Who's the boss?

The DSU's president-elect Courtney Larkin (Nick Pearce Photo)

Sitting in her office, Courtney Larkin is asked to recall her most memorable Dalhousie moment. Her answer comes without a moment’s hesitation: Orientation Week.

“I was extremely shy on my first day, and very scared,” admits the native of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. “By the second day, I had completely lost my voice from cheering. Some of my best friends now are from those few days. I got to meet a lot of people, and I remember meeting the VP Student Life at the time and thinking that would be the coolest job in the world.”

Four years later, Ms. Larkin holds down that very job with the Dalhousie Student Union, organizing activities to increase student spirit on campus. She planned last year’s James Bond-themed Orientation Week to rave reviews, and put together the most successful Charity Ball in recent Dal history, raising over $4,000 for Bide Awhile Animal Shelter in Dartmouth.

As cool as that job has been, Dalhousie students have given Ms. Larkin a promotion for next year. Last month, she was elected president of the Dalhousie Student Union and will represent all of the university’s 15,000-plus students as leader of their student government.
It’s a fitting role for a student who declared herself a Dalhousian at a far younger age than most. “I remember going on field trips to see shows or performances at the Rebecca Cohn, and thinking ‘I want to go here,’” she recalls with a laugh. “I decided that I liked Dal one day, and ever since, that’s all I wanted to do. I was probably 12. It’s the only school I applied to.”

That’s not to say that her Dalhousie experience has gone exactly as planned. She spent her first two years at Dal studying sciences, working towards a career in dentistry. But a course in entrepreneurship taught by Ed Leach inspired another path, and now she is working towards a Bachelor of Management degree that she expects to finish the year after next.

“I love my program,” she says. “The people in the classes make a lot of the difference … we do group projects all the time and it’s a lot of creative stuff, which I really enjoy.”

But it’s Ms. Larkin’s role as a student leader that defines much of her Dalhousie experience. She was the president of the Dalhousie Science Society and worked as commissioner to the DSU’s VP Student Life before taking on the role herself. This January, she decided to run for the DSU presidency. Following a hard-fought campaign – during which she still had events to plan and VP duties to attend to – she narrowly emerged the victor after three ballot counts.
“I was completely in shock for a few hours. I knew that winning was a possibility, but I honestly wasn’t sure what would happen,” she says, recalling her feelings when the final result was announced to a packed house at the Grawood campus bar.

When she settles into her new office in May, she’ll be channelling that excitement into her new responsibilities. Her goals for the next year emphasize building on the work the union is currently undertaking: continuing the “Imagine” student consultation process; advancing the interests of students through government lobbying; and developing the Halifax Student Alliance, a municipal lobby group established this year to draw attention to student safety issues. Ms. Larkin also wants to make sure the executive team voted into office alongside her can work together to achieve a variety of objectives.

Most of all, she hopes to do a better job in reaching out to students, helping them understand and appreciate the union’s role on campus.

“A lot of students have this impression of the DSU as merely a ‘government’; that they’re not part of the union if they’re not involved in its politics,” she explains. “I really want students to get more engaged with our services, events and other functions, creating awareness of what we do – and what we can do – for them.” 

LINK: Dalhousie Student Union