The Students’ Association announced its 2018-19 Board of Directors at its annual general meeting in the Student Commons on Wednesday.
The new board members, elected by the student body, are Madeleine Soroczan-Wright (massage therapy), Karl Houlihan (music industry arts), Kanwalnain Kaur (human resources management), Matthew Regnier (public relations), Preet Savsani (international business management), Deijanelle Simon (advertising and marketing communications management), Michael Wolff (bachelor of early learning and community development) and Paige Nicks (social service worker at Pembroke campus).
Current SA president Victoria Ventura introduced each candidate as they made their way to the stage. She also clarified the by-law that requires one member of the board to be from the Pembroke campus.
Nicks, a candidate from the Pembroke campus, will stand uncontested since the nominations from the floor are students from the Ottawa campus.
The two student nominations from the floor were not voted into the board. Kaur, the leading vote-getter, received 1,145 proxy votes from around Algonquin in addition to the 19 received during the meeting.
The selection process consisted of five steps. Students who were interested in being elected filled out nomination packages between Nov. 27 and Jan. 19 at which point the forms were vetted to ensure the students met the director criteria.
After they were vetted, candidates attended interviews and orientation sessions that explained their roles and responsibilities. After the selection committee completed interviews, they chose the candidates they believed were best for recommendation to the board, which approved the candidates at a meeting on Feb. 22.
Now that the new board has been chosen, the next step is to elect the president and vice-president. Campaigning starts on March 15 and will last until midnight on April 1. Voting starts on April 2 and closes at 1 p.m. on April 6.
It was also announced at the meeting that the financial statements from the year ending on June 30, 2017 were approved by accounting firm Collins Barrow, which will be brought back by the SA for next year’s audit.