The AMS is making changes to the way student-run elections happen.
In an interview with The Journal, Owen Rocchi, AMS president, and Sylvie Garabedian, AMS secretariat, explained the main change is restructuring governance and chairs of the elections team.
Historically, the election team is solely chaired by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). This year, the AMS is adding a Chief Returning Officer (CRO), a waged employee who will help the CEO co-chair the election team. As with all AMS positions, their salaries are funded by undergraduate student dollars.
The CEO’s working hours will be reduced from 35 to 20 hours a week with the CRO also working 20 hours a week.
Shouldering 40 hours per week, the co-chair’s significant workload stems from the AMS’s decision to de-slate elections this year with executive candidates running individually, rather than in teams. After an extended 2024 election season, with the only running team dropping out mid-race, AMS Assembly voted to de-slate in April.
The structural change will help the CEO and CRO better deal with the stress of running a de-slated election, Rocchi explained.
“We are heading into an unprecedented election season. The first de-slated election we’re running,” he said.
Also experiencing alterations this year, the AMS Judicial Committee—who address instances of non-academic misconduct—increased from five to nine members. A student from every faculty society will sit on the committee to broaden representation.
Two seats will be given to the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society to give both an arts student and a science student a voice, Garabedian explained. The AMS conducted consultations with human resources to ensure the changes were feasible.
Changes in the governance teams responsibilities have also changed.
The CEO will now oversee AMS Assembly meetings and related committees such as Campus Affairs, Social Issues, and Orientation Roundtable. This will allow the Secretariat, who previously ran Assembly meetings, to engage more with Assembly members, Rocchi explained.
Rocchi hopes with a greater delegation of responsibilities, AMS Assembly will see increased engagement from their members and the greater Queen’s community.
Tags
AMS Assembly, CEO, Election, FYIF2024
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