SAMRU announces 2026 student election results

Nadoo Abaagu, Staff Writer

This article has been updated to correct errors present in the original printed version.

Student elections at Mount Royal University (MRU) have come and swiftly gone. The time for campaigning is over. No more posters will scatter the hallways, no more students will haggle for a vote, and there will be no more SAMRU (Student Association of Mount Royal University) election advertisements.

All that is left now is the results: What 18 students will determine SAMRU’s future for the year to come? 

Student Governing Board

The Student Governing Board (SGB) is the highest decision-making board of SAMRU. It hires 14 students from the MRU student body to govern the student association and represent student needs in line with approved advocacy priorities.

This year, seven positions were available.

Chris Brown, Fabiha Hassan, Kenzy Jali, Jasmyn Krywolt, Patricia Maglalang, Sara Muskaj and  Sheena Sahota will serve as incoming student governors for fall 2026. The students range from first- to third-year and represent different parts of MRU.

REC President, Noel Ormita. Photo courtesy of SAMRU

Representation Executive Council 

The Representation Executive Council (REC) comprises four students elected annually. Each student position represents a different aspect of student life at MRU and reflects students’ priorities to the university, as well as provincial and federal boards.

The candidates shared similar themes in their campaign messaging, with many advocating for affordability and accessibility. 

Here’s who ran for REC positions:

Noel Ormita and Vlad Semeshko both ran for REC president, with Ormita winning with 60.5 per cent of student votes. 

Ormita ran on affordability for students and improving communication between SAMRU and students.

“I think for sure tuition is a big issue and financial restrictions [are] a big issue for a lot of students. One of the things I really want to advocate for with the provincial government, by working with the VP External, is to increase the minimum wage from $15 to $18 an hour,” he says.  

Anita Surujbally and Liv Lopez ran for REC vice president student affairs. Lopez will take on REC VP student affairs with 53.1 per cent of the student vote.

As a candidate, Lopez says she wants to improve the accessibility and visibility of student services.

“One of my goals is to rework how we market these existing services, diversifying our messaging so that support is visible, straightforward, and accessible long before a student reaches a crisis point,” she says.

Julia Madden and Erika Sofia Ortiz ran for REC vice president academics. Madden will serve as REC VP academic with 53.1 per cent of the votes.

Madden ran a campaign primarily addressing student living costs and lowering textbook prices.

“How can we try to push for more zero-cost textbooks in the classrooms because we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. I think that is probably the most important thing in my campaign that everyone can relate with,” she explains.

Rylynne Campbell and Mariana Mejia Salazar ran for REC vice president external. Salazar will serve as REC VP external with 63.6 per cent of the votes.

Salazar says she wants to improve barriers to attending post-secondary and make the post-secondary experience worthwhile and affordable for students.

“I think affordability is one of the biggest issues students struggle with. It’s one of the biggest barriers to even accessing post-secondary education,” Salazar says. 

Voter turnout is still an issue

A total of 1,877 students voted in the 2026 election, representing 14.4 per cent of Mount Royal University students.

In the last decade, less than 20 per cent of MRU’s student body has turned out to vote in student elections, according to Shauna Hunter, chief returning officer of SAMRU elections.

Students say they have difficulty voting due to busy lives or a lack of interest.

“I didn’t vote at all, mostly just because I was kind of busy, and it’s my first year, so I wasn’t very involved in any of the processes,” says Samuel Donnelly,  an open studies student at MRU.

“I didn’t vote, [I] also kind of didn’t have enough time. But I don’t really use much of the state-of-the-art resources anyway,” said Mason Passarelli, a computer information systems student.

With his position as REC President-Elect, Ormita says staying involved in campus matters ensures that students’ voices are heard.

“When student leaders, whether that’s me or somebody else, advocate to the government and say,  ‘this is what students care about’, but they don’t show up in the data, it says a lot to them about the priorities and the policies that they can create around us,” says Ormita.

“We have to make sure that it’s us that they hear, because the government and the university will only invest in what they hear. And it’s important that it’s [the] students [who] hear.”