Students' Union elects Nicole Schmidt as new president

After weeks of forums and online campaigning, undergraduate students at UCalgary now know who their student leaders will be for the 79th Students’ Legislative Council — the decision-making body of the Students' Union (SU). Nicole Schmidt (photo above, centre) is the SU president-elect capturing 76 per cent of the vote. Schmidt will take over from current SU president Frank Finley in May.

In the Faculty of Arts race, students selected four candidates from seven who had thrown their hats in the ring. Elected to the Faculty of Arts representative positions are Fayo Abdi, Justin Gotta, Matthew Herring, and Sofia Huarte Aguilar.

In the Faculty of Kinesiology race, Areeb Qayyum was elected with 45 per cent of votes cast. In the Faculty of Nursing, Dorsa Zamanpour won that race with 52 per cent of votes in that faculty.

New SU president Nicole Schmidt will join acclaimed executives Renzo Pereyra (VP academic), Marley Gillies (VP external), Mickail Hendi (VP operations and finance), and Assad Ali Bik (VP student life) as the 79th SU executive team.

3,055 students voted in the 2021 General Election. The results announced on March 5 are provisional and will become official on March 12, 2021.

All newly elected officials will be sworn into office at the Colour Night ceremony in early May. Over the summer, the newly elected student leaders will conduct orientation and annual planning sessions.

Other results include acclaimed candidates for the following faculty representative positions:

Cumming School of Medicine

• Rafael Sanguinetti

Law

• Saliha Haq

Science

• Pragya Chopra
• Megan Raivio
• Chaten Jessel

Veterinary Medicine

• Lauren Stoffregen

Haskayne School of Business

• Adrian Alcantara

Schulich School of Engineering

• Taimur Akhtar
• Khaled Elmalawany

Werklund School of Education

• Dhwani Joshi

Shagufta Farheen is appointed to the UCalgary Senate while current SU president Frank Finley was acclaimed to the UCalgary Board of Governors as the student-at-large representative.

The SU will hold a by-election in the fall of 2021 to fill a vacancy for the second UCalgary Senate seat as well as for open faculty representative positions in the faculties of Social Work, the Cumming School of Medicine, and the Haskayne School of Business.