by Lexey Burns, Editor-in-Chief

Eric Chappell is running unopposed for president in the 2021/2022 SGA elections.

Malek Abou-Rabia and Morgan Barry are also running unopposed for Senator and Vice President of Education, respectively. 

This will be Chappell’s third year as president after first being elected in 2018. The last SGA president to serve 3 consecutive terms was Jamie Wylie, who was first elected in 1998, according to the SGA’s website.

Chappell said he didn’t expect to run unopposed this year. 

“It’s a challenging time and it’s very weird and it’s not what I expected,” Chappell said.  “There’s a lot going on and I kind of thought that more people would want to get involved.” 

Chappell says he is surprised that there was only one candidate for Senator because of all the “really good things” the SGA has brought to Senate this year, including the pass/fail motion and extending the Christmas break.

Chappell, who said he is finishing up his degree, said this is his last year running.

“Yes I’m running again, but there’s no way I can run again, again.” Chappell said that next year will be his last year at Laurentian and is worried there will be no student willing to take his place. 

“We need strong leaders. And maybe with everything going on and maybe with my experience people think that this is the best at this moment in time but we need to grow,” he said. 

“I didn’t want to leave the organization unprepared with what’s going on.” 

Chappell’s presidency history busier than most

Chappell says he feels like he’s “been president in some of the weirdest times.”

He says he’s faced different challenges with the Student Choice Initiative which destabilized the funding of student associations. After the initiative was announced by the province, the SGA did a full restructure, letting go of some full-time staff and hiring more students.

In 2020, just one month after Chapell was re-elected, COVID-19 hit. 

And now, Laurentian’s insolvency announcement. 

Several professors and alumni have been sharing their experiences at Laurentian using the hashtag #FundLU. Despite the attention on social media, the SGA had not commented since the school’s initial announcement on February 1st. 

“I’m not speaking for the SGA at the moment, I’m speaking as an SGA candidate,” Chappell said. 

“I’ve been on leave since a week after the announcement happened.”

“So as part of this [election] process when I put my nomination in I could not be in the SGA office because that would be a conflict,” he explained.  

Chappell said his goal is to meet with many small groups of students and hear their concerns, once the logistics of getting them together are smoothed out. 

“My priority, once I get back into the office, is going to be connecting with more undergrad students… I don’t think I’ve had enough opportunities to talk with different undergrad students, to hear their concerns, to advocate for them,” he said.

Last year’s elections still a sore spot, students say

Posts have surfaced on UMentioned Laurentian with comments claiming that no one would want to run against Chappell after the disqualification of Darius Garneau in the 2020 election. 

The first post was a picture of the election ballot with the caption “What’s the point of an election if these are the only candidates”?

Jake Raby, a Laurentian alumnus asked “Why would anyone else bother running after what they pulled last year?” 

Adam Wallace, another recent graduate said that “After last year, they clearly demonstrated they only want who they like to win.”

Darius Garneau was a candidate for president in the 2019-20 election who had been disqualified due to “breaches of the Election Policy” despite having more votes cast for him.

Garneau said “the SGA’s inability to attract new candidates is an inevitable result of the organization operating like a high school cliche.” 

“Their failure to advocate for the students in the face of Laurentian’s insolvency when the closure of programs and student services is looming further highlights the administration failure,” Garneau said.

“The notion that events at LU will only affect faculty is ill-conceived. It is a shame that leadership will continue unopposed, while moving into some of the most challenging times for all of the Laurentian community.”

The results of the election will be officially announced in the coming days.