Amman- December 20, 2016
The student body of German Jordanian University (GJU) has elected their representative in the university council, which is the highest council in determining the university’s strategic directions. The fully online elections took place on Dec 20th, 2016, allowing 1600 of the university students including those in Germany to electronically cast their votes to select the strongest forerunner candidate.
In total 10 students applied to run for elections; five of which were eligible. The electronic and offline campaigns lasted three days, during this period three candidates pulled out. The final two candidates have created an amazing democratic atmosphere in the university, and competed in the classiest manner.
The participation percentage reached 40% of the students, including those who are in Germany. The highest school that voted for the candidates was the School of Applied Technical Sciences SATS (around 25% of the votes), followed by the School of Management and Logistics Sciences SMLS (around 21% of the votes), and thirdly was the School of Natural Resources and Environmental Management SNREM (around 18%), and the rest was distributed among the remaining four schools.
The elections resulted in electing Hamzeh Mohammad Al-Khateeb – Computer Engineering, as the representative of the students in the University Council. He has been congratulated by the university President Prof. Natheer Abu Obeid for winning the elections, and also for the smooth and democratic process, which was administered by a special committee that is formed by the President and headed by the dean of the student affairs; Dr. Omar Shubailat, and included the following members: Dr. Aziz Madi – Vice Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Feras Al-Hawari – Director of the Information Systems and Technology Center (ISTC), Mr. Fawwaz Alsaqqar – Assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs, and Ms. Aya Al-Khirfan – Student Controller of the process.
The two candidates organized a meeting after the elections, and congratulated each other for the fruitful process, and agreed to cooperate in more than one aspect to help other fellow students at the university, mainly to form sub committees to be able to channel all student requests and suggestions to the university council.
It is worth mentioning that this is the second successful electronic elections at GJU, which puts GJU in a pioneering position compared to other universities in this regard. This would have not been possible without the help of the staff of ISTC in specifying and designing the voting system - Dr. Feras Al-Hawari, implementing the web-based voting system - Eng. Hala Barham, administering the system’s database and web server - Eng. Wael Srarheh, securing the network and setting up the virtual machines - Mr. Khalil Hanbali, and none the less the technical support engineers for helping the students in resetting their GJU E-mail passwords.
The German Jordanian University to conceptualize the vision of His Majesty King Abdullah II in promoting democracy and helping its students to live a democratic process where they can learn a lot.
