SU midterm reviews: VP academic Meg Martin

By Sarelle Azuelos

Megan Martin is a tall, sophisticated Martini, definitely a little more stirred than shaken. Students’ Union vice-president academic Martin, clearly the original and always a classic, has had a lot thrown her way these past few months.

On top of trying to make sense of the academic appeals process and representing students in the upcoming learning plan that the university is putting together, Martin is polishing up projects started by predecessors.

The Online Exam Bank, a project that has plagued the position for years, is slowly growing in popularity. After promising clubs that they wouldn’t lose their largest source of income, and calming professors’ fears of exam security with a software purchase, the bank should finally open in January.

Martin’s achievements also include holding her promise to communicate more with the Board of Governors. Martin and the SU president have put together a presentation trying to save the Quality Money initiative, which will be shared shortly. Quality Money is one of the few ways that the SU gets financial support from the university to better the quality of student life.

Martin works well with other members of the SU and has effectively delegated projects. However, Martin has dropped the ball on one important project started last year. The Canadian Roundtable of Academic Materials lobbied on reducing the high cost of textbooks across Canada, yet after some key members dropped out, CRAM became effectively defunct. As a national roundtable, it isn’t Martin’s personal responsibility to keep it afloat, but expensive textbooks are a detriment to all students.

Overall, Martin has done a fantastic job at balancing her campaign promises and issues that recently arose. How she handles the faculty of arts amalgamation will be a testament to her performance as VP academic.

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