The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) council elected three new vice-presidents for the 2024/25 academic year at the second part of its annual members meeting (AMM) on March 10.
Prior to voting, candidates for each position participated in a question and answer session. Chief returning officer Connor Plante kicked off the session by asking general introductory questions to all candidates. He then invited current and incoming councillors and executives to participate by posing their own questions. Council elected the vice-president (internal), vice-president (student issues) and vice-president (student life) by secret ballot.
Vice-president (internal)
Rohacek said one of his priorities is to increase engagement within the council.
“A lot of councillors don’t come to meetings, and those that do are often not very engaged in debate or in the operations of council,” Rohacek said. “The role of the [vice-president internal] is to make sure that [councillors dreams and goals] are accomplished. I think that’s how we get more engagement, when councillors feel like they can actually make a change and that their ideas are being pushed forward.”
Vice-president (student issues)
Estrela da Silva is the current associate vice-president (research and advocacy) at CUSA. He said one of his priorities is a CUSA “think tank” and a timeline for CUSA’s advocacy roadmap.
Estrela da Silva said the think tank will be a way to “substantiate” CUSA’s research and data.
“For international students, I’m going to advocate as hard as I can to implement the tuition guarantee model. I also think the CUSA think tank could be very resourceful in helping us have information to put forward to the university.”
Vice-president (student life)
Imtiaz said collaborating with other executives is an important part of the job. She also hopes to collaborate with clubs and provide them with accessibility training.
“I would like to work with the vice-president (internal) and the vice-president (student issues) to basically achieve my goals, such as my accessibility policy and my policy on club training.”
The vice-president (community engagement) position was removed as part of CUSA’s executive composition changes.
This change is designed to clarify the responsibilities of the executive team.
“There has been confusion between the mandates of the vice president community engagement and the vice president student issues regarding responsibilities in advocacy and external partnerships, as well as confusion regarding the vice president student life over duties concerning service centres,” reads appendix A of the Feb. 12 council meeting minutes.
The duties of the vice-president (community engagement) will now be allocated between the vice-president (student issues), vice-president (student life) and the newly established associate vice-president (AVP) (community engagement).
These changes also include updates to the AVP program, which was introduced in May 2023.
The motion to make these changes to executive composition passed unanimously at a council meeting on Feb. 12.
According to CUSA policy, a candidate for vice-president (finance) is selected by a nominating committee before being recommended to council to be voted in.
The new vice-president (finance) will be hired at CUSA’s next meeting on April 8.
Featured image by Anya Swettenham.
