VP Academic, Iqbal Kassam
Iqbal Kassam is a 3rd year student, born and raised in Vancouver, currently studying Political Science. Things he enjoys include hockey, beach volleyball, classic films, and the occasional pit night.
He is an accomplished debater with ambitions for federal politics. Currently, he manages a real-estate portfolio that is primarily made up of student housing. He hopes to bring some of this experience to the table for the 2012 AMS elections, and do his part to bring affordability and sustainability to the on-campus housing program. The two issues he hopes to address during the 2012/2013 AMS elections are the affordability of living as a UBC student, and the quality of the academic curriculum. Recognizing that UBC student life is the second-least affordable out of all Canadian universities, he hopes to implement several plans, designed to bring down the costs of being a student across the board, all the way from health-care, to a greater and cheaper supply of student housing. In order to improve the academic curriculum, Iqbal hopes to create and spearhead the first UBC student-consultation on the academic curriculum, through which students would be able to express an interest in the courses they wish to see offered in future semesters.
VP Academic and University Affairs: Iqbal Kassam
1. How will you promote a balance between UBC’s plans for campus development (Gage South, etc) and the demand for student housing?
At this point, I do not believe that “balance” is what students need. Students need a VP Academic that will lobby for every single extra non-market bed that UBC can be pressured into creating. I believe that the key to creating enough demand for student housing in order for UBC to be able to make it affordable for all students lies in increasing popularity and viability of the summer semester; if more students are interested in taking courses in the summer, less beds will be empty for one-third of the school year, which would translate into more revenue for the SHHS [Student Housing and Hospitality Services]. This, in turn, should allow UBC to bring housing costs down, so students are not paying above-market value prices to live on campus.
http://ubyssey.ca/ams/vp-academic-and-university-affairs-iqbal-kassam77/
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