UTSC’s recent college council election was a clear win for the group dubbed “United Together Scarborough Campus,” which won 15 of the 16 council seats available to students during the fall by-election.

The highest governing body at UTSC, college council has been described by some as the “rubber stamper” for the campus, taking advice from a wide range of working committees and making key administrative decisions.

College council consists of 46 undergraduate students, faculty, staff representatives, administrators like the deans, UTSC’s principal, alumni representatives, and graduate representatives. While student representatives make up a very small minority at college council, the low actual attendance of non-student representatives at such meetings would, in many cases, accord the 16 students a large majority at any given meeting.

At college council, undergraduate student are elected to two-year terms. Usually elections are held in June, when college council sessions officially start, but by-elections take place to help fill in any empty spots.

Zuhair Syed, Alexandru Rascanu, Hamza Khan, Huzaifa Dohadwala, Sasha Ebrahimi, Amir Balkhi, Reza Hajivandi, Tina Wang, Ateet Kapadia, Masoud Hotaki, Shahenur Ali, Janene Singh, Chia Barsen, Haipeng Tian, and Sean Kanjilal were all elected to the position of undergraduate student representatives as part of the “UTSC” slate, each having received a minimum of 100 votes. Samad Bakhtbolland was the only member of the group not elected.

Jemcy Joy, the current vice-chair of the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union, was also elected in the by-election, running as an independent candidate. However, Joy received the fewest votes of any of the successful candidates, tied for last place with “UTSC” slate member Kanjilal.

The slate’s most prominent member, Alexandru Rascanu, has a long history in student politics. Last year, the former SCSU VP operations was disqualified after winning the presidential seat on SCSU, due to multiple election infractions. He is currently a student governor on U of T’s Governing Council. Candidates learned the results of the by-election by email on Oct. 19.

With files from Gillian Reiss