SLC unanimously appoints arts rep to vacant VP external position

By Tina Shaygan, October 24 2017 —

Students’ Legislative Council voted unanimously to approve Faculty of Arts representative Puncham Judge as the new vice-president external on Oct. 24. This came after Shubir Shaikh resigned from the position earlier in the semester due to personal reasons.

According to Students’ Union bylaws, a vacant executive position must be filled by a current member of SLC — recommended by Nominations Committee — if the vacancy comes up past the deadline for nomination in the byelection. In the Oct. 17 meeting of SLC, the first reading to appoint Judge as the new vice-president external passed unanimously when Nominations Committee’s recommendation was brought forward.

Judge is a fourth-year political science student and previous meeting documents cited her community involvement and schedule flexibility as reasons the Nominations Committee recommended her to fill the position. The documents also added that the burden of work on the other four executives indicated a sense of urgency in finding a replacement vice-president external.

During the brief debate period at the Oct. 24 SLC meeting, Judge was asked why she applied for the position and what her platform would entail. Judge responded that she would follow Shaikh’s platform points.

“Mr. Shaikh was someone that I worked closely with during the campaign season and he was also my elected official lead,” Judge said. “I am fairly familiar with the platform goals that he had and what he wanted to accomplish in his term.”

Judge added that she was excited to start advocating for students and was strongly considering running for the vice-president external position in the 2018 SU general election in March.

“This is what I wanted to do next year so I’m getting ahead of myself by six months. With the six months period, I can use it to solidify what I want to do next year if I were to run,” she said. “I think this is really beneficial to have under my belt in the general election next year.”

SU vice-president operations and finance Ryan Wallace, who chairs Nominations Committee, said he is confident in Judge’s abilities to fulfil the position’s requirements and will collaborate closely with her as she transitions into the new role.

Judge’s approval has created a vacant arts representative position. The position will be filled through applications via the Nominations Committee, who are also looking to fill the vacant veterinary medicine representative position.