King’s struggling to attract student union executives

Time commitment, tight social networks cited as reasons

President of the KSU, Dave Etherington, smiles in face of hard work in the KSU office. Photo: Laura Hochman

The King’s Students’ Union is holding its fourth byelection in two months as it tries to complete its council.

One executive member resigned over the summer and a second resigned at the beginning of the school year. Besides having a hard time finding students to run for the positions, the first byelection didn’t get enough votes to reach quorum, and right before the third byelection, the chief returning officer – the student who runs the elections – resigned so he could run for one of the executive positions.

The executive year begins March 15 with elections happening near the end of February. With the year almost over, people are wondering why executive elections are still going on.

Adrian Lee, the KSU’s vice-president of student life, says, “I think the way byelections are is that they’re not in the normal time frame. I think it just happens to conflict with people who are busier now. Everyone was so busy moving in, frosh week was happening, first years are barely grasping what King’s is, much less understanding how to vote. So I think with byelections, it’s the nature of the beast, they’re just in awkward times.”

Former KSU President Kaley Kennedy says students are currently under a lot of pressure financially and scholastically – and this limits the pool of people who might run as a candidate.

“We saw a record unemployment this summer with regards to students,” and students working for the union are underpaid and overworked, which means there’s a limit as to who can participate.

However, says Kennedy, “I think that there are more people involved in the students’ union and in the operations of the students’ union now than there were when I got here in 2005. It’s not that people aren’t engaged in the students’ union or don’t want to be involved, it’s that maybe that involvement doesn’t look like an executive position.”

David Etherington, the KSU’s current president, also suggests that the small population of the school is a factor in the amount of people running for positions.

In a school of 1,171 students, about 700 of which join some organization on campus, Etherington says it’s not uncommon for students to see a name on a poster and think, “that person actually seems really good to me and I don’t think I could do a better job than them. I’m friends with them so therefore, I’m going to support them.”

At a larger school, say with 10,000 students, names may go unrecognized and there may be more competition, Etherington says.

But at King’s, “you either know someone or you’re connected to them – your friend knows them. So I think it’s also possible that there’s a lot of consensus among people during elections,” says Etherington, “We also have a pretty high quorum compared to other unions – 25 per cent of the student body.”

Despite all the campaigning for counsel and executive positions, some of the positions did not have nominations until the third byelection and no one has yet run for the graduating committee.

“We’re leaning towards doing it like a hiring committee,” says Lee.

Despite their fewer numbers for the first few months of the school year, Lee is quick to reassure students that “while it’s been harder for us, we’re not just treading water. We’re managing the day-to-day operations well and there’s great work being done on external campaigns and the yearbook is still happening and we’re working on getting the library open. We’re still making stuff happen.”

Etherington is looking forward to hiring a full-time staff person. He feels once this happens more students will want to be involved with the executive because, “once we get the staff person in, the boring clerical stuff is gonna be gone … and I think this will actually be one of the most exciting places to be.”

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