Students vote for pass/fail option and lowered tuition
17.8 per cent of student body voted in online by-election
A chunk of referendum questions from this year’s Concordia Student Union by-election had to do with student life in the pandemic, like proctored exams, increased workload, tuition, accessibility, and the pass/fail grading option.
In contrast to the last CSU election, which only reached a 5.6 voter turnout, this by-election garnered a 17.8 per cent voter turnout. Nearly 6,000 students voted.
Read more: CSU by-election: A rundown of referendum questions
All these referendum questions passed with over 95 per cent approval, with the exception of the anti-Proctorio question with 89.9 per cent and pass/fail with 91.5 per cent. The tuition question reached 5,364 yes votes.
They all also had uncharacteristically low abstention rates, with all of them under the 15 per cent mark.
These questions passing means the CSU will now advocate for these changes to the university administration.
The remaining referendum questions also passed.
The fee-levy for the StudentCare service Dialogue passed with 2,883 votes, as did the fee-levy increase for CJLO with 1,967 votes.
The mental health question passed with 4,617 votes, meaning the CSU will begin data collection and cost analysis to create a service that can accommodate students’ mental health needs.
With 1,771 votes, the Concordia University Sports Shooting Association has officially become a club under the CSU.
Finally, with 3,459 votes, the questions on council composition passed. This does not mean the structuring of council will change immediately. Instead, the question was a way for students to communicate to the CSU that they want a more diverse council.
Read more: CSU by-election: A rundown of who’s running for council
For newly elected councillors, the results are:
Arts & Science
Debra Irabor: 1,239 (ELECTED)
Nicole Nashen: 1,232 (ELECTED)
Brandon Grimaldi: 848 (ELECTED)
John Molson School of Business
Wyatt Niblett-Wilson: 973 (ELECTED)
Shlomo Tanny: 856 (ELECTED)
Gurjot Gill: 527
Fine Arts
Phineas Ambrose Savchenko: 347 (ELECTED)
Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science
Sean Howard: 596 (ELECTED)
Alexander Stojda: 560 (ELECTED)
