Marion Shevlin and Elise Patterson were declared winners in the Student Association of George Brown College’s (SAGBC) fall 2021 election in their respective educational centre representative positions after voting closed on December 8.
Patterson and Shevlin will be the SAGBC’s community services and early childhood and business centres respectively. These were the only two positions out of five available positions that were contested in the election.
No candidates ran for the offices of director of communications and internal and director of operations, the two highest profile positions on the board of directors. There was also no certified candidates for the role of preparatory and liberal studies representative as well.
The Dialog is funded by the SAGBC.
In an interview with the Dialog, Charles Wilson, the election’s chief returning officer, talked about the challenges in finding candidates for the top two director positions in the election.
When the nomination period was extended in search of appropriate candidates, the SAGBC reached out to different student bodies to see if anyone wanted to run for these two positions, he said. It did not result in any candidates.
According to a recently amended bylaw of the SAGBC, students holding these two roles cannot take more than 50 per cent of their course load.
This requirement makes it difficult for full-time domestic students to take on the role and almost impossible for international students.
Canadian immigration policies require international students to be full-time students.
Wilson said the board will soon explore options of how the top two director positions would be filled in the interim.
“I have a recommendation for the board on how the positions could be filled, however, I cannot share that publicly,” Wilson said.
He also mentioned that finding competent individuals for the top two positions, particularly for the role of the director of communications and internal, has been challenging for quite some time.
“The position of director of communications and internal requires a combination of skill sets that are not easy to find,” he said.
Over the past two years, several people have been elected to this position only to leave it weeks or months into their term. Most recently, Urvish Patel, who was elected to the role in the winter 2021 election, stepped away only a few months into his term.
Decisions must be taken on whether this role should be treated as one that is geared more towards oversight or as an administrative employee, Wilson says.
“No student at GBC understands what the director of communications and internal does,” Wilson said elaborating on the difficulties of finding proper candidates for the role.
Wilson also added that he has advised multiple times in previous CRO reports that the description of the duties of this role should be explained in a simplified manner so that the average student understands them from day one.
“The governance review team is looking into the matter,” he added.
Although the voter turnout was low in the election, the numbers consistent with numbers from previous elections, says Wilson.
Shevlin beat her only competitor Chahat Pusha by a landslide, as she carried 90.3 per cent of total votes cast. Pusha, who did not provide a bio or any statements to be shared by SAGBC website during the campaign period, received only 26 votes.
The competition for community service and early childhood representative was tighter in comparison, with three students running. Patterson received 182 votes, beating her nearest competitor Alex Chan who received 106 votes.
In her statement during the campaign period, Patterson said that she has a deep fervor for equity and advocacy as she experienced bigotry throughout her life being a Black and bisexual woman.
She has been working as a peer leader at GBC and aims to work on promoting equity and extending appropriate accommodations for students to understand their different needs like familial commitments or other extenuating circumstances.
On the other hand, Shevlin, who previously served as department head on the Carleton Academic Student Government, prioritizes creating more transparency in the daily operations of the Association and promoting two-way communication between students and their representatives.
Patterson and Shevlin will begin their terms in January 2022.
