Team SJA won the uncontested Commerce Society (ComSoc) election for the 2024-25 school year, ComSoc announced on Feb. 17.
The team is comprised of Sagaana Sivathason as president-elect, Jillian Weatherby as vice president (student affairs)-elect and Ashton Seebaran as vice president (operations)-elect. Their term will begin in May 2024.
The three Comm ’25 students ran on a platform of ability and transparency while improving student engagement.
“While we have seen unprecedented levels of interest in club hiring cycles, we have noticed engagement in other aspects, such as club events and programming, hasn’t recovered fully following the pandemic,” the team said in a t statement to The Journal.
The society isn’t in a financial deficit, according to a statement from Seebaran, and the increase in student fees from $55 to $85 last year was due to post-pandemic inflation.
ComSoc has faced various financial challenges over the past two years; the society struggled to keep up with shouldered the disbandment of a high-profile club.
Seebaran maintains that there was no correlation between the disbandment of QFA and the subsequent fee increase.
“The increase in student fees […] resulted from changes in the operations of all student organizations and clubs,” Seebaran said in a statement to The Journal. “Following the pandemic, there was a slight increase in prices for in-person events.”
Team SJA hopes to increase accessibility to events and provide resources to organizers to achieve this goal. Both Sivathason and Weatherby promised to make equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) a top priority by addressing student complaints and conducting EDI training across the Society.
Once in office, the trio will hit the ground running to develop a timeline of actionable goals for the year through a “hands-on brainstorming forum.” For Team SJA, ensuring a collective vision across ComSoc is a priority.
“Team SJA strongly believes in incorporating the unique goals and ideas of our team into our greater vision to maximize the benefits to the Commerce student body,” Team SJA said.
Corrections
An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled Sivathason and Weatherby’s last names. Incorrect information was published in the March 1 issue of The Queen’s Journal.
The Journal regrets the error
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