CESA teams base their campaign on inclusivity

Candidates look to make society more approachable

Erika McRae
Image by: Erin Flegg
Erika McRae

Inclusivity is the name of the game in this year’s Concurrent Education Student’s Association executive elections.

Both teams vying for the jobs said they’re looking to increase communications between all levels of students and open up more opportunities for students to get involved.

The team of presidential candidate Maggie Cattanach, vice-president (external) candidate Liz Tran and vice-president (internal) candidate Lauren LaVallee are looking to add a personal touch to CESA in the hopes of encouraging more students –especially first years—to get involved and find out what their association does for them.

“We want to make it comfortable for them to come to events and to come to our office because that’s where everything happens.”

The three say they’re focusing on goals that are “applicable and achievable.” Tran, CESA’s community affairs representative, said she wants to bridge the gaps between students in different years and programs and between students and the greater community.

“We know how important it is to give to the whole community, not just Queen’s.”

Using their initials as a slogan, the three want to bring “a little TLC” to CESA. The team hopes to continue to discuss the grading scheme in education classes. The classes are marked only as pass or fail. The team would like to see that switch to a percentage grading system to recognize the efforts of individual students. The team also hopes to make regular class talks to first-years to update them on the goings-on within council.

“We want [students] to know our names and be able to approach us.”

The team of presidential candidate Todd Ormiston, vice-president (external) candidate Erika McRae and vice-president (internal) candidate Erika Lindstrom want to bring ConEd students together to form a more cohesive faculty.

“We’re stratified,” Ormiston said. “There are lots of con-eddies who know exactly what CESA does and use our services and there’s a larger group who doesn’t.” He said ConEd is a unique faculty in that it’s very small and students in the program have most of their class with separate programs.

“We really want to look at what makes us different and look at what we can offer students that maybe ASUS can’t.”

Ormiston said the team also wants to look at revamping existing programs such as the first-year buddy program. Instead of pairing individual first-year students with upper-years, he said, the team wants to set up group sessions with students from all years in the same programs.

“[They’re] little things that would make a big difference, that just need a little rethinking.”

Both Lindstrom and McRae, this year’s workshop co-ordinator, says they want to introduce more professional development opportunities covering aspects of teaching not addressed in education classes.

“I would really like to learn about what it means to be in a union or part of the Ontario College of Teachers,” Lindstrom said.

McRae said she thinks team’s varied backgrounds make them strong candidates. Both Ormiston and McRae are members of CESA council. Lindstrom and Ormiston were involved in Frosh Week as Teaches.

“We all have different experience and we all bring something unique to the table.”

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