Following the AMS’s first planned de-slated election, the new executive team is ready to tackle their new roles.
The Journal sat down with the newly-elected Team JEA, comprised of incoming President Jana Amer, HealthSci ’26, Vice-President (Operations) Elena Nurzynski, ArtSci ’25, and Vice-President (University Affairs) Alyssa Perisa, ArtSci ’25. The team was elected on Jan. 31.
“We’re excited to get started. I’m beyond honoured to be in this role and that students are trusting us with this. I think we’re all really excited to step in,” Amer said.
President
In her first 100 days on the job, Amer says she’ll prioritize building connections with her incoming co-executives. At the same time, she’s planning to focus on the offices she oversees—the Student Life Centre, Marketing and Communications, Internal Affairs, Human Resources, and Information Technology.
In her platform, Amer proposed improving transparency from the AMS by transforming its website through an interactive diagram fleshing out AMS’s operations, providing students with a centralized resource for them to understand their student government. She explained this plan is underway, having already started conversations with the current Marketing and Communications Office.
“We’ve started a working document for that already so that’s hopefully a project that will be finalized by the end of summer so once students are on campus they could easily navigate that,” Amer said.
Amer’s campaign also detailed providing one minute Assembly recaps so students could be better informed on what’s happening within the AMS. Speaking to The Journal, she elaborated on this idea, explaining they’ll be quick videos taken with the AMS Media Centre (AMC) right after Assembly. These videos will be posted on the AMS’s social media platforms.
Vice-President (Operations)
Come May 1, Nurzynski plans on having an open line of communication with service head managers and the JDUC steering committee, which includes AMS representatives and manages the construction and move to the student centre.
With the JDUC move-in still on the distant horizon, she plans to give managers as much notice as possible before the move and, if necessary, assist with the relocation of services herself.
Nurzynski said she wants to ensure she’s bringing students attention to smaller services such as the AMC. She said the key to supporting smaller services is to understand that all services operate differently and need varying levels of support.
“I think each [service] will operate differently, not everyone will have the exact same needs, but I [don’t want to] overlook our smaller services and find ways to bolster them and support them so they get higher levels of engagement,” Nurzynski said.
Vice-President (University Affairs)
At the start of her term, Perisa, responsible for overseeing six commissions, aims to build relationships with her commissioners and collaborate on new ideas for the year ahead.
Perisa aims to enhance the AMS by transforming traditional employee transition manuals into interactive online modules, streamlining the onboarding process and improving accessibility.
“[The change to online modules] would make [transition materials] more accessible to students, especially if we’re making [the modules] more digestible,” Perisa said. “Sometimes, when it’s sitting down with a manual that can be very long, students can lose some of the critical information that’s in there.”
Another item Perisa hopes to implement early on in her term is an internal social media calendar to ensure every AMS social media account has the capacity to highlight different initiatives and events.
“[The social media calendar] would help us make sure we’re doing posts about specific days that are important for [each] commission,” Perisa said. “It would be an infographic that they would be able to refer to and plan ahead where they can decide that this week, they might have [space to plan] a social media initiative.”
Team JEA is excited to assume their roles on May 1.
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