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<\/a><\/p>\nCCSS executive director Michel Turcotte says that the high voter turnout isn\u2019t the election\u2019s only success\u2014the increase in candidates, and multiple contested positions, is evidence of greater student interest in Camosun issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite an exercise in democracy and student interest,\u201d he says. \u201cSo the CCSS is pleased with that result because not having your members interested in running for office is never a good thing\u2026 It was the most contested election we\u2019ve had in quite a few years and that really shows maybe an increasing level of democracy, or at least some re-emerging student interest in these sorts of positions and student issues and advocacy and all the other things that go with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turcotte believes the newly elected board offers a diverse representation of the student body and he looks forward to hearing a range of opinions and ideas from the new board. In past elections, some positions were left unfilled, leaving the responsibilities to other members of the board. With all positions filled this year, he says the variety of contributing voices implies a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be nice to learn to have board meetings where everybody is represented because we have a board structure that\u2019s designed to give representation to various groups or areas within the college community,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s nice to be able to actually hear those voices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CCSS\u2014which is responsible for services such as the UPass, health and dental plans, food bank, and Walk Safer\u2014is financially supported by students. Turcotte says voting in the CCSS election is a way students are able to participate in selection of these initiatives and the people who enact them.<\/p>\n
\u201cCCSS feels that elections are important because this is how students choose the representatives that run the organization that they are all members of and fund,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it is much in the same way that a municipal, federal, or provincial election [is] important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turcotte anticipates that the CCSS will continue to support its initiatives and events, including its successful Holi, Diwali, and sustainability-based celebrations. With upcoming goals in mind, he hopes to focus on advocacy going into the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we have the ability to have a bit more of an advocacy focus to add to some of the events and wellness initiatives that we have been working on in the last couple years,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cSo it might be that as one of the areas the CCSS could put a little more effort in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although a portion of candidates were unsuccessfully elected, Turcotte wishes to acknowledge each participant and hopes students remain as an active part of the Camosun College community. He says that the student society best functions with variety, valuing all participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocracy requires people to run for positions, and even if you don\u2019t succeed, you are making a difference,\u201d he says. \u201cI hope that the candidates who were not successful this time will continue to stay engaged with what\u2019s going on at CCSS and Camosun generally, and we\u2019d really like to thank them for putting their names forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) held its spring student elections from Monday, April 8 to Wednesday, April 10. An increased voter turnout landed a total of 1,136 student voters in the elections, which were held online. 674 voted on day one, 120 on day two, and 342 on day three. Because of a mistake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19372,"comment_status":"closed","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":[13,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-may-8-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25414","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=25414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25415,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25414\/revisions\/25415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}