AMS musical chairs

AMS executive-elect Talia Radcliffe, Ken Wang and Stephanie St. Clair announced their new council Sunday. Seven of the body’s eight positions are filled: the media director application period was extended to yesterday due to a lack of complete applications.

The individual salary for the seven filled positions is approximately $19,367 each, depending on inflation.

Ken Wang said the early hiring’s meant to allow for a more complete transition— logical reasoning when half the council ended up with jobs they didn’t actually apply for.

Matthew Lombardi had been an internal affairs commission intern and applied to be social issues commissioner—he was chosen as Academic Affairs Commissioner. Alex Jang is the deputy municipal affairs commissioner and applied for MAC—she was given Campus Activities Commissioner. Alexa Gendron-O’Donnell was chosen as Internal Affairs Commissioner, although she applied to be academic affairs commissioner and was both the deputy commissioner and an intern for the AAC. Holly Archer is P&CC head manager; after applying for the position of retail services director, she was posted as Food and Safety Director.

A reasonable person might wonder how the AMS executive concluded it’s a good idea to give positions to people who didn’t apply and arguably aren’t qualified for them.

This is an example of the bizarre and skewed AMS hiring. It’s not clear how the executive determined these people are the best for their jobs—they certainly seemed surprised to find out what they were hired for. One can only hope applicants are going into their new positions with some idea what their jobs entail.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with hiring someone who didn’t necessarily apply for that position. It’s a problem, however, when it’s done across the board and apparently takes the AMS’s “no experience required” hiring promise very literally.

If the incoming executive is hoping to shake things up in the AMS, this is the wrong way to go. Any promises to bring a fresh perspective shouldn’t be practiced so literally—hiring people whose dedication to and experience regarding their jobs isn’t indicated in, at least, their application decision doesn’t make sense and does little to inspire students’ confidence.

Information and Communications Officer Jess Lindal’s resignation this week was the AMS’s eighth since May.

Given how difficult it is to find people willing to stick around and do their jobs, it doesn’t seem wise to hire several people to positions they may not want in the first place.

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