SAMRU 2023 elections recap
Khai Choual, Staff Writer
The official results from the 2023 Representation Executive Council (REC) elections are in. Every March, candidates are voted in by Mount Royal University (MRU) credit students. According to the Student Association of Mount Royal University (SAMRU) website, the “Representatives are elected by their peers to be the student voice by representing the interests of students to Mount Royal University and all three levels of government.”
The REC at MRU consists of four elected students that oversees the governance of the Students’ Association. This means various representation initiatives for student concerns such as tuition and loans, lobbying and external relations.
The polls were open from March 13 to 16, and in the end, 805 out of 12,109 (6.6 per cent) electors voted for their new student representatives. Voters for the presidential position elected Joseph Nguyen with 500 votes with a turnout of 63.1 per cent, leaving Andrea Ciaramella behind with 293 votes and a turnout of 36.9 per cent. This will be Nguyen’s second term as REC president. Nguyen, before serving as president of the 2022/23 REC team, also served as the Vice-President of student affairs in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 terms.
For the vice-president academic position, 643 voted Yes for Tala Abu Hayyaneh who had a turnout of 86.8 per cent and vice-president student affairs Anisa Tilston with a voter count of 597 who voted Yes with a turnout of 81.8 per cent. Both Abu Hayyaneh and Tilston have been involved with SAMRU in a volunteer capacity for several years and were uncontested for the positions they ran for.
SAMRU is still hiring for a VP external representative. REC members will begin their one-year terms on May 1, 2023.
A student governing board election was also held last Feb. 8 at SAMRU’s annual general meeting. According to SAMRU, “a student governor, along with other members of the SAMRU Student Governing Board (SGB), helps oversee the strategic direction of SAMRU and governs the organization on behalf of [its] members (MRU credit students). The SGB is the highest decision-making body of the organization.”
The student governors that were elected were Angel Castillo, Kyle Joseph and Orion Tigley and the candidates that were re-elected were Nancy Tran and Taylor Amy.
