As executive candidates in this year’s ASUS election, Team Harmz & Gurj believe they represent a catalyst for greater transparency and inclusivity in the ASUS governing body.

Mathematics major Harmony Crawford and Life Sciences student Gurjot Ravi, both ArtSci ’19, take pride in their self-identified “outsider” status as non-Arts students running for ASUS executive positions. They believe their unique position allows them to challenge issues commonly associated with student politics.

 “We identified a bubble around student government at Queen’s … our objective was to burst the bubble and make student politics open to every student in any major,” Presidential candidate Crawford said.

“We notice a sense of exclusivity and nepotism [in ASUS] … we want to disrupt that,” Crawford added, with reference to the team’s intention of enhancing accessibility to student government.

“[We’re working] towards having better recognition of all faculties that fall under ASUS, namely kinesiology and physical education, computer science and nursing and also the various majors under ArtSci that aren’t really involved,” she said.

Team Harmz & Gurj hope to represent a shift towards inclusivity not only by virtue of their election, but also through consistent, multi-departmental communication.

“We want to do both a public forum online and a physical one on campus, in which we gather everyone from every different major and department under ASUS and have them present [to] us their concerns, what they want, what is lacking and what is working,” Crawford said.

The team’s message of inclusion is reflected in their acknowledgement of systemic barriers to involvement on campus. One of their platform points involves introducing translators during Orientation Week for international students.

“We want to break the language barrier basically between [international students] and us,” Vice Presidential candidate Ravi said. “If [international students] feel like their voice isn’t getting heard, [if] they feel like they need to say something…if there is no way of communicating, there’s going to be that barrier that’s put up. We want to get rid of that.”

Other notable platform points from Team Harmz & Gurj include the implementation of “napping stations” during exam season, promoting department-specific formals and the creation of a campus drug and alcohol abuse centre.

Speaking to the lattermost objective, Ravi said, “for people who need the support, who suffer from alcohol or drug abuse … we want to have a centre for them where they feel like they can be open with somebody, where they can get counseling.”

Echoing her teammate’s sentiments, Crawford added, “we don’t really have resources that are on campus for drug abuse or alcohol abuse and we’d like to introduce that, because we know that that could really hinder a student’s success.”

Ultimately, Team Harmz & Gurj are running on a promise to open ASUS up to all students, regardless of academic, social or national background. 

“We are focusing on the needs of all students under ASUS,” Crawford said. “The bottom line of what we’d like to introduce to the ASUS government is transparency, inclusivity diversity and change…that will benefit everyone.”