GUELPH POLITICAST #74 - The Central Student Association

Today is the last day for University of Guelph students to vote in a run-off election for next year's President of the Central Student Association. It's no small position, but getting undergrad students to vote for the person representing them to the university admin, the provincial and federal governments, and on all matter of student issues is no small feat itself. Fortunately, next year's slate of Vice-Presidents is already in place.

On this week's Guelph Politicast, we bring together VP Student Experience Emily Vance, VP Academic Becca Cheskes, and VP External Kayla Weller. All three were handily elected in the main CSA election back in mid-March, and, as you'll hear, they're all eager to get down to business. This will be an interesting year for the CSA. The recent decision to go from a co-operative governance structure to a more traditional hierarchical one did not come without controversy, but where others see controversy, Vance, Cheskes and Weller see opportunity.

The three talk about what their goals and challenges are for the next year on this week's podcast. Obviously, they're going to be at the forefront of explaining the changes to Guelph Transit to their fellow students, and they'll be on-hand this summer as the renovations begin on the second floor of the University Centre. Along with that, there's the existential problems of increasing tuition, increasing fees, increasing textbook prices, class sizes, and stress. Mental health is a big issues that also comes up in conversation, as does the controversy around Jay Rojas, who lost the presidency last month by just over 100 votes despite being the only candidate.

So let's talk to the VEEPs and all their wonderful ideas and expectations for the year ahead. For students, this is a great chance to get to know your new representatives, and for everyone else, you can remember back to a simpler time when the political world was full of possibilities, just like every episode of the Guelph Poltiicast!

If you're so inclined, you can keep up with the CSA by-election here, and you can keep up to date will CSA goings on here.

The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.

Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.