{"id":12830,"date":"2016-11-16T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12830"},"modified":"2016-11-18T09:17:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T17:17:57","slug":"politics-student-society-by-elections-bring-in-new-student-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/11\/16\/politics-student-society-by-elections-bring-in-new-student-board-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Student society by-elections bring in new student board members"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) by-elections were held on Tuesday, October 25 and Wednesday, October 26; at both campuses, Camosun students voted in new student representatives to the CCSS student council.<\/p>\n

Callum Harrison was elected as the Lansdowne executive, Srijani Nath the international director; Draco Recalma is now the First Nations director, and Ellen Young is the new off campus director.<\/p>\n

Rima Durah, Mitchell-Auger Langejan, Malcom Rorvik, and Wyatt Matthews were elected as directors-at-large for the Lansdowne campus, while Chris Lineham, Sukhdeep Kaur, Bikramjit Singh, and Arpit Gulati were elected as Interurban\u2019s directors-at-large.<\/p>\n

\"img_7243\"<\/a>
Voting day for the Camosun College Student Society by-elections at the Lansdowne campus (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CCSS external executive Rachael Grant says she is looking forward to working with the new student representatives to improve the lives of students. She says, however, that she was hoping that more students would have voted this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always looking to up our voter turnout; however, it continues to be rather low,\u201d says Grant. \u201cSomething that we are looking into down the line is online voting to increase participation. Ideally, it would be great to see more students at the polls, and that\u2019s something we continue to strive toward.\u201d<\/p>\n

437 students voted this year during the elections; 247 students voted at the Interurban campus, and 166 students voted at the Lansdowne campus. 24 votes were also cast at the Saanich Adult Education Centre. Despite the low numbers, Grant believes that it is very important for students to come out to the polls and cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that students vote because the board of directors at the student society makes important decisions in regards to students; also, we\u2019re entirely funded by student money,\u201d says Grant. \u201cSo these students are representing you; these students are making decisions with the money you spent when you paid your tuition. It\u2019s in the breakdown when you pay your tuition; there are student fees, so being able to participate in our elections means having a say in who gets to represent you, and that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nath, the new CCSS international director, was ecstatic when she realized she had been elected to her position. She says that, to her, it was more than just an election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis position gives me a great opportunity to really connect with the school, and to the students,\u201d she says. \u201cIt gives me a chance to listen to them and do something beneficial for all of us. I feel much satisfaction being an international student in a school like Camosun, where everyone has always been so helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nath believes that tuition fees are too high, and that government grants should be more accessible. She says the CCSS wants to try to lower tuition fees and ask for more grants for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is one of the major policies that the student society has worked toward for the past few years,\u201d she says, \u201cand I have helped them and will continue to help in their outreach programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

New off campus director Young has been serving on the board of directors since 2013, but in a different position.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I started at Camosun I\u2019ve always run for Interurban director, because that\u2019s where I was situated, but this semester I\u2019m working as a co-op student,\u201d says Young. \u201cSo I work during the day until 4 pm, then in the evening I have a couple of classes, and I found out that a lot of campus services close around 4 pm, so I\u2019m never able to get there on time to access those services. Then I realized, \u2018I bet hundreds of other students have the same story.\u2019 So that\u2019s what inspired me to run, when I realized that these services are closing way too early, and I just did not realize that until I became a co-op student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young says that it felt good to get elected again, and she looks forward to implementing positive changes for the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m compelled by the opportunity to make a difference, and I just want students to know that there is someone who is willing to speak for them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Grant believes that the elections went very well overall, and she says that there were no unforeseen complications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of contested positions, which is a really positive thing to see,\u201d she says. \u201cThe wonderful thing about working on the board with the student society is that it can be anything you make of it. So I\u2019m really excited to see what our new reps bring to the table, and I\u2019m excited to get to know them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) by-elections were held on Tuesday, October 25 and Wednesday, October 26; at both campuses, Camosun students voted in new student representatives to the CCSS student council. Callum Harrison was elected as the Lansdowne executive, Srijani Nath the international director; Draco Recalma is now the First Nations director, and Ellen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue","category-news","category-november-16-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12839,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12830\/revisions\/12839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}