Students witnessed another solo election forum on Wednesday– this time for VP Events. Unlike the Presidential Forum on Monday, however, this forum’s truant candidate chose to boycott the event.
High noon was the scheduled draw-time between the two candidates running for the position of VP Events, Alix d’Archangelo and Kyle Woolgar. Similar to Monday, the Events Forum was delayed until it was clear that Woolgar was not just late, but absent. d’Archangelo was left alone on stage to face current VP Events Jared Lorenz’s questions.
"I’m a power-hungry bitch," joked d’Archangelo on why she wanted the position. d’Archangelo was asked a series of questions about the VP Events position, all of which she answered reasonably well. Student reaction was favourable.
"Yeah, I would vote for her," said First-year General Studies student Heather McLeod. "She seems to know her stuV, but I think I’d have to hear somebody else."
Woolgar, although absent for almost the entire forum, sent two supporters to the forum to hold his posters up to the crowd. When asked where Woolgar was, one supporter agreed to "go get him."
Woolgar explained that the forum, with its knowledge-based questions, was biased toward incumbents. Since Woolgar is completely new to the SU, and d’Archangelo currently serves as an Events Commissioner, he claimed the forum was geared toward her.
"I just feel that the event was not going to obtain what I wanted it to do, which was to present my capabilities as a potential VP Events," said Woolgar, just as the forum came to a close. "I feel what it is doing is testing her knowledge as a present commissioner, what experience she has, what she knows about, what she’s done, and not what her capabilities and future abilities of being VP events is."
Woolgar had his own ideas for a forum.
"Better questions geared towards what experience I have, things I would like to implement and so forth," Woolgar said. "Not ‘how many people does MacHall ballroom fit?’"
Lorenz’s reaction to the forum was mixed.
"I thought it was fine," said Lorenz. "It’s too bad that Woolgar couldn’t come out. He came to me beforehand and said he didn’t like the way the forum was set up. The forum definitely has certain questions that might not necessarily be indicative of a person’s ability to do the job, but they are all pertinent, in terms of the skills and knowledge required to do the job. That’s his decision to not show up, I suppose."
Perhaps because the forum did not feature both candidates, not many students paid attention.
"We’re thinking that perhaps this isn’t the best location for the forum anymore, since a lot of the people aren’t necessarily paying as much attention as we would like," said Lorenz about the current food court location. "Maybe next year, they’ll move them back to the North Courtyard."