The Connected Carleton slate is running without a presidential candidate in the 2019 Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections and endorses the presidential candidacy of Lily Akagbosu, the current CUSA vice-president (student issues).
Akagbosu is the current vice-president (student issues) of CUSA and is running as part of the Students First slate.
Connected Carleton currently consists of Sierra Hitsman for vice-president (internal), Mehdi Bouchentouf for vice-president (finance), Kadiatu Barrie for vice-president (student issues), Yannick Hamuli for vice-president (student life), and Summer Twenish for vice-president (student services).
“When we saw that Lily was running as president, we saw that it was somebody running with experience,” Twenish added. “Lily worked at the International Students Centre two years ago, and then this year she is actually an exec, and both me and the slate think that she has a lot of great experience.”
Hitsman said having a woman for CUSA president would be “empowering.” She added that she and her team aren’t worried about how their endorsement of Akagbosu will affect their campaign.
“We definitely have gotten a lot of hassle about it—people questioning it,” Hitsman added.
While Hitsman said their team supports Akagbosu, she said there are still platform points her team doesn’t agree with on with the Students First slate.
She said students know they can vote for people individually as opposed to voting for only a single slate.
“One big thing that I stand by—and I know a lot of my friends stand by—is don’t just vote for a slate because you like one person,” she added.
“We’re all very confident in the platform points we’re putting out there,” Twenish said, “and we think that we have a very solid chance because it’s something that we believe in strongly and we think it’s something that students can relate to a lot.”
The slate’s core platform points include using an environmentally-friendly approach by campaigning online. Other platform points include community building across campus and accountability.
“Definitely look into a person’s platform points and vote for who you think would be best,” Hitsman said.
Photo by Karen-Luz Sison
