This year’s Students’ Union election sees more candidates and more participation from students over last year’s election, especially from Brantford.
With two Brantford candidates in the running for president, two for the board of directors and one for the senate, Brantford has a total of five members of their campus in the race for positions within the Students’ Union.
Tarique Plummer, Waterloo candidate in the running for president and CEO of the Students’ Union, is excited that there are more students at Brantford taking an active role in student politics.
“I feel like more individuals are becoming aware that there is an election process taking place,” Plummer said.
“Now I am hoping that there will be a higher voter turnout, not only at Brantford campus but also at the Waterloo campus. With more candidates comes further engagement and I am excited to see what that brings.”
Ali Saghari, another candidate from Waterloo also in the running for president and CEO of the Students’ Union, shared his thoughts on the increased student participation at Brantford.
“I think Brantford has always been involved in their own community,” Saghari said.
“We’re working more as one unit and we understand the Students’ Union is the main glue that sticks to the two campuses together.”
Saghari and Plummer have been working hard in both Brantford and Waterloo to reach out to students and connect with them.
“One way I would like to approach that is by the representation groups pushed forward by my platform so that I can have students who can bring their voice to me so that I can best represent them as a group of students.”
“The Brantford campus is smaller than the Waterloo campus, the perception plays a part in terms that the Waterloo campus may forget sometimes that the Brantford campus exists, because of how small it is,” Plummer said.
“The geographical distance also plays a part in how these two campuses can unite”
Nevertheless, Plummer noted that students between Brantford and Waterloo share a common identity.
“We’re all students, two different campuses but one university,” Plummer said.
Saghari expanded on some similarities between the two campuses, while encouraging both to celebrate their differences and diversity.
“I think what it boils down to is that both student groups are extremely passionate, it’s just what they are passionate about is slightly different. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Brantford needs to have its own identity, Waterloo needs to have its own identity,” Saghari said.
“I would like to bring about factors where we have more commonalities, but also encourage the differences that come about due to the different programs that each campus has,” continued Saghari.
On facing the greatest challenges between representing two student bodies between two campuses, Ryley Fletcher, a presidential candidate from Brantford, noted that Laurier is just one large student body rather than two separate campuses with two separate student bodies.
“I look at it as representing one student body that goes to Laurier rather than two different campuses. If I were to look at it differently from one student body I would look at it as 17,000 bodies of students if you will,” Fletcher said.
“One way I would like to approach that is by the representation groups pushed forward by my platform so that I can have students who can bring their voice to me so that I can best represent them as a group of students.”
“I think it’s a challenge representing anybody that’s not yourself, but its just important to recognize that, although we have two separate campuses, whether you went to school in Brantford or went to school in Waterloo, you have to represent 17,000 students either way,” Fletcher said.