By Brennan Doherty and Keith Capstick
CORRECTION: we originally reported that Unite Ryerson had won several faculty director positions that they hadn’t. Unite Ryerson candidates won three of four community service seats (Zahra Islam, Kayla Reid, Stacey Manhue). That leaves Transform Ryerson with 23 of the 26 total (executive and faculty director) positions.
Transform Ryerson will be the governing slate for next year’s Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) executive, after sweeping all five executive positions on Wednesday night.
As the first opposition slate since 2011, Transform beat out the incumbent Unite Ryerson in every single executive candidate position, with Andrea Bartlett claiming the president’s position, Cormac McGee as vice-president education, Obaid Ullah as vice-president operations, Rabia Idrees as vice-president equity, and Harman Singh as vice-president student life.
Bartlett says that in the short amount of time she’s had to think about it, the feeling of being president is just starting to set in, and that there has been a lot of positive feedback from the campus community.
“Obviously, there’s still that window of recounting the ballots, those sorts of things … so I guess that’s going to be when everything sinks in. But right now, everybody’s just riding the excitement, riding the energy,” Bartlett said.
By the time the count finished, all of Unite Ryerson’s presidential candidates had been outvoted by more than two-to-one.
Transform RU candidates watching screen as election results come in.
Photo: Jake Scott
Unite Ryerson still managed to hold onto a number of faculty director positions, winning one of three Arts position, one spot in the Ted Rogers School of Management, and all three in the Faculty of Community Services.
Transform Ryerson won both the Faculty of Communication and Design (FCAD), and the Engineering Faculty outright.
Dozens of candidates, supporters, and student media packed the back corner of the Ram in the Rye where the RSU had set up a projector to broadcast results as they came in from the Chief Returning Officer.
Dozens of people — mostly Transform Ryerson supporters — howled and screamed at each new update.
Over the course of the evening, the Twitter hashtag #RSUElections reached as high as the third highest trending hashtag in Canada.
In stark contrast to past election nights, The Ram’s back room was packed as votes poured in for more than seven hours.
The Eyeopener asked Bartlett what she would do next year to improve the election progress and avoid some of the troubles she and her team have had. “I think we need to explore online voting,” said Bartlett.
“The most important thing is communication, making sure everyone is on the same page before the election even starts. You’ve got to dot all your I’s and cross all of you T’s,” Bartlett said.
Check out our full coverage here.
The RSU Facebook page lists the final unofficial results of the election as the following:
RSU EXECUTIVES
President
Andrea Bartlet 2414
Pascale Diverlus 1209
Vice President Education
Cormac McGee 2272
Zidan Mohamed 1231
Vice President Equity
Rabia Idrees 2363
Anuja Jeeva 1239
Vice President Operations
Joshua D’Cruz 280
Andrew Silverthorn 1134
Obaid Ullah 2127
Vice President Student Life and Events
Agang Moeng 1308
Harman Singh 2289
FACULTY DIRECTORS
Arts
Angelina Balasadas 167
Gizelle Lao 196
Bianca Marryshow 178
Hannah Van Dyk 196
Alexander Waddling 186
Leizl Yance 152
Business
Rana Abdalla 321
Youssef Ali 313
Celina Hernandez 683
Nav Marwah 724
Husain Mulla 122
Noah Parker 729
Vilirsa Rajadurai 303
Samra Ramzan 695
Halley Requena-Silva 235
Janakan Senthikumar 195
Azeem Shah 135
Communications and Design
Jesica Albotra 122
Shay Alford 457
Olivia Amu 128
Tavia Bakowski 463
Komal Bhatti 40
Lucas Bozzo 78
Mira El-Assi 129
Mady Krapez-Fewster 441
Tarisai Ngangura 118
Tyler Webb 467
Community Services
Zahra Islam 192
Kinza Malik 161
Stacey Manhue 181
Cassandra Myers 175
Kayla Reid 190
Engineering and Architecture
Dave Alcivar 372
Sabah Choudhry 241
Alison Doucette 68
Islam Elkadi 185
Kamal Kamran 144
Amar Latchman 356
Iman Malhi 47
Mariam Nouser 452
Lillie Qiu 66
Urooj Siddiqui 486
Science
Zuhra Omary 92
Nermin Piragic 71
Matthew Tesfaldet 122
Ana Sofia Vargas Garza 123
GRADUATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chairperson
Uthman Said
Deputy Chairperson Education
Pablo Godoy
Deputy Chairperson Finance
(Not Contested)
Deputy Chairperson Student Life and Events
Sandra Herrera
undercoverkity
I guess when your slate is made up of racists and supporters of killing cops , to mention but a few things, The students are going to say enough is enough. I am very happy to have been around long enough to see this sham of a slate finally not just defeated , but utterly humiliated in these elections. Good bye RSU, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.