On Monday, April 8, the Office of the University Secretary released the election results from the race for student senators on the University of Victoria website.
Of the 10 individuals running for four positions on the UVic Senate in April, Sarina de Havelyn (Social Sciences), Megan Ingram (Social Sciences), Kai Richins (Engineering), and Dawit Weldemichael (Social Sciences) were elected.
Of the 21 042 students who were eligible, 625 voted, resulting in a 2.97 per cent voter turnout.
“This is the first year Senate elections have been separate from the UVSS elections,” said Ada Saab, Acting Associate University Secretary. “We anticipated a lower participation in terms of nominations and voter turnout as we moved to this new process.”
In addition to the four students who were elected to the Senate, eight students have already been acclaimed in the first call for nominations in January and the second call for nominations in March. These students will represent students in decisions of the university’s academic governance, as discussed and decided in both UVic Senate and Senate Committee meetings.
As 16 students should sit on Senate, four vacant seats remain. Due to the restrictions for the allocation of representatives based on faculty, however, these seats are reserved for students from the faculties of Education, Fine Arts, Human and Social Development, and Law.
The Office of the University Secretary hopes to fill these seats in September with the start of the new academic year.
“Student engagement is important and we will be working on increased advertising and other outreach to increase voter turnout,” said Saab.
For more information on election results, visit the UVic Senate website page.
