The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) held their monthly council meeting on Oct. 30.
The council began to fill the Executive Compensation Review Committee and voted in three council members to sit on the committee. However, at the recommendation of some members, council agreed to postpone the students-at-large portion of the committee until there had been more time to advertise the opportunity to students.
CUSA president Zameer Masjedee explained the purpose of the committee, saying “three students-at-large and three councillors will take a look at the overall compensation that CUSA executives receive and then they’ll compare that to other students’ unions.”
He added that the committee will then make a recommendation to council on whether salaries and overall compensation should be changed next year.
Masjedee said that while the changes will only apply to executives serving in the 2018-19 year, the committee’s conclusion must be made before CUSA drops the writ for its elections in January.
During question period, council also discussed ranked voting, a method CUSA has been hoping to introduce for the past few years.
Engineering councillor Katerina Kouloufakos noted she had been asked about this process from her constituents and was unsure of how to answer.
“How are the winners going to be selected?” she asked.
According to a previous article from The Charlatan, CUSA council initially voted to implement the new system for the 2016-17 elections; however, council later voted to hold off on the system due to a lack of testing.
Masjedee said ranked voting will be used for voting in executives in this year’s election, but it’s still unsure whether the new procedure will work for multi-seat constituency seats, as seen in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
He added that he also wants to ensure the new process will not complicate matters and deter students from voting.
Cat Kelly, vice-president (internal), recommended that students who are interested in the voting process should attend the Ranked Voting Committee meeting on Nov. 8 at 3 p.m.
Masjedee also reported that CUSA’s first town hall of the year was successful, but they hope to attract more students and change the format after student recommendations for the next town hall on Nov. 7.
Vice-president (finance) Gavin Resch announced that CUSA will be working with Shopify to make the most popular titles at Haven Books available online, with further discussion of adding a delivery system.
Photo by Graham Swaney
