By Vanessa Broadbent (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 5, 2014
New representatives and new job openings were the highlight of this month’s Student Union Society (SUS) board meeting. This was the first board meeting with two newly elected representatives present: the Cascade Journalism Society’s Curtis Klooster and aboriginal representative Morris Prosser. Prosser was elected into the position during a recent by-election. Of 183 votes cast, 85 per cent were in favour of Prosser, the only candidate running for the position. There were originally three candidates running, but two did not meet the requirements of having a GPA of 2.0 and no outstanding student fees.
SUS announced that the society’s engagement officer, Derrick Swallow, gave his two weeks notice and will stop working at SUS as of November 3. This isn’t the best timing for SUS, as VP external Dylan Thiessen explained.
“Thomas [Davies, SUS VP internal], Ryan [Petersen, SUS president], and I are still talking about how to best move forward with that, given that we will not be here for a week in the middle of November,” he said. SUS executives are planning to attend the annual Canadian Alliance of Student Associations lobby week in Ottawa November 16-21.
SUS plans to open the position up for applicants in the near future, as well as a new position that would involve updating the SUS website. Current arts representative and last year’s VP internal Greg Stickland told the board that he intends to apply for the website position. “It speaks to a couple campaign promises that I wasn’t able to complete a few years ago,” he said.
“It’s a position that I am really passionate about, so I am hoping to apply for that position, but we do have a bylaw saying that I would need permission from the board.”
SUS president Ryan Petersen said he was okay with Stickland applying for the position.
“Personally, I don’t have an issue if Greg wants to put his hat in the ring and apply for the position. I am thankful that he brought this forward to everyone’s awareness now rather than later,” he said.
Thiessen wasn’t opposed to Stickland’s ability to fill the role, but he shared that he thought there were “some reasons of concern” with his application. “I think that the main concern is that as representatives, you’re here to be critical, and to represent your students to the society. If you were to also work in the society, I could see that potentially creating issues,” he said.
Despite Thiessen’s concern, Stickland said that he will be going forward with his application.
“Unless anyone opposes at this time, I am just going to apply for the position and should I get it, I’ll bring the motion to the next board meeting. If the board is not okay with that, then I will be stepping down as arts rep,” he said.
SUS also passed motions to decrease the funding that executives receive for food while on business trips from $60 per day to $50 per day, and to update their ex-officio policy.
