Meet the new 2009-10 AMS council

On Sunday night, incoming AMS executive—president Michael Ceci, vice-president (operations) Leslie Yun and vice-president (university affairs) Adam Zabrodski—hired next year’s AMS council.

Ceci, ArtSci ’ 09, said he’s looking forward to next year.

“They’re strong candidates. We feel that the individuals we decided on have the skills and the drive and the passion to effect a lot of change this year.”

Ceci said applications for each position were due on Feb. 2.

“The applications had been available for much of January. We’d received 27 applications for eight positions.”

Ceci said part of the application included a proposal of the goals each candidate had for their year in office.

“In addition to that we had them submit proposals. These ranged in length from six to 20 pages. These outlined applicants’ goals for the position, their overall vision.”

After applications were submitted, two rounds of interviews were conducted followed by a deliberation period of four or five hours on Sunday night.

Ceci said two people withdrew their applications for personal reasons before the interview round. In total, 25 people were interviewed for the positions.

“Each person is afforded one hour of interview. After that we cut that down from 25 to 18,” he said. “We invited 18 people to our final round of interactive interviews. We wanted to see how they work in groups to get a sense of who they are. We used the last interview round to look at people we were somewhat leaning towards.

“We set out qualities that we look for in each position. We see how each of the individuals would match to that. There is a holistic and detailed approach to the interview process. Further to that we do check references.”

Last year, successful applicants were often given positions other than those they applied for, something that didn’t happen this year.

“We considered if they’d be stronger in a position they didn’t apply for. We felt this year every single applicant was best suited for that position which they applied for.”

Ceci said there was one candidate who applied for two positions, and they were given one of the two.

He said the incoming AMS executive made the hiring decisions, but AMS permanent staff Greg Mckellar, Claude Sherren and John McDiarmid were available for consultation.

“Yesterday afternoon was spent deciding the make-up of the council. We phoned additional references—last minute calls to clarify anything about the candidates,” Ceci said on Monday.

He said all the positions were competitive.

“Every single position certainly had extremely strong candidates. The director positions this year had seen way more applicants than in past years. That was particularly difficult.”

Samantha Boyce, incoming social issues commissioner and ArtSci ’10, said she wants to create awareness about social issues on campus.

“My focus is a lot about bringing concepts of anti-oppression to the student body,” she said. “A lot of the time students can shy away because we can come across as really intense.”

Incoming municipal affairs commissioner Libby Shaker, ArtSci ’10, said her commission will support the Homecoming plan laid out by Team CYZ.

“The plan under the new administration is that we’re not going to have it,” she said. “The plan is we’re trying to figure out two years from now how we can do it properly.”