Name: Michael Broadfield
Faculty: Arts
Major: Philosophy
Year: 4th


What has been your greatest accomplishment at Saint Mary's?

The friendships and relationships I have made in the past 3 Frosh Weeks as a
leader and most recently a facilitator. I now know that although I came to
SMU to educate myself, it has only been through the friends I've made at SMU
that I have become a better person.

Describe a situation where you showed leadership.

Once again it comes back to frosh week. As a facilitator last year many
situations arose where I had to take control and maintain leadership. As
most frosh frosh leaders and facilitators know, even the best planned out
frosh week is crazy and chaotic, and the frosh coordinator is not always
around to take charge of every situation, so the facilitators often need to
step up and work with the frosh leaders to ensure everything runs properly
through the week. (A close second would be the time I took over navigating
when my friends got lost driving to Boston on a road trip I went on last
October.)

What previous experience qualifies you for this position?

As a 4th year student I've experienced many different academic situations -
both good and bad - that would benefit me as VP Academic. I've also been a
member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and in the duration of my membership I
have been the secretary, recruitment chair, and the current Vice President.
Through those experiences I have learned how to be responsible, create and
follow a schedule, delegate tasks and duties to the other members, follow
rules and guidelines, organize and participate in volunteer and social
events, maintain a role of leadership and act as a role model.

Why are you the best candidate for the job?

Just like every candidate running for each position in this campaign, I
bring energy, motivation and enthusiasm to this election. Regarding the
position I am campaigning for: I want to focus not only on the traditional
issues that I have seen each VP Academic contend with each year (ex. improve
study environment, ensure academic fairness from the professors for
exams/marks/grading, make students aware of their academic rights and
options, etc.) but I would also like to focus on cultivating a more academic
environment outside of the class room. This concept has been a focus from
the present and past VP Academics, but I would like to put a renewed
emphasis on that aspect of this position, while also improving the essential
academic problems Saint Mary's students face.

What is the most pressing problem/situation at SMU that you intend
to
solve/improve?

Ensuring academic fairness in the class room. The main and foremost reason
each student is at SMU is to attend classes. Everything else beyond that is
not as important as our classes. The main focus of my position is to
maintain the most ideal academic environment for each Saint Mary's student
in their lectures.

List up to five main campaign goals:

1. Work with the Academic Senate and student body as a whole to provide the
most academically fair classes. This would focus on reviewing and improving
exam scheduling, exam marking, and grading for the class.

2. Improve online resources for SMU students (Online Professor Review,
Online Book Exchange, Online Tutor Database) by making students more aware
of them.

3. Make students more aware of the academic options and rights that they
have available to them.

4. Constantly strive to improve study conditions on Saint Mary's campus.

5. Take advantage of the culturally and academically diverse environment
that exists in Saint Mary's to create more academic events. More debates,
discussions, forums. I would like to work with the VP Internal and the
executives from each society to have each society run one academic event
relating to their society within next academic year. I would ideally like to
create an academic environment that promotes learning outside the class
room, and always has an event occuring that each Saint Mary's student wants
to attend.