In contested CESA Executive election, Team AmPLify aims to uplift student voices

Platform emphasizes effective communication between CESA and Con-Ed students

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Team AmPLify’s slogan is “Amplifying individuality

As one of two teams running for next year’s CESA Executive, Team AmPLify is focused on uplifting student voices.

Presidential candidate Alexis Pascoal, ConEd ’23, Vice-Presidential (Internal) candidate Lexie Ingoldsby, ConEd ’23, and Vice-Presidential (External) candidate Paris Tomazic. ConEd ’23, make up Team AmPLify. 

The team told The Journal they hope to maximize the power of differences and commonalities within the student body, while maintaining the sense of a collective with common goals. 

Their slogan, “Amplifying individuality, fostering community and creating opportunities,” is meant to reinforce how their platform is focused on creating opportunities and facilitating student engagement within the Queen’s and Kingston communities. 

Another priority for the team is mental health and wellness. 

“We really want to focus on the wellness of our students,” Pascoal said. “Mental health looks different and wellness looks different for everyone.” 

To keep student well-being at the forefront of CESA initiatives, the team plans to add a Wellness Representative to CESA Council and ensure students have consistent access to mental health resources beyond the temporary “de-stressing” solutions typically on offer around exam season. 

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“Our stressful season isn’t just exam season,” Pascoal said. 

Tomazic said her love for orientation and the Con-Ed community inspired her to run in the election. She was Academics Chair for Orientation 2020 and found the role fulfilling despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. 

Pascoal also wants to give back to the Con-Ed community.

“Con-Ed has served me for the past two and a half years and now I want to pay it back,” Pascoal, who served as orientation chair this year, said. 

Ingoldsby, the logistics director for Queen’s Conference on Education, said her motivation comes from “helping others find that love for Con-Ed.” 

Community connection and learning from others is one of the team’s three platform pillars. They hope to encourage all-year mingling to rectify “the divide” between first years and upper years—the former having missed out on some of the mentorship and advice from the latter because of the remote learning environment this year. 

The team also plans to take a collaborative approach to representing the faculty, ensuring initiatives are in line with the student body’s wants and needs. 

A related goal is club and community outreach, which the team said they’ve already begun. 

For Tomazic and her running mates, hearing from a diverse range of students is a priority. 

They want to “hear how [they] as a team can further [equity and diversity] clubs’ missions and values […] this is about an entire community,” she said. 

Team AmPLify also hopes to combine their goals of providing opportunities for Con-Ed students and “strengthen[ing] [the] relationship” between the association and the Kingston community by creating a volunteer portal that would match students with available volunteer opportunities at Queen’s or in the community. 

When asked what they believe is the most important change to make within CESA next year, Pascoal and Ingoldsby both cited declining student engagement. Tomazic added the importance of listening.

“If you are not actively listening, then you are not accurately representing,” she said. 

Tags

CESA, elections 2021

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