The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) held its spring student elections from Monday, April 3 to Wednesday, April 5.
There was a slight increase in the number of voters this time around, with a total of 844 votes, compared to 740 in the fall elections. CCSS external executive Jessie Niikoi says that the CCSS is happy with the results from the elections, and is looking forward to welcoming the new board.
“I think this year we’re very excited because we have a very diverse board,” says Niikoi. “And it’s been a very competitive election time, because people could see posters everywhere, as opposed to last year. Like this year, there were a lot of people who had posters everywhere, and there were a lot more people wanting to get involved with the board.”
Jagjeet Singh was voted in as external executive (Niikoi did not run for re-election), Arshita Giri as Lansdowne executive, Emily Lam as pride director, and Tran Thanh Phuong (Polly) as sustainability director.
Tho Man Duong (Annie) was voted in as finance executive, Maria Clara Guimaraes Cordeiro as international director, Correina McNeice as Interurban executive, Prince Solanki as student wellness and access director, and Sarah Fraser as women’s director.
Niikoi is happy to see some familiar faces on the board after the elections, as she knows her colleagues have a strong desire to help students, but she’s also excited to meet and include new members of the board as well.
“Some of the people who are running were people who are currently on the board and wanted to provide more for students,” says Niikoi. “But I am very excited to have new students around as well, because, like I said, we have a very diverse group this year. And I’m very excited to work with the ones who are in now. I’ve met some of them and we’re having our orientation for them soon, so, I will meet the rest of them, but so far, it’s been looking great.”
The ballot included a referendum question asking students if they were in favour of increasing the Student Refugee fee to $1.25 per month from $0.50 a month, to cover accommodation, food, health services, and other supports for one refugee per year to come to Canada and study at Camosun. The referendum passed, with 51 percent of students voting yes and 49 percent voting no. Niikoi says the CCSS is happy with the referendum passing, as it hoped it would.
“We decided to ask for students to just have a fee increase so we can provide for refugees, and also just cover the cost of staff doing so much work as well,” she says. “It was a very close call but we are grateful that students are also wanting to provide for refugees, because they do make up a part of our community. And Canada’s been very receptive of refugees and immigrants and we want to keep that going.”
The student society plans to further communication with students using posters, email, and speaking with them directly and encouraging them to vote in upcoming elections. (See camosunstudent.org for more info.)
“I think we’re still likely going to continue working on engagement with students,” says Niikoi. “If there’s anything I believe we will be doing is just updating our lists to make sure that we have students who are currently in school on there so that those who are still in school would get the emails and get all the notifications about voting, and also just reaching out talking to students one on one. That’s one of the reasons why we have our clubs days, so that we could get more students around the table and then even as they’re sitting in, like just de-stressing by playing games, we’ll have communication with them and just talk about things that we are also planning to do for them.”