As you might know this spring we have elections for all of the Executive positions in the Society! This includes President, VP Education, VP Internal, VP External, and VP Finance. Leading up to the nomination period each week one of the current Exec will be posting a blog post detailing what each of our positions actually does, what an average day is like, where we see the portfolio going, and why we love our jobs. Watch out for all our posts and get in touch if you want more information!
The Role of VP Education
The VP Education is a little bit of a different position compared to the other VPs. The primary responsibility of the position is to represent students on academic issues across the faculty and university. This can range from co-op, to work term reports, to course scheduling and more. Additionally, the VP Education is responsible for communicating with Academic Reps in each class, the facilitation of the Course Critique process with the faculty, debt load surveys, and organizing a bi-annual Career Fair.
The VP Education sits on a lot of committees throughout the university, faculty and Feds. These involve everything from approving curriculum changes for programs at the faculty and university level, to finding new ways to improve co-op, to WatPD improvements. Additionally, the VP Education chairs the EngSoc Teaching Excellence Award Committee each term to celebrate excellence in teaching within the Engineering Faculty.
An average day for the VP Education usually involves representing students at various monthly meetings and/or meeting with students to get feedback on academic issues. Week to week, the VP Education works with Academic Reps, Associate Deans, CECA and others to ensure students have a voice when it comes to decisions being made about their education.
With a new program (Biomedical Engineering) and large changes coming down the pipeline (ELPE replacement, Fall Reading Break, Work term report replacement), the portfolio of the VP Education is becoming more and more important. A lot of what the position does is behind the scenes and gets solved in meetings. This means you usually won’t hear from the VP Education unless there is an issue that directly affects your program.
After being VP Education for a year now, I can say that I’ve really enjoyed and been proud to represent engineering students. In this position you are the voice (figuratively and literally at times) that can make everyone’s time at Waterloo better and it’s a ton of fun. The position is not for everyone, especially because a lot of the meetings can occur during class time, but at the same time, if you want to make a difference with your time here, I can’t recommend it enough. You’ll learn how to be firm, but at the same time, be respectful when dealing with university faculty. At the same time, you’ll have a great opportunity to network with professors and staff within the school.
I can ramble on more, but that’s enough for now. If you are interested in running for VP Education or any of the other positions, you should take a look at Leila’s past blog posts for more information. Also, as always, feel free to send me an email or stop by the orifice to chat at any time.
Why You should consider running for Executive
Guide to running in the Spring 2015 elections
Previous Executive Spotlights
President
Thanks!
Josh Kalpin
VP Education Engineering Society ‘A
vpeducation.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca