Presidential candidate, Alyth Roos, ArtSci ’22, and Vice-President candidate Brandon Aldworth, ArtSci ’23, are the only team running in the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society’s executive election this year.

According to the team, their slogan “Your Voice, Your Legacy, Your ASUS” embodies everything they put forth after conducting numerous consultations. 

“We’ve met with over 40 different consultations,” Roos said in an interview with The Journal. “Our role isn’t to reinvent the wheel or to dictate the narrative of things that’s happening, our role is to amplify that.” 

Roos broke down their overall platform by emphasizing their intent to amplify voices on campus. 

With remote learning in place, Roos said they’re focused on ensuring all students voices are heard, especially in terms of “Your Legacy” and “Your ASUS.” 

“[R]egardless of whether you’re a volunteer, an employee, or just a student—we want to make sure every student does feel involved and does feel like ASUS is relevant to their undergraduate experience,” Roos said. 

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Aldworth said their consultations also helped them develop their five major pillars: equity and representation, academic advocacy and support, engagement through accessibility, financial transparency and accountability, and operational reform. 

As the campus becomes “more digitalized,” the team said it’s important to create better and more collaborative relationships with student groups on campus. 

“Obviously, there’s remote learning and lots of students have new concerns that hadn’t existed before,” Aldworth said. “We’re not sure what the future holds for the upcoming semesters, and we want to really make sure that students are informed and that their concerns are being heard by the faculty.” 

Aside from the five pillars, Roos and Aldworth also said attaining equity and sustainability is one of their main focuses. 

“There’s a lot of need for collaboration,” Roos said. “A lot of our sustainability measures that we’re trying to implement are very accessible and intersectional.” 

More immediate changes that will be happening from within include the Sustainability Universe Network, a committee under ASUS, she said. 

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“We think that when you are advocating for things, it is really important that it starts at home, and it starts in ASUS and internally, so that we’re able to go to the faculty and point at things that we want to have changed,” Roos said. 

Both Roos and Aldworth have been involved with ASUS in the past. In his first year, Aldworth held the position of online store manager under ASUS vice-president. Beyond ASUS, Aldworth is also a part of Queen’s Relay for Life, a fundraising organization on campus in partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society. 

 “I think the biggest advantage that ASUS experience brings is the fact that I have lots of experience working underneath the Vice-President but have become very familiar with their portfolio and how ASUS operates from the financial returns,” he said. 

In her first year, Roos served as the academic’s intern and first-year departmental student council (DSC) intern for the Politics DSC. In her second year, she acted as the ASUS academic deputy for special projects; she was academics commissioner in the following year. Aside from ASUS, she’s involved in Queen’s International Affairs Association and Queen’s Model UN.

“Through those experiences, it’s been really cool to see the different levels of ASUS and the different structures,” Roos said.  

“While we’re ambitious and excited to see all these ideas in our platform, we’re really confident that these ideas aren’t abstract, they are realistic and tangible things that we can promise and we can see happen.’