Andrea Goddard

ASR: What kind of experience do you have that qualifies you for the position you’re running for?

Goddard: I have experience working with several different offices in the university. I started getting involved by working as an orientation student advisor and volunteering for Discovering Days. Recently I’ve started to work more with academic offices; I am currently a coordinator in the AS Personal Office and through that I started getting involved in more academic committees and started working closely with the board. I’ve worked with the student academic grievance board, the academic honesty board and the university’s judicial appeals board.

ASR: What are your three biggest goals for next year?

Goddard: One, a lot of students get involved in the university through clubs or offices but I feel like the academic side is kind of disconnected from students. I want to work to bridge that gap between the student body and the administration because they have a lot of power over academic policy that will affect every one of us. I would like to increase student involvement in university committees, I want to represent students, but I also want to give students themselves a chance to get involved on the academic side.

Also, I want to collaborate with the VP for Legislature and Governmental Affairs because they deal with a lot of the academic based funding.

The third thing I want to do is to simply serve as an active board member and really represent the student experience as much as I can.

ASR: What are some board decisions made this year that you either support or disagree with?

Goddard: Working with the board I have really supported a lot of things they have done. I think that the current board has done a really good job following up with the new bus pass change. This year they have pushed to increase bus availability when usage jumped so much. I appreciated there work in that as a employee of the AS and as a student.

ASR: What past or present political leader do you identify with?

Goddard: There are so many political leaders that have really stood up and shone even in the face of problems in the country. Any political leader that has been able to handle themselves with dignity and grace in the face of anything is someone I admire.

ASR: What platform will you be running on?

Goddard: Aside from my three goals, the biggest issue for me is making academic affairs student-orientated and student-involved rather then such separation between students and administration. Because they have such a sway in academic affairs from GURs to graduation rates, they have influence in so many things that I think it needs to become more connected to the student body rather then two separate, opposing groups. We are here for a common goal.

ASR: How would you work to expend on the diversity policy at Western?

Goddard: If I was elected I believe it would be very influential to work with whoever is elected VP of Diversity to look at changes in academic policy that could be made to facilitate diversity in the university.

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