OUSA

Greater leadership is demanded from the government to support potential students

***This Article is Reproduced from Wilfrid Laurier’s The Cord Newspaper***

Linda Givetash January 13, 2010 1:14 AM

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The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is hosting their Blue Chair Campaign at seven campuses across Ontarioin the interest of raising awareness about the barriers keeping prospective students out of post-secondary institutions.

“It’s really OUSA taking action to draw attention to the fact that in the Ontario post-secondary education system there are countless numbers of students who don’t have access to our institution and to a university degree,” explained president of OUSA Dan Moulton.

The campuses involved are providing information to students from Jan. 11 to 22 regarding the financial, cultural, geographical and motivational barriers that prevent youth in Ontario from pursuing a post-secondary education.

At both the Waterloo and Brantford campuses, Laurier students will be encouraged to join the discussion the challenges of accessing university.

“We have 1,000 fortune cookies to give out and each fortune cookie is filled with a little fact about education,” said Kory Preston, Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union vice-president of university affairs.

In addition to providing information, an on-campus party will be held by each school on Jan. 14.

Laurier’s event will be hosted at Wilf’s starting at 9 p.m., featuring a performance by Let’s Go To War. Wilf’s bartending staff have also created a special blue chair drink for the occasion.

“We’re going to provide some interactive activities for students who do come out and attend that event to start the discussion about what are the barriers to university and send a message to the government that these barriers should be reduced,” said Preston.

While some of the participating schools, including the University of Western Ontario, are using the campaign as an opportunity to raise funds for community education initiatives, Laurier has decided not to incorporate a fundraising campaign.

“We really wanted to make sure that our events themselves were barrier-free and we felt that in these tough economic times charging a couple of extra dollars to a student might be a deterrent from coming out to our event and starting a discussion,” explained Preston.

In the previous two years of the campaign, Laurier did raise money for Pathways to Education Kitchener which works to reduce poverty and promote education in local neighbourhoods.

Preston expressed a desire to reinstate a fundraising campaign in future years once the economic burden on current students is not as severe.

For now, Preston stated that the priority of the campaign at Laurier, “is having this discussion and send[ing] the message to the government that universities matter.”

Bringing the issue forward to become a priority within the provincial government will hopefully lead to greater funding in the future.

“We need to see more leadership on that part of our government and students are calling for that across the province,” said Moulton.

As we head into our third day of Blue Chair, McMaster students are faced with some exciting opportunities. Federal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff is on campus today answering student questions about the state of post-secondary education in Canada. The opportunity for students to be able to ask about access issues and financial aid directly to a potential prime minister is unprecedented. In addition, students have been hunting around Campus for the hidden Blue Chairs. Photos have been returned to the OUSA Street team and at the end of the week a draw will be held for a $400 gift card for titles, to help offset the cost of a term’s worth of text books. We’re looking forward to the last two days of the week, in which we’ll be holding a charity club night and a Speaker’s corner.

-Chris Martin
Vice President Education
McMaster Students Union

OSAP does not cover the entire cost of education. In fact a student who relies solely on OSAP is required to live well below the poverty line. Students eligible for OSAP can only receive a maximum of $11 900 from OSAP. As you may or may not be aware, the Ontario Student Opportunities Grant (OSOG) applies to any student who receives more than $7000, so in effect it works as a debt cap. There is no doubt that OSOG is an amazing tool for access.

However it is this gap between the $11 900 cap of OSAP and the costs of education. For an independent student living away from home, the estimated true cost of education is approximately $17 400 (CMSF). The poverty line for a single independent individual in Waterloo is approximately $18 147 based on Low Income cut offs (OWR).

What does this mean?

There is a significant gap between the amount granted by OSAP and the amount actually required for a student to live and study in Waterloo. The gap is approximately between $5500 and $6200.

Well that is all fine and dandy, students can simply find employment during the 4 month break that they are not in school. Or can they?

This summer the student unemployment rate reached an all time high of 20.9% (CBC). So if one in five students are unable to find employment over the 4 months of summer, then how are students to address this gap?

Well they can just work while they study right? Unfortunately that is not a reasonable solution either, and it is because of a specific clause in OSAP.

OSAP limits the amount of income that a student can attain to $50 a week. If a student earns over the $50 a week threshold, OSAP will actually “claw-back” their funding. So if a student receives the maximum amount of OSAP and earns $400 in the month of October, then OSAP will effectively take back $200 of the loan.

So what are the numbers?

Well a student who receives the full amount of OSAP and is able to earn the full $50 a week for the approximately 34 weeks of school, will have available a grand total of $13 600. A short fall of at least $3800.

Our OSAP system is flawed, and our students are suffering the consequences.

Sources:
CMSF
OWR
CBC

Kory Preston
Vice-President of University Affairs
Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union

This week marks the launch of OUSA’s third annual Blue Chair Campaign. The Blue Chair campaign is a grassroots, student lead campaign that seeks to raise awareness around the need to expand access to higher education as an equalizer of economic prosperity and social vitality.

Many of Ontario’s best and brightest cannot attend university due to financial, cultural, geographical, motivational and informational barriers.  Studies predict that within the next 10 years, 70 per cent of jobs will require a post-secondary credential. Ontario’s current participation rate, of 18-24 year old, sits at 40 per cent, with only 33 per cent of students from the lowest income quartile and 28 per cent of Aboriginal students persisting to higher education, directly from high school.

In recognition of these challenges, from January 11^th to 22nd, campuses across Ontario will be jam-packed with empty blue chairs aimed at creating awareness, raising funds and taking action at reducing barriers to post-secondary education. The empty Blue Chairs symbolize the lost potential
for our province when access is restricted.

“This campaign will provide students and community members with the opportunity to become directly involved in our fundraising event. Our aim is to call attention to the need for increased success, and expanded accessibility, for students who face barriers to higher education,” said
Dan Moulton, President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance.
The funds raised at universities across Ontario, including Brock, Wilfrid Laurier, McMaster, Queen’s, Waterloo, Western and Windsor, will be donated to various early outreach programs across the province.

Please help Ontario youth find their seat.

Blue Chair Day 1 Blog:
No willing and qualified student in Ontario should be barred from attending post-secondary education due to financial barriers. It was this thought in the MSU OUSA Street Team’s head as we carted blue chairs around the campus today to mark the beginning of our part of the annual Blue Chair campaign Street Team did a fantastic job in the student centre today, handing out higher education (mis)fourtune-cookies, OUSA toothbrushes and talking to students about access issues with education. We’re looking forward to a full week of visibility and getting student feedback on the unfilled seat.

-Chris Martin
Vice President Education
McMaster Students Union

At University of Windsor, many of our students have been back in classes for two days, and the UWSA is busy planning the upcoming OUSA Blue Chair Campaign, to be held between January 18-20 in our CAW Student Centre. Our team of OUSA Campus Coordinators, spearheaded by Madeline MacIsaac, is churning out a stream of blue chairs – all hand-painted! – and we’re all very excited to be holding our first OUSA Blue Chair Campaign in recent memory.

From November 28-December 2, Ms. MacIsaac and I represented Windsor in more than a dozen lobby sessions at Queen’s Park in Toronto, as one of seven delegations at the OUSA Lobby Conference. This was certainly one of the major highlights of my year, and to have been able to deliver students’ concerns to MPPs in person is not something that I will soon forget. Additionally, I was able to learn more about the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) by way of visiting its office and engaging in a very informative discussion and presentation.

Sadly for me, our General Election is looming on the horizon, and this means that my term as VPUA for the current academic year is coming to a close. Whether or not I return, I know that I’ll have such fond memories of my time with University of Windsor’s student government, as well as with OUSA. I’ve done my best to advocate on behalf of and to represent our students, and I hope that whomever picks up the VPUA torch next year will carry on with all of the momentum that has been built by this year’s OUSA Steering Committee. However, I’m not done yet, and among other things I look forward to bringing a proposal regarding institutional differentiation to the OUSA spring General Assembly.

Signing off from within the OUSA Home Office,

-Robert Woodrich
Vice President University Affairs
University of Windsor Students’ Alliance

The Conference Board of Canada recently released its annual report card detailing how Canada stacks-up against other countries on a whole host of topics from economy to environment to education.  Although Canada improved from a “B” to an “A” in the latter category, the report highlighted a number of areas for improvement, especially in post-secondary education.

The report rightly points out that our high post-secondary graduation rate is fueled by unusually high numbers of college graduates, masking our mediocrity in university graduates. The report concludes: “Given the gap between Canada and leading competitors, it would take many years of increasing university enrolment to change Canada’s ranking.” Better get started.

Perhaps most concerning is Canada’s “D” grade for Ph.D. graduates, with the report showing that we rank last out of 17 peers and we’re getting worse. According to the report, “highly skilled people are key to the creation, commercialization, and diffusion of innovation. Doctorate holders are not only the most qualified in terms of educational attainment, but they are also specifically trained to conduct research.” This is probably also liked to Canada’s failing grade in the innovation category.

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations recently recommended that Ontario universities be given funding to hire 5,000 new full-time faculty over the next five years. While they are certainly needed at our universities, we won’t be able to find applicants if we aren’t producing enough Ph.D. graduates.

The Ph.D. issue aside, the report is mostly good news for Canada’s education system. Our graduation rates are high and our skill levels are adequate.  This is a very interesting report and I encourage everyone to take a look.

LINK

-Alexi White
Executive Director
Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

On my way into work this morning, I cut through some of the back allies of Toronto’s Queen Street, and I ran into what I’m sure is where Rick Mercer tapes his weekly rants on the Rick Mercer Report.  This gave me an idea… What about OUSA Rants that we could film and post on the website? It would take some creativity, and practice walking and talking, but I think they could be quite entertaining and useful as a social media tool that would drive more people to our website.

Now as for ideas on what OUSA could rant about, that gets tricky.  We wouldn’t want to attack anyone, but we’d have to raise some issues that would be worth ranting about.  If you have some ideas, email me.

On a completely different topic, today marks my 6^th month working for OUSA.  I remember that day… it was WARMER…

Working for OUSA has been quite a pleasure.  What I’ve learned over the past 6 months has been invaluable to me, and I am very grateful to everyone at OUSA for helping me along during my transition, and making this an enjoyable place to work.  I am very happy to be here helping students and friends, and I hope to be here a little while longer.

All the best,

-Alvin Tedjo
Director of Communications & Public Relations
Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

“Respect for Dignity: Students with disabilities have the right to receive educational services in a manner that respects their dignity. Human dignity encompasses individual self-respect and self-worth.  It involves physical and psychological integrity and empowerment.  It is harmed when individuals are marginalized, stigmatized, ignored or devalued.  Accommodation solutions should therefore respect the dignity of students with disabilities, and those that do not will not be considered appropriate.” –Ontario Human Rights Commission

Today, Kory (VPUA, WLU), Lianne (President, BUSU), Alexi and I are heading over to the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) offices to have an information sharing session regarding students with disabilities.  The quote above underscores the importance of the topic at hand, as OUSA attempts to bring a policy forward that can lead to positive change for students from this underrepresented group.

In 2005 the provincial government passed the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act which provided not only a definition for what is meant by “disability” but also began to set strict standards and guidelines for public and private employers.  The first of these standards, specifically dealing with customer service, came into force 5 days ago.  In 2008, the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities completed an initial review of compliance issues when it comes to customer services at institutions and have begun to roll-out improvements. Concurrently, they continue to audit and research compliance across the sector.

Improvements to accessibility for students with diverse abilities are crucial in leveling the playing field across campuses.  In 2007, OUSA made a number of recommendations on how accessibility might be improved, as well as making these improvements accountable and transparent for all those involved.  That former document can be found here. Since that time much progress has been made.  But, as always, there is more to do.  Our meeting at the COU today represents OUSA taking one of the next steps in the proper advocacy of our diverse student body.

For those interested, here are a few links to some of the documents I referenced here.

Accessibility Plan
Previous Accessibility Plans
Factsheet

-Paul Bien
Director of Research and Policy Analysis
Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

So here we are in January. The middle of the school year for most, the start of a fresh set of classes for just about everyone. The white stuff that hasn’t stopped falling from the sky for the past 24 hours had me hoping for a snow day this morning. Which got me thinking….what if I never get another snow day again, ever?

This is my last semester here. Whether the future for me holds more education, I’ve yet to figure out and there are a lot of variables. But as far as an undergraduate, my time at BUSU, and my time at OUSA, this is my final stand. 4 more months to make a difference, before I fade off into history. Memories remain in people’s heads, but with the cyclical turnover of student organizations, four or five years from now the memory of me will be a few plaques placed in the BUSU boardroom. Sure, I’ll have the knowledge that I helped influence things during my time here, but within a few years, ‘changes’ revert to ‘the new norm’. Work to secure 24-hour study space at Brock, create new awards for teaching and being a good neighbour, re-writes to the constitution and a few referendums, Reaching Higher 2, tuition policy, MYAA’s, and many more, anything accomplished becomes the new standard. Memories of the struggles, work and effort to get them where we want them becomes lost. The precursors to these become ancient history. All of these major projects that consume the year, will all come down to a by-line. Rob Lanteigne, VPUA 2008-2010.

It’s a fresh semester, but in a mere 28 days, the campaign period opens to replace me. Less than a month. Heck, nominations open a week from today. A month until I hear the candidates vying for my job tell the entire school about my shortcomings, and how they will be a suitable replacement. While I have 4 more months with a title, and 4 more months of work to accomplish, this is the true beginning of the end. Of 6 years at Brock, 5 years in BUSU, 4 years on council, 3 years on Senate, 2 years as VPUA, and 1 year as OUSA VP Finance. One last semester to make a difference before I hand off the reigns to a new team.

I just hope I get my snow day before that happens.

-Rob Lanteigne
Vice President University Affairs
Brock University Students’ Union