Rector election policy revised

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When students elect a rector this month, the AMS and the Society of Graduate and Professional Students (SGPS) will use separate ballots for the first time.

“It will be one election, that each society will facilitate … for their society,” SGPS President Jillian Burford-Grinnell said. “The voting period will be the same.”

Traditionally the AMS has facilitated rector elections because of a 1981 contract between the AMS and the SGPS — then known as the Graduate Student Society.

Burford-Grinnell, MA ’11 and JD ’14, said the new policy outlining the concurrent elections has been in the works for a few months.

“The SGPS, myself and our speaker, we prepared several drafts and then forwarded it to the AMS to go through their various bodies,” she said.

AMS Assembly passed the policy on Sept. 29. The policy will be brought to SGPS Council for approval next week.

Under the new policy, SGPS members will be able to vote for a rector on the SGPS website or with paper ballots.

“It makes sense for our members to vote in a way that’s consistent with how we conduct our elections,” she said, adding that she hopes the policy will make voting more accessible for SGPS members.

The rector is the only position that is appointed by the entire student membership.

AMS President Morgan Campbell said the new policy doesn’t change the AMS’s involvement in the election process.

“It just brings the SGPS into the system that the AMS has always been running,” Campbell, ArtSci ’11, said.

The change is solely a logistical one, Campbell said, adding that she doesn’t think it will affect voter turnout.

“This election will very much be a trial,” she said. “We’re now working together so that we basically will approve all the campaign materials jointly, approve the nomination packages jointly.” Nominations for the rector require 800 signatures of support from Queen’s students. They are due by Oct. 12 for the campaign period that begins Oct. 14.

The election will run from Oct. 25 to 26.

Tags

AMS, Rector election, SGPS

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