The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is holding elections for their president and councillors. At the time of publication, voting days and campaigning have been postponed indefinitely.
Carleton students will vote for 31 councillors, seven of which will represent students in the faculty of science. Only six candidates are running for the position.
The Charlatan asked each candidate questions about their campaigns.
Stephnie Ughara
Stephnie Ughara is a third-year electrical engineering student at Carleton University.
Q: Why are you running for CUSA?
A: I want to represent students who have entrepreneurial spirit in them and uplift them. I’m also representing Black students and want to represent international students as well.
This is going to be an opportunity for me to spread awareness and see what they want to see in their school’s community.
Q: Why should students vote for you to represent your faculty?
A: I got experience in first year volunteering with the Carleton chapter of the Women’s Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
I’m also going to be a good representative of Black students and share their complaints. I’ll be able to take and try to articulate all students’ opinions and struggles to the board.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish as a CUSA councillor?
A: I hope to bring more students in and spread awareness of CUSA and the activities and decisions that we’re making. Also, making sure we’re sharing more and we’re hearing more from students.
I also want to encourage students to join clubs and be active in the community because I actually fell short of that during this online schooling period.
Akeel Samji
Akeel Samji is a second-year sustainable and renewable energy engineering student.
Q: Why are you running for CUSA?
A: I’m a transfer student from University of Toronto. I started university online because of the pandemic. I wasn’t sure about all the resources available to me at Carleton.
I want to figure out what’s going on and how we can best help the students. I feel like the best way to do that is from inside CUSA and be a student representative to let other students who started school during the pandemic know about all the resources available to them.
Q: Why should students vote for you to represent your faculty?
A: Students should vote for me because I have had various roles in a few engineering societies and therefore have had students confident in my ability to be a leader and to get things done. Having that experience and trust from the community shows that students should be confident voting for me as a faculty of engineering and design councillor in CUSA.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish as a CUSA councilor?
A: I definitely want to raise awareness about all the CUSA resources available to students and bridge the communication gap. As an engineering student, I didn’t know a lot about CUSA. I had to ask other people about what resources were available because I feel like CUSA’s communication with students online isn’t that great. Therefore, I really want to focus on bridging that gap between engineering students and CUSA.
Kassidy Hammond
Kassidy Hammond is a second-year aerospace engineering student.
Q: Why are you running for CUSA?
A: I’m running for CUSA because I’ve spent the last two years largely focusing on the computer engineering community. While that has been wonderful, there’s so much good advocacy, work and representation to be done. Something that has been sort of lacking for a number of years has been the link between computer engineers and the remainder of the student community.
Q: Why should students vote for you to represent your faculty?
A: I believe I’ve proven myself for the last two years in a number of positions that I’ve taken on like engineering frosh planning and the mechanical and aerospace engineering societies.
I bring a lot to the table with my goals, my focuses and my experience and I think I could be a great representation for engineering within CUSA more broadly in the student community.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish as a CUSA councillor?
A: Ideally, I want to bring representation. The engineering community faces a very particular challenge in the fact that our demographics are pretty skewed when compared to the broader population. Just my program in particular has only one in four people who are women and that kind of representation is so important.
Saad Khan
Saad Khan is a fourth-year communications engineering student running for re-election as CUSA councillor.
Q: Why are you running for CUSA?
A: Since I came to Carleton University, I felt CUSA didn’t do enough for international students and thought if I became a councillor I could advocate for them.
Now, I want the ability to bring change on campus. Our job is to learn how to bring change and what change to bring.
Q: Why should students vote for you to represent your faculty?
A: I created the international students advisory committee to make sure that CUSA advocated for international students more effectively.
Last year, I also advocated for improved mental health services and accommodations, tutoring services for upper-year students and increased networking opportunities for engineering and design students. If I get re-elected, I will continue this advocacy.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish as a CUSA councillor?
A: I will advocate for the creation of a digital student identification card. I will develop initiatives to support marginalized international students on campus.
I will continue to advocate for divestment and sustainability at Carleton University and advocate for transparency and accountability within CUSA.
Muhammad Maahir Abdul Aziz
Muhammad Maahir Abdul Aziz could not be reached by the Charlatan.
Charlie Macdonald
Charlie Macdonald could not be reached by the Charlatan.
These interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Featured image by Maryam Teima.
