The Alumni Association Elections: All You Need to Know

The Ashoka Alumni Association (AAA) Elections are back this year. The first elections for the Alumni association were held in 2015. This time, the first batch of Ashoka undergraduates, who are now officially considered alumni, will also be participating in the elections.

The Student Government set up an Alumni Relations Ministry recently, being lead by Samyak Shami, second year undergraduate at Ashoka.

These developments would naturally prompt questions regarding the who, what, why of the elections and the body itself. The Edict is here to decode.

The dates of the entire election cycle are:

19th December: Nominations Open

26th December: Nominations Closed

29th December: Campaigning Begins

11th January: Campaigning Ends

13–14th January: Voting Days

What is the structure of the Council of the Ashoka Alumni Association?

The Alumni Council of the AAA constitutes a President and six other elected Directors.

Who is contesting to be a part of the Council this election cycle?

Here is the official list of candidates –

Who are AAA Batch Representatives?

Ashoka Alumni Association Batch Representatives are also nominated and voted for alumnus but are not members of the AAA Council. They simply represent the interests of the batch of which they are members. Each elected individual represents one hundred alumnus from his/her batch, hence smaller batches of YIFs would require only one representative (minimum number of representatives for an undergraduate student batch is two since the founding class comprised over a hundred students). An alumni who has pursued more than one academic programme at Ashoka can only contest as a member of one batch in a particular election cycle.

Which alumnus members are contesting to be Batch Representatives this election cycle?

Here is the list of candidates contesting to be Batch Representatives for their particular batch –

Who is eligible to be nominated?

Any individual who is an alumnus is eligible to contest as a directorial candidate. However, one is only eligible to run for president if he/she has been an alumnus for at least two years.

Who is officially considered an alumnus?

Any student who has graduated from the undergraduate programme or the Young India Fellowship qualifies as an alumnus. Fourth year undergraduates (Ashoka Scholars Programme) are also considered alumni. Masters in Liberal Studies students are also considered YIF alumni, and can contest as the same.

Do students of the Ashoka Scholars Programme (ASP) need to “graduate” again to be a part of the Council?

No, they do not. ASP students already become Ashoka alumnus at the end of the three year programme, and will hence have the opportunity to vote for this election cycle.

Who votes?

Any alumnus of the YIF or Undergraduate programme is eligible to vote in the AAA Elections. This year, ,members of the previous batches of the YIFs and the first batch of undergraduates will be voting.

Why is the Alumni Association for UGs and YIFs the same?

The Alumni Association aims to forge a strong Ashokan identity by expanding the definition of Ashoka to include alumni from every batch of every programme. All graduates are instilled with with the same skills and values. Compartmentalizing alumni into different associations would significantly reduced the resource pool at one’s disposal and leave little scope for interaction between graduates of different programmes.

Lastly, the elections are carried out and overseen by the AAA Election Commission, which comprises of a Chief Commissioner of Elections, a Returning Officer and up to five Election Officers (including two incumbent Alumni Council members). The Chief Commissioner is appointed by the Alumni Board of Ashoka University following a recommendation by the incumbent Alumni Council.

Catch the previous year’s election results at: https://thepatritimes.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/yifaa-election-results-out-karan-bhola-becomes-the-president/