By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 30, 2011
The SUS By-election results are in: 515 UFV students cast a ballot for the VP Social, Clubs & Associations Representative, Residence Representative, and Representatives at Large positions. The campaign period ran from the 16th of November to the 23rd, leaving a six-day voting period. The SUS’s newly elected candidates will take office on December 1.
VP Social-elect Wyatt Scott received 238 votes, beating out Tuong Thai and Zack Soderstrom. This effectively leaves Soderstrom, who was previously Residence Rep, without a place in the SUS. The VP Social position will also see Mehtab Singh Rai, who was serving in the interim, step back to his previous Representative at Large position.
Scott is a committed member of the Political Science Students Association, and is also a student in the Political Science program. He plans to use his experience in the entertainment industry as a resource to draw on in his new position. This may prove to be a valuable asset, as the role of the VP Social is to be involved in all public concerns of the SUS – such as engaging with agents external to UFV, working with AfterMath, keeping the SUS website current, and posting flyers and banners around the campus.
Cody Willems-Kutz was elected the new Clubs & Associations Representative – a position that was new to this election. The position marks a greater outreach to the many diverse groups that are working to make UFV a student-first university. Willems-Kutz sees his role as one of championing greater communication to and from the SUS. While receiving 233 votes, he was unchallenged in his candidacy.
The Residence Representative will be Christian Doyle. He received 245 votes, and was another unchallenged candidate. Doyle champions a greater and expanded U-Pass, as well as a new residence card. He envisions working with the Baker House Residence Association and speaking for not only student residence, but also the university. Doyle’s noted in his Candidate Statement, “The issue on campus that bothers me the most is student apathy and I want it to be SUS’s job to attempt to get the student body out of the comatose state that it currently resides in.”
For both uncontested positions, voters were given the option of choosing: yes, no, or no opinion.
Finally, as three of the nine Representative at Large seats were vacant at the time of the by-election, one was taken by Anne Franklin at 173 votes and another by Greg Strickland at 142. The third seat was held for Rai as he reverted back to his original role.
Reps at Large essentially work as advocates for the student body. Franklin, in addition to engaging with students, would like to see a transit line between Chilliwack and Abbotsford, cheaper food and events that bring together the UFV community. Strickland, on the other hand, is a major proponent of increasing the SUS’s web presence in forums like YouTube and Facebook.
