On Apr. 7, the AMS held its transition Assembly in person for the first time in two years. Assembly convened in
the Rose Event Commons room in Mitchell Hall. The event was also streamed virtually, with individuals participating through Teams.
The Assembly ratified new student directors for the AMS Board of Directors. Followed by this, it was announced that the speaker candidate dropped out before ratification began.
Victoria Yu, Queen’s Student Diversity Project President, kicked the assembly off with an anti-oppression leadership training workshop. The training discussed themes of bias, oppression, power, injustice, and advocacy.
Team ETC Platform
Team ETC, composed of Eric Sikich, incoming AMS President, Tina Hu, incoming Vice-President (Operations), and Callum Robertson, incoming Vice-President (University Affairs) attended and presented their platform.
Hu was excited to assemble the team and get to know students in the upcoming term.
“A big part of the [transition] process was getting to know people and getting to know what students were thinking,
and what they’re talking about,” Hu said.
Hu said ETC will ensure there’s a good team environment internally and that more collaboration occurs in society.
“I am passionate about improving the cross-pollination between the government and the corporate side—there is a lot of value in that,” Hu said.
Sikich said ETC’s second major platform point is student engagement and rebuilding trust in the AMS by the student body.
“A lot of people will go to CoGro [Common Ground Coffeehouse] or the P&CC [Printing & Copy Centre], and not know they are AMS services […] We will ensure we have a very personable AMS that is working to ensure our service is very representative,” Sikich said.
Robertson highlighted the third pillar—transparency and communication. Robertson said this pillar would be essential in supporting the pillar of student engagement.
“The AMS website will be the most critical part in advertising to students,” Robertson said.
The final ETC pillar, presented by Hu, was advocacy. Hu highlighted the work that has been done in the past year by the Social Issues Commission.
“We don’t want to make promises that we can’t keep to students,” Sikich said.
Ratification of Commissioners
AMS Assembly approved a slate of commissioners for the upcoming year. Rob Hughes, ArtSci ’22, was ratified as Clubs Commissioner; Nikki Onuah, ArtSci ’22, as Campus Affairs Commissioner; Emily Rolph, ArtSci ’23, as Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability; and Amaiya Walters. ArtSci ’23; as Social Issues Commissioner.
When asked by Crystal Sau, Nursing Science Society President, about the role of making informed decisions, Walters commented on the SIC’s reliance on student engagement and feedback.
“It’s easy to get wrapped up in the AMS, but we have to remember we work for students,” Walters said.
Clubs Policies
Brian Seo, outgoing Clubs Commissioner, discussed policy changes for clubs. A primary addition was defining the term “affiliated groups” for clubs.
“We’ve been noticing that within the structure of club governance there are a lot of clubs that have separate niche groups that pursue specific ventures within the group’s mandate. An example is Queen’s International Affairs Association which has a lot of things underneath,” Seo said.
Seo added that he’s proud of a new policy change that will mandate club presidents and co-chairs to go through mandatory training in the summer. This includes Sexual Violence Prevention and Response (SVPR) training, and other training to be determined.
“The disclosures, training is administered by the Sexual Violence Prevention Office. That was a great success and we got really good feedback, we’re hoping to push forward an organizational due diligence, ensuring that student leaders are able and are equipped to kind of deal with things that could potentially arise within the operations.”
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