Four out of five of this year’s candidates in the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) election are running for re-election, and all are uncontested.
Eric Hitsman, Jenna Amirault, Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, Jay Ramasubramanyam, and Taylor Howarth make up this year’s single slate: Grads United.
Eric Hitsman, the current vice-president (operations) is running for president, while current president Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah is campaigning for Hitsman’s vice-president job.
Hitsman said he wants to focus on keeping students involved, promote safe spaces for students and create opportunities for Indigenous representation. He added he also hopes to find solutions to the challenges brought by rising tuition fees, and to lobby for the establishment of a committee in Parliament to represent post-secondary students.
David Thibodeau, the chief electoral officer, said voter turnout for GSA elections is usually low and said more people running would mean more people voting.
According to Thibodeau, this year, the GSA has hired a voter engagement officer, and the voting period has been extended to three days. The hope is that this will increase voter turnout, he said.
“It’s just important for [students] to have a say in what direction the GSA goes,” Thibodeau said. “If it’s a yes vote, then candidates feel like they’re doing good, and if it’s no, then maybe they need to change their ideas or try to accommodate other views.”
Jenna Amirault, the current vice-president (external) is running for re-election, and said she would like to negotiate for a lower health care plan under Greenshield, the GSA’s provider. She added she would also like to see more student representation on the Board of Governors.
Current vice-president (finance) Taylor Howarth is also looking to keep her position, and is looking to promote more grants and awards for students, as well as improving graduate mental health services.
Jay Ramasubramanyam is running for vice-president (academic), and is the only candidate running who wasn’t part of the Grads United slate last year. He said he hopes to offer more support for graduate students who are parents, and to increase the number of library journals.
According to Owusu-Akyeeah, it can be hard to reach graduate students, given that some of them may not spend a lot of time on campus. Misconceptions about the election process may also play a role, she said.
“People can have this idea that it’s a very competitive environment, I mean if you use the [Carleton University Students’ Association] elections as an example of how campaigns go, people would be totally afraid to run,” she said. “But with grad studies it’s a completely different approach, not as sensationalized as the undergraduate election.”
In 2016, the position of vice-president (operations) was the only one with multiple candidates running. All the positions were later won by members of the Grads United slate, which is running entirely unopposed this year.
The last time the position of GSA president was contested was in 2014, when two candidates ran. 2013 marked the first time in nearly four years that the race for GSA president was contested.
In both the 2011 and 2012 elections, all candidates running for the executive, and for positions on the Senate and the Graduate Faculty Board were acclaimed. The same thing happened in the 2015 election, when candidates for all positions ran unopposed.
According to Owusu-Akyeeah, the process has been changed so that candidates who run unopposed are not automatically acclaimed. Graduate students have the option of voting “yes,” “no,” or of abstaining by not marking their ballots at all
“You have to maximize the amount of candidates so voters can make the most informed decision about who they want,” Owusu-Akyeeah said.
She added that while she would like to see more people running in the elections to increase the options for students, having one candidate is better than having none
Voting for this year’s election ended on March 23.
—with files from Drew May and Anna Sophia Vollmerhausen
– Photo by Irene Galea
