GSA to hold annual election March 13–14

By Scott Strasser, March 7 2017 —

Though the Students’ Union election generally hogs the spotlight at the University of Calgary this time of year, the Graduate Students’ Association will hold their own election on March 13–14.

Four of the five executive positions are already acclaimed. Brit Paris will be GSA president, Willem Klumpenhouwer will be vice-president external, Taha Afyouni will be vice-president student life and Christiana Manzocco will be vice-president finance and services.

Negar Mohammadi and Xiang Yan will run for the only contested position of the election, vice-president academic.

Mohammadi’s platform focuses on four main themes — graduate course work, research proposals, external academic opportunities and academic awards.

“I think these are the four main points that cover everything that all the graduate students need in their academic lives,” she said. “There are some questions related to each one of them and there are some concerns for everyone. My plan is to try and address all of these concerns.”

Yan said her platform focuses on student development and getting graduate students involved in GSA events.

“I want to focus on student development [academically],” she said. “I have previous experience with different associations and clubs.”

The GSA held an executive forum on Feb. 28 where the candidates recited their goals and answered audience questions. Over 50 people attended.

Audience questions included if the candidates had informed their supervisors that they were going to be involved with the GSA next year, if they will put coursework on hold and how they plan on engaging graduate students who are not on the main U of C campus.

The election results will be announced March 15 at the Last Defence Lounge in MacHall. Graduate students can vote through D2L from March 13–14.

The GSA represents the roughly 6,000 graduate students at the U of C. They provide services, lobby government, bargain collective agreements for U of C teaching assistants and operate the LDL.