Two candidates will be on the ballot for the Residence Society’s (ResSoc) first contested presidential election in two years.
Katarina Krivokapic, ArtSci ’26 and Allen Wu, HealthSci ’25 sat down with The Journal to discuss their visions for the role if elected.
Katarina Krivokapic
Krivokapic’s past three years in student government have shaped her interest in running for ResSoc’s highest position. Supporting students is a passion she says was fostered by her own residence don during her first year.
In her past leadership roles as deputy academics commissioner at Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS) and chief financial officer of ResSoc, Krivokapic gained experience managing a budget of approximately $700,000, supervising students, and understanding ResSoc’s inner workings. She has taken a leave of absence from her roles in ResSoc for the duration of her campaign to prevent conflicts of interest.
Krivokapic’s campaign focuses on maximizing the financial resources ResSoc puts towards students. If elected, she plans to host free events and giveaways, expand bursaries for extracurriculars, and create a residence formal for first-year students.
Based on her previous experience overseeing ResSoc’s budget, Krivokapic believes the Society has money to spare for these initiatives, which she hopes will build community.
According to her, ResSoc possesses a large surplus of funds from past years, when COVID-19 prevented programming from occurring as usual. Additionally, every student living in residence must pay a $105 mandatory fee to the Society, which further supplements the budget.
“I want to ensure that as President, I’m able to divert funds from administrative bloat and invest into our students, invest into bursaries. These are things that directly enhance the student experience,” Krivokapic said.
Krivokapic foresees these expenses as sustainable, given the university’s growing enrolment. She promises to make ResSoc’s expenditures transparent by allowing students to “see the budget at any time.”
Allen Wu
Wu sees residence as students’ “home away from their actual home.” He wants to make first-year students’ transition into university smoother as ResSoc President.
Wu has been involved with Queen’s residences for three years as an intern to the human resources officer, a ResSoc residence facilitator, and as a don this year under ResLife. He is temporarily on leave from his extracurricular roles during his campaign to avoid a conflict of interest.
Through his past positions, Wu claims to have developed skills in executing events, managing a budget, and overseeing communities of first-year students directly. He points to his experience as an assistant manager at the Peer Support Centre (PSC) as giving him experience providing empathetic, confidential support to students.
Wu’s platform emphasizes elevating ResSoc’s visibility, providing a greater variety of events in residence such as professional development opportunities, adding new intern positions to the Society’s executive members, and improving mental health support through a partnership with the PSC.
Having spent time in both ResSoc and ResLife, Wu believes greater collaboration between the two organizations is needed.
“Over my three years here at Queen’s, I believe I’ve seen the Residence Society and ResLife become further apart. On one hand, that’s a good thing. But on the other hand, it means there’s less collaboration between the two organizations,” he said.
He hopes to encourage residence dons to participate in ResSoc activities.
Voting for the ResSoc elections opens on Feb. 1 for all students living in residence.
Corrections
An earlier version of this story included the photo of another ResSoc candidate in a different race and listed them as “Katarina Krivokapic” in the caption. The image has now been updated. Incorrect information was published in the Jan. 30 issue of The Queen’s Journal.
The Journal regrets the error
Tags
Elections, ResSec, ResSoc president
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