BOD sees 12 new directors, two from Brantford
Moments before Mike Onabolu was named Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union president, the men and women charged with keeping him in check were elected to their positions.
15 students were elected to the 2012-13 WLUSU board of directors and most of them will be new faces. Jon Pryce and Scott Fleming are the only holdovers from the current BOD, with Seth Warren returning to the position after being a director in 2010-11.
“I feel like I’ve gained a lot from being away from the board and then coming back to it,” said Warren. “It allowed me to get involved in a lot of different things and when you come into [the board] with a certain amount of knowledge, and you can get a bit stale if you don’t do other things.”
The other 12 directors, meanwhile, will all be rookies.
“I look at the new board as a new opportunity to start fresh and kind of look for new opportunities and look for new ways to grow together,” said Pryce, who has already expressed interest in running for chair of the board.
“It all depends on preparation, making sure that the directors are confident about what they’re doing, that they understand all the policies, and they’re trained well enough.”
“The majority of [new] people that got elected have been to meetings, so that’s going to be a great starting ground,” added Jordan Epstein, one of the first time directors. “It’ll probably be Jon Pryce is chair and I know he and [current chair] Chris Walker will train us really well.”
After having no students from the Brantford campus on the board this year, the 2012-13 BOD will have two. Alicia Appleby and Jennifer Tabarowski were both elected to director positions, finishing fifth and 10th in voting, respectively.
The other newly elected directors (in order of vote total) were: Deanna Sim, Hannah Lee, Epstein, Jazz Clement, Matt Casselman, Caleb Okwubo, Kate Stevenson, Jeff Vincent, Ryan Neufeld and Sebastian Dudek.
The number of female directors on the board for 2012-13 has also increased from this year, jumping from just one to five.
“I’m really excited for next year,” said Stevenson. “I’m really just looking forward to seeing Laurier from a different perspective and trying to influence the school in a positive way.”
The number of students running for the 15 director positions was also up from a year ago, from 18 to 21. The candidates that didn’t get elected were Alex Balint, Dannel Cartwright-Jordan, Marek Chovin, Dejan Eskic and Stephen Franchetto.
“The order of some of the candidates [in how they got elected] I’m going to question in terms of whether or not they were voted in by their merit or on whether or not it was because, ‘I know that guy!'” said Cirinna.
“Some of it’s questionable, but in all honestly, I’m a little upset. But I’m in senate and I’m going to run again next year and I’m still planning on running in 2015 for WLUSU president.”
-With files from Katie Flood