Queen’s students aren’t engaging with their student government because they don’t know how it serves them.
Any other year, The Journal would have released an official endorsement for an incoming AMS executive team last week. This year, though, there was no AMS executive team for The Journal’s Editorial Board to meet with.
Recent years have seen a decline in students’ engagement with on-campus elections, from both voters and candidates.
This year’s AMS executive election was uncontested. Team JNN’s exit from the election left Queen’s students with no candidates in the running to represent them next year. Consequently, in a Special Assembly on Feb. 13, current AMS Assembly members will appoint the 2024-25 AMS executive team from among newly formed teams.
Not only will the teams who present themselves at Special Assembly only have been preparing their platforms, at most, since Feb. 1, they will be made up of students who hadn’t enough passion or organization to run initially.
Attaching those characteristics to the entire pool of prospective candidates doesn’t paint an encouraging portrait of next year’s AMS executives.
Only AMS Assembly members will be able to participate in electing the executives.
Involving such a small subset of students, each similar enough to have involved themselves with the AMS in similar roles, could be counterintuitive when choosing a team to represent the diverse interests of all Queen’s students. Equally true, however, is that AMS Assembly members have all spent the last eight months of their lives familiarizing themselves with the responsibilities of the AMS and the skills necessary in satisfying those duties.
AMS Assembly members will also be far more engaged and aware voters than most Queen’s students. Last year, only 17 per cent of students voted in the AMS executive election.
Candidates in uncontested elections are bound to be held to lower standards than if their platforms had to be measured against other candidates’. When there are no alternatives, saying “no” feels less like an option. Uncontested candidates may hold themselves to lower standards as well, knowing their general qualifications and additional preparedness will be subject to less scrutiny.
Understanding and engaging with the AMS isn’t only rare amongst voters but, it would appear, amongst candidates.
When asked, Team JNN was unable to answer the sum of Queen’s deficit.
Prospective student representatives must be able to provide voters with informed, specific, and tangible goals.
In his campaign for Rector, Leo Yang proclaimed himself to have been the most active person in regards to the deficit, yet failed to elaborate with specific evidence as to how that was the case. Niki Boytchuk-Hale, elected Queen’s next Rector, aspired in her portfolio to enhance holistic student safety by ensuring students’ physical, psychological, and spiritual safety. Safety, though a desirable concept, is an ambiguous and undefined target.
AMS executive teams must be outspoken on behalf of Queen’s students, particularly in the face of budget cuts. Although cuts seem inevitable at this point, students can influence what domains are affected, but only with adequate support from their elected leaders.
AMS executives must be willing to publicly challenge the University on behalf of students—preparedness to dissent from the University is fundamental and necessary to student government.
Candidates must understand the roles they’re running for before being elected into them. Though prior experience isn’t required to run for a position as the AMS executive, awareness of the AMS’s functions and purposes, as well as details on specific policies, should be expected of candidates.
When newly elected officials spend too much of their time learning on the job, issues from previous governments fall between the cracks, as do everyday responsibilities, such as contacting the appropriate people at the appropriate times and regularly approving important documents like invoices.
Increasing the involvement of permanent staff overshadows student voices.
The AMS Board of Directors refuses to release open sessions minutes, further denying students the already grossly lacking transparency they’re entitled to.
Students can’t be expected to vote in elections when they don’t feel the outcome will affect their lives.
Elected representatives must be more outspoken in their communication both on behalf of and in conversation with students, and must devise plans for doing so prior to running, rather than improvising days, weeks, or months into the job.
—Journal Editorial Board
Tags
AMS, Elections, Endorsement, student politics
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.