By: Jing Zhao
Owen Shaw Image courtesy of UPEISU
Owen Shaw is one of your Senate Representatives on the Senate of the University of Prince Edward Island. There are three Senate Representatives, namely Zak Jarvis, Stephen Wilfeard, and Owen Shaw. The UPEI Senate performs an important role at the university, specifically being responsible for overseeing the academic policies of UPEI. Importantly, the Senate helps to decide which courses are to be offered for students, about the admission requirements, the requirements for graduation, and issues surrounding scholarships and bursaries. In a nutshell, almost everything academic at UPEI is related to the Senate.
Senate Representatives act between the UPEI Senate and the UPEI Student Union. All three representatives are supposed to represent the issues and views of students, and they have the duty to participate in the Senate committee to pass on students’ voices. Each of them has a different role as Senate Representative. This year, a new graduate representative, Babafela Babalola Awosile joins in their group. Dana Kenny and John Rix are also part of the UPEI Senate as President and Vice-president Academic & External of the Student Union.
Owen is a voting member of both UPEI Senate and the UPEI Student Union. He also performs his role in policy committee, street team for the Student Union, and enhances teaching committee for the Senate. He got his position as Senate Representative by being elected to the Student Union through a general vote. Within his position, he participates in monthly Senate meetings to deliver students’ voices, and also in Student Union council, he works with various Student Union committees. He implements his duty and believes that, “having students voices on the Senate in the form of Senate Representative is very important.â€
For potential future Senate Representatives, Owen gives the sincere suggestions to the following students who want to be the Senate Representative. The first thing is that they should not be afraid to speak up at the meetings, because the Senate Representatives’ responsibility is to represent students’ voices. It is necessary and vitally important to access those voices to show students’ needs to the administration. They should know it is very important to speak the students’ voices out in the short Senate meeting time. For the potential representatives, the essential thing is that before their running to apply for the position of the Senate Representative, they should know all the duties of that position clearly and make sure they can contribute to students at UPEI, doing a good job in the future.