Abby Epstein – Arts & Culture Editor

Photo courtesy of Emily Crunican

Several students are contending for open positions in the upcoming fall BUSRC election, to be held this week. Voting will be held Tuesday morning and closes Wednesday at midnight (Sept. 17-18) at busrc.simplyvoting.com. 

Running for first-year student representative, Britney Ellis Rahman, an education student, intends on addressing several of the issues that she has noticed around campus. In particular, she highlights how Menstrual Equity Project’s “baskets are always empty.” She also intends to rectify any barriers that LGBTQ+ students face when changing their deadnames on their student profile, describing “core issues of respect to large swathes of our student body.” To ease the process for first-years getting to know the area, she hopes to include off-campus tours to the standard onboarding procedure and work with various departments to create an interactive map of campus.

Josef Spence, the prospective on-campus representative, brings with him three years of student government experience from a variety of roles. He hopes to carry that momentum forward: “I am in a particularly good position to put my energy towards whatever concerns students might have.” He also “hopes to explore ways in which Bishop’s students can communicate ideas and concerns with the SRC anonymously, so that they are able to share their opinions without the stress of meeting with someone face-to-face”.

Abass Zakari, a graduate student in the thesis-based computer science master’s program, makes his bid for graduate student senator. He served three consecutive terms as class representative as an undergraduate and attributes his success to the fact that “[he] was a credible mouthpiece for [his] constituents.” He hopes to continue to represent the graduate students at Bishop’s. 

Chanelle Comeau-Eryou, a first-year student studying psychology, is running for the new position of sexual culture representative. During her time at Champlain College, Comeau-Eryou was a member of Sexed, a committee working towards the goal of increasing student awareness of gender and sexual identity issues. “I want to use my experiences from Sexed to help my peers at Bishop’s,” she says. “Creating a safe and welcoming environment is crucial, as I want everyone to feel as safe and accepted as possible.”

This new position comes out of the Bishop’s Sexual Culture Committee, which has been running for the past 5 years. “[The] committee carries out things like the take back the night, speaker events and other things around sexual health and inclusivity,” says Karen Dymond, secretary general of the SRC. “The work is very very important, so having a representative on the board is something that’s also very important.”

The following students are also running for open positions: Émilie Beauchamp for general councillor, Antoine Blais for general councillor, and Alpha Diallo for graduate student senator. Students should check their bishop’s email during the voting period for access to the voting link. As always, spring elections will be held later this year for the SRC executive council and other positions on the board.