At Friday’s Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union board of directors meeting, the board approved the resignation of director Sunny Chan.
On Feb. 5 at 5:12 a.m., just hours after it was announced that he came in last place in the presidential election, Chan sent chair of the board Saad Aslam his letter of resignation.
“To be honest, based on the presidential results, I don’t feel I have the confidence of the undergraduate student population of this university to continue to represent them,” said Chan. “The number of votes is a clear indication.”
Chan received 149 votes out of the 3,502 – four per cent – cast for president.
Chan is the third director to step down this term, following resignations from both Justin Glover and Peter Hanna.
“I think he was really disheartened by the results,” said Aslam.“We tried to contact him, but he didn’t want to be contacted. He’s moved on, I guess.”
The letter of resignation sent in by Chan stated that his reason for resigning was that he felt he could no longer represent students on the board in terms of governance, advocacy and representation.
“My personal opinion about being a director: you have to be honest and transparent,” said Chan.
He added that didn’t feel as though he had accomplished any advocacy and there were too many could change.
“From my two experiences on the board, I have seen two different ways of the board being run, and I have seen nearly the same result,” said Chan.
“Last year’s board made a whack of changes that made this year’s board struggle.”
Chan feels that the structure of the board and how it is run is a major hindrance to its functionality, stating that the size of the board is something that should be examined.
Chan also noted that it was problematic that students didn’t understand the concept of a two-term board enough to pass a referendum, which was asked of students in last year’s WLUSU election.
“Having the board elected in the same term as the president never made any sense to me, as the board is supposed to be for the long term and the president is short-term,” said Chan.
“So I guess really I picked the wrong fight and it’s an action you have to live with,” Chan concluded.
The board, now reduced to 12 members, has a quorum of eight and must have at least 10 members sitting on it.
Aslam stated that he doesn’t foresee any other directors resigning in the near future; therefore, the current board should be fine to finish the rest of their term.
