SU searches for replacement after senate representative resigns

By Jason Herring, May 18 2017 —

The Students’ Union is looking to fill another vacancy after current senate representative Julie Le resigned on May 18. Le was one of two elected senate representatives in March’s SU general election, along with Alisha Gordon.

This is the second time in the past year that a senate representative position has been vacant. Kyle Schole was disqualified from the position in October 2016 for not being a U of C student.

“[Le] got accepted to medical school at the University of Alberta, which is phenomenal for her, but not as good for students because they’re losing a good senator,” SU president Branden Cave said.

The role of senate representatives is to promote student interests for the SU on the senate.

The SU is seeking applications from students to fill the position. The SU Nominations Committee will interview selected candidates and recommend a student to appoint as senate representative to Students’ Legislative Council, which SLC will then vote on. Cave hopes to have the position filled before the senate meets in June.

Cave said the appointed senate representative will serve the role temporarily, as a replacement will be elected by students in the SU’s October byelection.

“In September whoever we decide to take over the position will resign. Then in the byelection, when we elect the education representative and social work representative, we’ll also elect the senate representative,” Cave said.

Le said she was aware that she may not have been able to fulfill the role when she ran for senate.

“It definitely was a hard decision to make because of course you never really know and medical school isn’t an easy task to get in either,” Le said. “I was also very passionate about the position of being a senate representative and there were projects I wanted to continue.”

Any undergraduate student can apply for the senate representative position. For more details, click here.