or based on a 4.33 grade point system like SFU’s.

While students are frustrated that their work may not be adequately represented on their transcripts, Hemani also stated that “in July 2016, in consultation with the University Senate, which includes student representatives, SFU redesigned the official transcript in order to more clearly reflect a student’s academic career and achievements at SFU.”

“Some of the changes were to ensure SFU students fare well with students from other post-secondary institutions for further studies and external competitions. For example, the new transcript indicates the class average for each course a student has completed. This change was designed to partially address the concern of conversion from one scale to another and to provide more detail about a student’s academic performance,” she added.

While changes may have been made to SFU transcripts as of July 2016, Dhesi’s and Gill’s problems reflect similar concerns as students on SFU’s Reddit thread in 2014, which expressed further problems in applying to law school at UBC, “[…]in an email with a UBC Law admissions officer they said themselves that their admissions process converts SFU GPA to a percentage which is then used to calculate admissions. Their FAQ page even indicates a percentage (and not letter grades) as the thing to strive for precisely because the relation between percentage and letter grade is subjective.” [sic]

SFU student Karlie Tessmer was excited about joining SFU to study a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a certificate in Spanish. However, following her enrolment in an introductory Spanish class this semester, she soon realized her certificate would not be possible — at least for now.

“I’m in the introductory Spanish class right now. About a few weeks into the class [was] when we found out you could no longer enrol in the certificate program,” says Tessmer.

Upon discovering that Tessmer could no longer enrol in Spanish courses in upcoming semesters, she rallied more students together through social media. The Facebook page “Save the SFU Spanish Language Program” states “Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the world, and as such, it is imperative that we have the opportunity to learn the necessary skills to speak this language.” It also features a Change.org petition to save the program, which has received 80 signatures so far.

The Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU) chief steward, Derek Sahota, explained in an emailed statement to The Peak that the union “was profoundly disappointed to hear that the SFU administration has chosen to effectively close the Spanish Language Program without proper consultation or review with affected instructors and students.”

“Research has demonstrated the critical importance of language in increasing critical thinking skills, increasing adaptability and delaying the effects of aging. Providing students with opportunities to further language skills results in those benefits and also meets SFU’s mission of engaging the world. While the SFU administration has given us excuses on that there are new research priorities, we hope the SFU administration will recommit itself to language training, including Spanish, as a critical component of a university education,” Sahota added.

The Peak reached out to SFU vice-president academic and provost Peter Keller to find out the reasoning behind the suspension of the Spanish program. In a statement, Keller explained that the program suspension was approved on January 9, 2017 by the Senate, where “this program, like other language programs offered by or through the Language Training Institute, is under review for curriculum coherence, student demand, and the sustainability of allocation of instructional resources in light of low and declining enrollments. The program has not been terminated.”

“I have spoken to some students who are in upper-level course[s] who have now stopped taking upper-level courses because they have limited when they are available.” – Karlie Tessmer, SFU Student

While students currently enrolled in the certificate may be worried about not being able to complete the program, Keller added, “The review seeks to ensure access to language programs and models of delivery that have a broad appeal to our students. Existing students registered to take the Spanish Language Certificate are guaranteed completion, and the 100-level Spanish classes are continuing for general enrollment.”

Indeed, SFU student Claire Christie described to The Peak that she would have not been able to go on exchange to the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: “You must have a B2 Spanish level and can prove you have completed four semesters of Spanish at your home university. It is not necessary to have completed the certificate for exchange purposes, [but] without those courses, I would not have passed the language requirement for exchange.”

She further stressed the importance of having some Spanish knowledge for others who may attend exchanges in other Spanish-speaking countries. “Other universities, such as a few in Mexico, do have courses [that are] taught in English, so there is no language requirement. However, I have talked to students who would not have felt comfortable going to Mexico had they not had the opportunity to learn some Spanish in advance.”

While it is clear that the program has not been terminated, both Tessmer and Christie have observed the slowing down of the university’s commitment to the program. Tessmer explained her feeling in regards to enrolling in upper-division Spanish courses. “I have spoken to some students who are in upper-level course[s] who have now stopped taking upper-level courses because they have limited when they are available. [They did this] to, in my mind’s eye, limit the amount of enrollment,” she said.

“It is very clear that during the past couple of years they made the program so inaccessible to force the numbers down, so it would appear that the program had less interest than it does because they do not want to keep putting money into it,” said Tessmer.

However, Keller assures that “the faculty of arts and social sciences remains fully committed to language instruction as a key part of an undergraduate education at SFU. The faculty offers courses in many languages including French, Mandarin, Japanese, Punjabi, Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Greek, German, Italian, and Latin, as well as Spanish.” Still, Tessmer is disappointed that she cannot continue with further Spanish courses after taking the intro course this semester.

She added, “I’m a mature student, and coming back to school for me, I chose SFU for a couple of different reasons. One of them is because of the opportunities that they have for traveling and doing study abroad, and the other one is the fact that they have the Spanish certificate.”

With the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) general election on seemingly one of their tightest schedules in years, the debates came and went on March 16 and 17— and if the attendance is any indication, not many people knew about or prioritized it.

The amount of students who weren’t associated with a candidate, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), or the media never cracked more than 25. That’s about one-thousandth of the undergraduate student body who are eligible to vote in the upcoming election.

There were only two debates this year, as opposed to the usual three. The reason that the debate on Vancouver campus wasn’t conducted was based off a review of the past IEC Vanna Lodders, who said the cost of the debate wasn’t worth it for the campus with the consistently lowest turnout rate.

The debates took place on back-to-back days for the first time in recent memory, as in the past they have occurred in separate weeks. The final debate wrapped up 10 days before voting is set to open.

With several of the positions — including five of the six executive positions — running unopposed, there was limited debating. Instead, a lot of it felt like a Q&A period, which hopefully informed voters to the choices they’ll be making soon. The majority of those questions came straight from the IEC, as without a large audience there weren’t many questions the candidates had to field from the crowd.

HIGHLIGHTS

The biggest debate with the at-large representatives was over the Highland Pub, as candidate Robert Hanson is running primarily on the platform of saving the pub. While this isn’t traditionally the role of the at-large representative, it became the biggest issue the at-large candidates who did show up the debate had to face.

Education representative Jamie Zhu — who is running unopposed for the spot on the Board of Directors — did not show up to either debate.

Speaking of attendance, only two of the nine non-executive positions had all their candidates  show up to both debates. Those two were business representative (with candidates Gini Kuo and Braeden Peterson) and health sciences representative (with candidates Natalia Gretskaia and Aarushi Sharma).

The only executive position that did not have all candidates show up to both debates was vice-president (VP) finance, as candidate Tawanda Masawi missed the Burnaby debate. Both of his opponents — Baljinder Bains and Archit Bansal — and every other executive candidate made an appearance.

Alam Khehra, — candidate for VP student life — when asked about making sure all SFSS events would be physically accessible, said that the pub had an elevator. He then shifted to accessibility needs for Surrey and Vancouver students getting to Burnaby instead of addressing the questions asked over Twitter about the physically disabled.

Once again, there were questions about SFSS Chief Executive Officer Martin Wyant and the rest of the SFSS staff, including questioning about having a yearly governance audit. Presidential candidate Hangue Kim said an external auditor of the SFSS has just been hired, and they are still waiting for results.

For more in-depth coverage of the debates, please check twitter.com/peaksfu. A reminder that voting is open to students from March 27–30, and the results will be announced March 31.

There has been a recent spike in occurrences where students are being approached on campus and asked to donate money to different charitable causes.

On the SFU2016 Facebook page, which is dedicated to helping first-year students to connect with one another, there have been multiple posts where students describe being approached and asked to donate, and when students politely decline or provide any kind of reasoning, those that are soliciting the donations continue to push the issue. Sometimes this results in harsh words being exchanged.

Victoria Lee is one of the many students who have reported being asked for donations. In a statement to The Peak, Lee says that she was at the SFU Surrey campus with her friend on their way to the library when she was stopped by a man, described as a small Filipino man in his mid-20s, who was asking for donations for his charity. Despite politely declining, the man became angry, calling her friend (who is also Filipino) “white washed and unwilling to help [his] kind” and calling Lee “spoiled and ungrateful.”

Frank Wu, another student, witnessed such an incident when he saw a student withdrawing money from an ATM to satisfy the solicitor’s request. Having been approached by these solicitors before and after hearing about how they could be potential fraudsters, Wu decided to inform the student of this.

“The lady [. . .] was quite displeased with my interaction with the student and attempted to hit me with her scarf,” Wu said in a statement to The Peak. After calling campus security and informing them of the lady’s location, it took 10 minutes until security did show up. “I was upset that the school did not seem […] to prevent situations like this from happening [. . .] I hope [SFU] will continue to put in more effort to protect the students from being victims of fraudulent activities.”

Steven MacLean, senior director of campus safety and security services, told The Peak that “SFU campus security is aware of reports of people soliciting students for donations, at times aggressively so,” and that “[t]his type of solicitation at any SFU campus is not authorized.”

Despite the fact that only a few formal complaints have been received and the fact that campus security officers have not yet physically encountered the people who are engaging in this activity, MacLean maintains that campus security “is taking proactive measures by heightening [their] profile in high-volume areas, particularly during meal hours and between classes.”

As mentioned in numerous posts via social media, SFU Student Central further emphasized the need for students to contact campus security at 778-782-3100 if they are approached by these people. Then they can provide campus security personnel with details of the incident as well as a description of the person(s) that are soliciting for donations. At the same time, students are reminded to remain vigilant of their surroundings as well as aware that this is not permitted on campus grounds.

SFU university communications was contacted with a request for statement, but The Peak received no comment by publication time.

A collaboration between a student club, ArtNet, and the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) led to a student-initiated art expo called Becoming. It was hosted on the cloudy evening of the March 21 at the Diamond Alumni Centre at the Burnaby campus. Becoming was an open invitation event aimed at encouraging student engagement in various forms of art.

The event served food and had a cash bar for all attendees, which cozied the event’s atmosphere. With more than 10 art pieces spread across the room, students gathered around, sharing food and thoughts about all the pieces.

ArtNet’s vision — “To engage the SFU community and to create an art community that will inspire, educate and excite art enthusiasts” — echoed at the event as the artists and observers conversed. One of the artists, Rajdeep K. Grewal, expressed, “I did a poetry piece and I think it’s still raw, but I’m so excited that they chose to include it in the expo.” Grewal contributed a poem called “Post-Graduation Blob” under the literary art category. “The poem is a rendition and a compilation of my experiences, achievements and anxieties through my undergrad,” (s)he stated. Grewal recently graduated as a psychology major and stated that ArtNet genuinely fostered student creativity.

Becoming consisted of visual art, digital art, literary art, and art installations which was assembled on the day of — a multidisciplinary effort. The collaborators from SFSS’s Board of Directors, namely president Larissa Chen and at-large representative Mudi Bwakura, took active interest in the proceedings of the event as well as its organization. Chen explained why working with ArtNet on this event was one of a kind: “It’s about highlighting and empowering students groups to host events and projects by themselves, rather than [the] SFSS organizing campus activities; grassroots approach and internal initiatives are always better.”

Adding to Chen, Bwakura explained how Becoming came into being. “The beauty of this event is that the organizer pitched the idea of an art expo to [the] SFSS, and we ensured that it was plausible financially — realistic in regards to the scope and expectation of the event. Most importantly, we made sure that we delivered an event that stayed true to its concept as well as SFSS’s mandate.”

He elaborated, “The Society is slowly steering towards such collaborative, proactive engagement with students where we can meet mid-way. However, there is always more response when the Society makes an effort as well; my email flooded with art submissions for today’s event.” Chen stressed, “When students reach out to us, we will do everything in our ability to support everyone.”  

ArtNet’s founder, Theo Lekan, is one of the main driving forces behind the vision and the student who reached out to SFSS about Becoming. When asked about the purpose of the art expo, Lekan said, “There wasn’t life at Burnaby in terms of art. I feel art adds more life to an environment and we wanted to foster an art community through ArtNet.”

ArtNet has organized other events such as Life Figure Joy, where students practiced drawing and sketching. Next semester, a printmaking workshop is underway, but Lekan stressed the importance of the art expo. “It emphasizes how students from different backgrounds and degrees could exist in one room and contribute to art,” he said. Contributors included a math student, a chemistry student, an athlete, and several other non-arts-related students.

A first-year IAT student, Aritra Mukhopadhyay, painted an art piece called “We are One” specifically for the expo overnight. He detailed how Becoming reminded him to embrace the artist within him, “I want SFSS and ArtNet to host more events of this nature so that I could get a platform to showcase my work constantly.” Mukhopadhyay’s work was a visual art piece of a Buddha wrapped in a leaf symbolic of enlightenment and as Buddha becoming one with the nature.

Lekan explained that such professional spaces boost a student’s confidence in pursuing their inner artist. Becoming centred on a perfect balance of student-based and student-led event that strengthens the SFU community and everyone open to it.