ESS Candidates for President – 2021

About Jessica:

Hi everyone, my name is Jessica Hubbs. I am excited to be running for ESS President. I am in second year civil engineering and row with the Vikes Women’s Rowing team. I have been on the ESS council for two years. In my first year, I was the ESS First Year Representative and enjoyed involving my peers in events such as a movie night and Program Declaration Panel. During this past year, I was the ESS VP Internal and worked on initiatives such as establishing the ESS Student of the Week via social media, creating an online tutoring portal, bringing the student point of view about online learning to faculty meetings, and hosting this year’s Declaration Panel.

About Abdul:

Hello, I am Abdul Abuelazm, a third-year electrical engineering student and the VP External of the ESS. I am running to be your next ESS President. Over the past two years, I have been an active member of the engineering community, working directly with the Engineering and Computer Science faculty, EGBC, Industry, and Regional and National partners, but most of all, I have been working with the ESS to provide engineering students with the best university experience they could have. With this experience, I hope to continue serving students’ needs and provide a wholesome community in the post-covid UVic.

Platform:

During my time at UVic, the ESS has done an amazing job at creating opportunities for students to get involved in their engineering community. Our reach and impact into the UVic Engineering community in more recent years has been quite limited. If elected, I will build upon the momentum of past ESS councils, and continue working to create the UVic Engineering culture. Some of my more specific goals include:

• Building our on campus and social media presence: forming a bigger UVic engineering community through on campus events and outreach, more active ESS social media platforms, continuing the student of the week, and the making the engineering jackets more accessible.
• Engaging engineering community participation from day one: building our community from the bottom up, involving more first years and establishing an ESS First Year Orientation, and starting community outreach to local high schools to build excitement about UVic Engineering, and women in engineering.
• Having fun: helping students succeed in their academic and social lives by continuing our great events, charity fundraisers, and supports, hearing from engineering students about what you want to see from the ESS and the Faculty. In addition, taking on fun student led projects, like building and developing our own ESS/engineering student space on campus.

I have had a great two years helping engineering students and the engineering program by working with the ESS, and I am excited to be able to continue, implement my ideas, and make it a fun year back on campus if elected as ESS President.

Platform:

My focus over the next year will be around one specific idea: Transition. With UVic planning for a full return in the Fall semester, the ESS needs to look forward and begin working towards a post-covid university experience. My first promise is that, when I am elected, the ESS will release a survey to all engineering students to identify what the ESS’s top priorities should be in the next five years. With those priorities in mind, we will write a strategic plan detailing how we plan on achieving these priorities in addition to action items that you should expect from the ESS over the course of your degree.

My second promise is that the ESS will focus on helping the incoming first and second years transition to in-person courses and welcome them properly into UVic engineering. In September, two full years of students are coming to campus for the first time and it is the ESS’s responsibility to provide them with the orientation they deserve. In my role as VP External, I partnered with the University of Manitoba Engineering Society in hopes of bringing first-year orientation back to our community.

Finally, my third promise is to help clubs transition back to in-person by the end of my term. I plan to provide clubs with extra support as well as leverage the ESS’s resources to provide extra design space to our teams. Furthermore, I would leverage my connections with EGBC to provide strategic sponsorship opportunities to our clubs