Executive Candidates
Crystal Liu
for President
Crystal is an Immunology and Infections student, a member of the Peter Lougheed Leadership College, as well as a student researcher. In the past, she has worked with children in a development program, with patients in a palliative care environment, and with international students as an English teacher. These experiences have allowed her to be more open to other perspectives and develop the resilience needed to fulfill this position.
While serving as a Councillor and Director in ISSS, she had the opportunity to thoroughly understand ISSS’ operation, and recognized areas for improvement. Now that the SCI 5 Referendum has been passed, she will focus on making ISSS services better and more accessible. If elected President, she hopes to promote the health and wellness of students through collaborating with health-based student groups, promote career development by connecting students with professors and mentors, as well as offer existing services in more than one language, particularly the Mini Study Groups.
Please cast your votes towards Crystal Liu on March 22nd and 23rd. Thank you!
Tracy Fan
for President
My name is Tracy Fan and I am running for the President position with The Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society (ISSS). I have served as your Vice President Academic for the past year and have organized Instructor Appreciation Night during Science Week as well as collected students’ voices and concerns on both academic and non-academic matters. In the next coming year, I would be honored to be able to represent science students, and lead the entire ISSS team to carry out your goals to the best of our ability, things such as improving community engagement and atmosphere building, coordination of policies in a way that enhances student priorities while balancing faculty requirements based on science students’ needs and wants. I promise to always do my best to ensure that students’ interests always come first! I would very much appreciate your vote of support on Wednesday, March 22 and Thursday, March 23!
Sheldon Cannon
for VP Academic
Every student deserves to feel supported in working towards their goals and that their voice is heard. I, Sheldon Cannon, want to work to bring students and the Faculty together in open communication to help grow undergraduate science education in a way that works for all parties.
Advocating for students and building an engaged student body is a major part of my life; at the University I served the past 6 months as ISSS Councillor/Director of Science Week and volunteering with Science Fundamentals and their FUNday Committee. In high school I also served students as Student Leadership Council Co-President, Councillor/Senior Administrator of Kindersley Youth Council, organizing Student Leadership Conference 2015 with Team Sun West, and as Youth Consultation Representative on a panel advocating student issues to the school division and provincial and national education conferences. These involvements reflect my excitement and experience representing students, which translates directly to the VPA role advocating and delivering services to enrich our Science academic community.
Read my full platform on Facebook @Cannon4ISSSVPA and vote Sheldon March 22/23!
Cindy Qian
for VP Admin and Finance
My name is Cindy Qian and I am currently a third year Biological Sciences student minoring in Business. I am running to be your ISSS Vice President Administration and Finance. I have been involved with ISSS since my first year, serving as Director of Marketing. More recently, I have been serving as Director of Finance for the past two years. These positions have shown my dedication to helping science students and my experience with an important aspect of the VP AF position: financial accountability. If I am elected, I will continue to ensure ISSS financial transparency and accountability, as I have been doing for the past two years. In addition, I will improve the organization of the ISSS office to make our operations more organized and efficient to better serve science students.
Thank you,
Cindy Qian
Deanna Nielsen
for VP Community
I am running for the position of ISSS Vice President Community for the 2017-2018 year. I have served as a Third Year Councillor, and have learned a lot about the operations of ISSS. I worked as Director of Science Week to deliver events and activities for science students. This involved high levels of communication with outside parties to coordinate successful events. These are skills that I plan to carry forward in the position of VP Community. I believe the maintenance and continued advancement of a unified community for students is essential for university quality of life.
My personal goals for ISSS include building internal connections for a stronger foundation. I believe achieving external goals is contingent on maintaining good internal relations. I view student voice as being the most important factor in a student government, and I hope to foster better communication and engagement between ISSS and the student body. I also hope to improve ISSS branding and marketing in order to increase awareness of the services ISSS has to offer for science students.
Yomna Elshamy
for VP Programming
I have been with the ISSS for the past two years, both as a first year councillor and as VP Programming. This year I have gained the experience of how to run each event and was able to gather lots of feedback from students. The reason that I am rerunning as VPP is so that next year I can implement these changes to improve these events and better serve the students. With my experience, I can expand and promote these events more efficiently than someone exploring this position for the first time. Moreover, this year we have founded the athletic committee, which was able to host events such as Yoga Night and March Madness and we will continue to introduce new events to serve the various interests of all science students. I was extremely honoured to be your VPP this year and I promise, if re-elected, to continue thriving for higher standards and to make sure that every science student’s voice is well heard.
Habba Mahal
for VP Services
Councillor Candidates
Christy Kan
for 2nd Year Councillor
Hi, I am your 2nd year councillor candidate! For any that vaguely remember the cheesy slogan “Christy ‘Kan’ do it!” from the past by-election, I might be a recurring name.
Last election, I was fortunate enough to be elected as the 1st year councillor and my experience since then has been an eye-opener. Throughout my term on ISSS, not only was I able to deepen my knowledge in student governance and meet more of my fellow science peers, but also actively take part in passing one of our milestones, the SCI5 referendum. SCI5 was an essential membership fee that enables a larger scope of services and opportunities to be at science students’ disposal. In the future, I strive to ensure such benefits are maintained if not improved based on your important feedback.
For this upcoming term, I hope to represent, advocate, and act on the best interest of all science students again as the 2nd year councillor. Thank you for your support the past term and I would be honoured to be your recurrent representative!
Rowan French
for 3rd Year Councillor
Rowan is a second-year student in honours animal biology, and is interested in advocating for science students as a third-year ISSS councillor for 2017-2018. As a second-year councillor with ISSS in 2016-2017, Rowan challenged executives that strayed from procedure, hosted student forums on the Sci5 Membership Fee, and reviewed ISSS’ proposed expenses. As ISSS’ Director of Student Representation, she co-founded the Biosci Departmental Association Planning Team. This committee engaged biology students from across years and disciplines, and was critical to the planning and establishment of the Biology Students’ Departmental Association. Having served on advisory committees for the Office of the Registrar and University of Alberta Libraries, Rowan has also represented science students’ interests at a university-wide scale.
Rowan’s passions for interdisciplinary science, accountable and transparent governance, and community building motivate her campaign for council. If elected, Rowan will advocate for the diversity of science student interests, and not merely those of an isolated friend group.
Smit Patel
for 4th Year Councillor
My name is Smit Patel, and I am running to be your 4th year councillor for ISSS for this upcoming 2017-18 academic year. I am currently the Director of Design and member of the marketing committee for ISSS. Being part of ISSS for a year now, I am familiar with the operations of ISSS and well equipped for this position. Recently science students passed SCI 5 referendum. If elected, I will continue to strive to ensure that your fee is being allocated to advance and improve the quality of services and opportunities provided to you and that the executives are being held accountable. I am also part of the executive team for my club Kidsport U of A where I have worked alongside my colleagues to organize social and fundraising events. I know I have the skills, experience, and professionalism to excel in this job and advocate on your behalf. I am very excited to be on the council this coming year. Vote for Smit Patel for 4th year councillor on March 22nd and 23rd!
William Nwaribe
for 4th Year Councillor
I have been part of ISSS for the past years and I would like to continue representing science students man way I can. This year I want to learn more towards giving students more free stuff as well as hosting more events. The positive aspect of having more social gatherings would be to provide science students with the opportunity to meet and connect with their peers.