Arts and Science students will have a familiar face representing them this year on the University Students’ Council. Leon Thompson was one of two councillors elected from the college Sept. 23.

Thompson, who served on USC before being elected to last year’s University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union as vice-president student affairs, is also the elected student representative to the University Senate.

“I decided to run for MSC because in the last few years we haven’t seen high participation rates in student government, and I was concerned that we didn’t have any representatives for the biggest college on campus,” Thompson said of his somewhat unusual political trajectory.

Having tasted the $30,000-per-year salary of a USSU executive member, Thompson now holds two volunteer positions, though it should perhaps be mentioned that he will be fed at the two annual senate meetings.

Asked what he hopes to achieve this year that eluded him in his last, more powerful role in student politics, Thompson said, “It’s not about accomplishing something, it’s more about keeping the conversation going.

“For god’s sake, this summer, we had a presidential search committee almost give a deadline to voice concerns [about potential U of S presidential candidates], and that was before students were even back in school. You have to have people making sure that everyone is held to account.”

Ultimately, Thompson’s fears of disinterest among students were unfounded.

Thompson (second from left) with the 2010-11 USSU executive and Roy Romanow

Five students ran for the two open Arts and Science Member of Student Council positions. Thompson and the other winner, Faye Anderson, beat out Steven Heidel, Jude Pineda and Jon Davis in last week’s election.

“I didn’t know that there were five people running until we were already running,” Thompson said, “and by then I was already in it to win it.”

Despite the five candidates, Thompson maintained that student apathy is a continuing problem at the U of S. And while the plurality of candidates seems to belie that complaint, the number of voters certainly makes a case for it: Thompson and Anderson tied at 117 votes, each getting 28.75 per cent of the total. Only 407 votes were cast from a college that boasts over 5,000 students, and each student was allowed to vote for two candidates.

Even with this dismal showing, Arts and Science handily beat the Edwards School of Business and the College of Nursing. Their MSC elections, also held last week, attracted 68 and 17 voters, respectively.

“I would 100 per cent agree that the USSU needs to be more vocal and get the word out there,” Thompson added, apparently unaware that he was part of the USSU last year and failed to improve communication with students.

“We don’t know, first off, why people are so disinterested. And it’s not just one thing; in my opinion, it’s for a complex number of reasons. Students may think that it takes too much time to be involved, students may not actually care, they may not be friends with the people who are interested in that kind of stuff.”

University Students’ Council is essentially the board of directors for the USSU. Its members are elected and meet once per week, each Thursday at 6 p.m.

There is at least one representative for each college, international students, the Indigenous Students’ Council and campus residences. Colleges with more than 1,000 students have two representatives, while those with fewer than 1,000 students have just one.

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Photo: University of Saskatchewan/Flickr