WHAT CAN STUDENTS EXPECT?
On Sunday November 30 at 10am hundreds of U of O students will be packed into the Alumni auditorium located in the basement of the UCU for the UOSU Autumn General Assembly (AGA) or, for those who don’t want to trek through late November snow, on zoom.
After some housekeeping and procedure, the AGA will begin in earnest with updates from the executive followed by a question period. In the past, these have been lively, with a heavy emphasis on club issues.
Financial and governance items will include approving both the 2023-2024 and the 2024-2025 audit, following the appointment of this year’s public account Logan-Katz LLP for the upcoming 2025-2026 year, the same account that served UOSU this previous year. The UOSU AGA was originally planned for Nov 23, but delays to the audit resulted in it being pushed back a week.
After UOSU’s contentious fall by-election, results will be ratified, and amendments to expand UOSU membership qualifications will be brought forward. Two executives and 10 board of directors’ candidates were elected.
Samar Mohamed Ahmed was elected as the new Student Life Commissioner, beating incumbent Emilia Bah, 63 per cent to Emilia’s 36 per cent. Incumbent Elnaz Enayatpour, beat Hamza El Mendri, for the role of Operation Commissioner, with 59 per cent of the vote. By-election turnout was 6.47 per cent, down from last year’s 8.47 per cent.
Additionally, students will vote to ratify Kim Mantha as the new Director of Indigenous Students, who was appointed by the Indigenous Student Association.
All UOSU members were free to submit motions for the AGA before the Oct 10 cutoff. Five motions from members will be debated and voted on, including a motion to reduce the 10% General Assembly quorum requirement for amendments – restoring democratic access to Constitutional amendments, have UOSU adopt a position in opposition to Bill 33, launch a public campaign for access to education, change the club’s code to allow club founders to stay on longer, and an amendment on interim executive members compliance with bilingualism.
Of the five, two of these motions were submitted by engineering student Daniel Thorpe, and two were submitted by political science student Luca Piomelli.
This year, students should expect a long day with a packed agenda. UOSU’s previous AGA ran just under 10 hours. The UOSU prediction team shares that this meeting is likely to be over 8hours. Students should keep an eye on the interim bilingualism motion, as this has historically been a heated topic at general assemblies in the past.
Students Registration for the AGA and appointment of proxies opened on Nov 9 and closes Nov 27 at 11:59pm. The AGA official agenda can be found on UOSU’s website. The Fulcrum will be providing all-day coverage on X (formerly twitter) at The Fulcrum (@The_Fulcrum) / X
