Last week the Curtin Student Guild appointed a new Education-Vice President (EVP), Hana Arai.

Her appointment comes off the back of the resignation of Lydia Berhan, who was elected in September last year.

How was the new Education Vice-President chosen?

When an executive member of the Guild leaves before their tenure is up, the Representative Board meets to determine who will take up the vacant role.

If there are two or more candidates, the Rep board holds a secret ballot. If there is only one candidate then it’s put to a motion—this is what happened last week.

What does the Education Vice-President do?

As well as helping out the Guild President, the EVP is basically responsible for everything related to representation, education, equity and welfare—so yeah, they’re pretty important.

They are also responsible (initially) for the issues of online, mature age, external, rural and regional students and, on top of that, they are the line manager for all of the Faculty Reps, the Equity Reps, and the ISC and PSC presidents (heckers).

New EVP, who dis?

Joining the Guild in 2018, Hana Arai was elected as the Science and Engineering Faculty Representative. In the 2019 elections, she was preselected for—and won—the position, and was also chosen as a NUS delegate, heading over to the NUS National Conference to represent Curtin in December last year.

At the beginning of this year, Hana also nominated for the 2019 Chair of the Representation Board, which means that she sat on the Guild Executive Committee and the Guild Council.

Now that Hana has taken up the role of EVP, she will step down as Chair of the Rep Board and from her position as Faculty Rep because, well, there’s only so much time in the day.

Why should I care?

Apart from Guild President, the EVP is probably the only person whose role impacts basically every student on and off of campus.

At the moment Hana is focussed on expanding and improving student representation and partnership at Curtin, which means she wants you to have more of a say on what happens at our University—yes, you.

Hana is also looking to carry on the work of the 2018 EVP, Nicola Gulvin, who was instrumental in the creation of the Respect Module last year, an online consent module which addresses issues of consent and assault on campus.

The Guild is pushing for this module to become mandatory, as they believe it’s the first step to eradicating sexual assault and harassment at University.

Anything else?

As I mentioned before, Hana will be stepping down from her position as Science and Engineering Faculty Rep.

The next rep will be determined by an autonomous election, and all Science and Engineering students will have the opportunity to become the Faculty Rep. Nominations are expected to open after Easter.

Sound like something you’d be interest in? Email president@guild.curtin.edu.au or educationvp@guild.curtin.edu.au for more info!