Meet Michelle Li! Michelle does not only rock an amazing pixie cut; she’s also the current VP Finance of BASiC and a member of the Queer McGill community. Calling herself “not a big party-goer,” she says she is most likely to be found in her friend’s apartment on a Saturday night. Read on to learn more about this new Game of Thrones fan!
Idil Copur for Her Campus McGill (HC McGill): Hey Michelle! Thank you so much for doing this interview with us! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Michelle Li (ML): I study Econ and Cognitive science, and I’ll start minoring in Linguistics next year, which will be my fourth minor. Fourth minor, fourth year! Lots of changes are happening academically for next year. I was born in China, but raised in Toronto. I try to go back to China every few years to see my family. My only relative here is my mom, and the rest of my family is still in China, so I try to visit them as much as I can.
HC McGill: I know that you’re very active outside of classes. You’re currently the VP Finance of Bachelor of Arts and Science Integrative Council (BASiC). What are your primary responsibilities as the VP finance?
ML: Basically making sure that we don’t lose money. I track how much money people spend and make sure that they don’t spend too much money. I also review budgets for all of the commitees, journals and the conferences that we have, since we also run the Ampersand Journal, the Ampersand Conference and the National Integrative Research Conference. I look at their budget and make sure that they are not spending too much.
HC McGill: What was something you accomplished that you were particularly proud of this year as the VP Finance?
ML: Honestly, I’m most proud of the record-keeping and maintaining a system of writing down what we have and what we spend. I’m proud that I actually did it this year because when I got into the position, there weren’t really any records or any sort of documents for me to do my job.
HC McGill: It sounds like a tough job – keeping records and making sure you don’t miss anything.
ML: It’s mostly just tedious. It’s a lot of just screen-time. I’m most proud of this one thing that will probably never actually impact anybody ever; except for future VP Finances of BASiC.
HC McGill: You are making sure that we don’t run out of money, so it definitely impacts all of us!
HC McGill: What do they mostly spend money on?
ML: All sorts of things. Our VP FYA does a lot of small scale events mostly for first years to bring them out of the McGill bubble and show them the city, but our VP Internal does larger scale events. They did two semi-formals.
HC McGill: You’re also an exec for Queer McGill. What exactly is Queer McGill?
ML: We’re actually a body of coordinators. There’s technically no executive board and no hierarchical structure. It’s like a members-at-large-sort-of-pool, and then the coordinating body does things. We get paid to make sure that Queer McGill as an organization is running and does events and organizes things. Queer McGill is a SSMU service, so we have resources and a chill space for students on the fourth floor of the SSMU building. We have a library and free safer sex supplies. We’re open from 10AM-6PM-ish, depending on staff availability, and we also run events for the queer community of McGill and the greater Montreal area. We do weekly events – fun, casual things like games nights – and we do bigger events like dance parties with DJs. We did Rad Sex Week, which was ten days of radical sexual practice programming, trying to cover the spectrum of sexuality, which was really cool. Our resource coordinators did all of it and they were phenomenal. All of our pragramming is open to anybody that can physically come. We actually had a much greater push this year to make them physically and financially accessible. Accessibility has been considered more in our events this year.
HC McGill: What does your position in Queer McGill entail?
ML: We work with the coordinating body and we do technically have formal roles, but we often step out of them and work based on who can best do a job. I do finance, which means I write all of our forms, asking SSMU to issue checks. My job is half paper-filling, half doing what anybody else needs me to do.
HC McGill: You’re also going to be the president of BASiC next year. What are some of the things you hope to accomplish during your term?
ML: We actually just had our transition meeting – all the new execs got to meet the old execs. We all bonded and talked about what we want to do next year, and I’m really excited. Its an ambitious group of people and we’ll have more events, hopefully smaller-scale and more accessible, things like coffee houses so that people can come to and not have to commit to an entire evening. I just want to make sure that people know we exist and we’re here to represent our interests.
HC McGill: With so many things you’re passionate about outside of classes, how do you manage your time?
ML: Hectically (laughs). My entire life is based on Google calendar. My boyfriend was in Germany for exchange last semester, and I got so sick of having to tell him when I was free, so I just gave him access to my Google calendar. It shows where I am at any given moment of my life.
HC McGill: If you could have a chat with your freshman-self, what would you tell her?
ML: I guess not to worry. It’ll turn out okay. Usually it turns out okay.
Photos are interviewee’s own.