Blog

Wednesday, April 10th marked OUSA’s 17th Partners in Higher Education Dinner (PiHED) and our second time hosting the event since returning from the pandemic. We are so grateful to The Honourable Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities for providing opening remarks and to Dr. Laura Mae Lindo, professor at the University of Waterloo and former MPP, for providing an impactful and poignant keynote. The event celebrated the hard work of our students, educators, sector partners, and elected officials in the higher education sector this year. We also celebrated Matthew Gerrtis as our Honoured Alumni Award recipient and Carleigh Charlton as our first-ever Excellence in Student Advocacy Award recipient in honour of Stephanie Ye-Mowe.

Spring has sprung! Welcome back to my March update.

To kick this season off, we headed to McMaster for our Spring General Assembly. After four days of discussions, we passed three papers: Addressing Racism and Religious Discrimination, Gender-based & Sexual Violence Prevention and Response, and International Students and International Education. It was amazing to be a part of an authoring team for the first and final time, shoutout to the ARRD paper! Thank you to MSU for hosting us and making sure we stayed hydrated with the cool water bottle merch. We also want to thank Shemar Hackett, our Chair for Plenary, for being a steadfast facilitator and for taking time out of his weekend to support our discussions!

What a great General Assembly we just had at McMaster University in Hamilton! Student leaders once again gathered for four days to discuss and approve student-written policy papers- this time with a big water bottle in hand, courtesy of our host, McMaster Students Union. This was a refreshing GA with some changes to the itinerary to give delegates more time to submit amendments, authors more time to conduct rewrites, and a plenary session that ended at 5:13 pm with all papers passed (if you know, you know). 

When you hear the word “radical”, what kind of images appear in your mind? Many different things perhaps, but it’s probably accompanied by a great deal of apprehension or even fear. It’s no wonder why, since many people today use it as a synonym for, or coupled with, “extreme.” Combining this “extreme” connotation with its usage in political contexts makes for a very scary word indeed. Turning on the news or listening to public discourse, you will regularly hear it used as a pejorative for factions or political actors that are opposed to the talking head you’re watching. “We simply can’t support these radical positions; they’re completely outrageous!” and so on and so forth. Well, I’m here to tell you that “radical” has been treated quite unfairly by our modern discourse and that radical solutions to the many critical problems we face today may not be so “radical” after all.

Hi and Happy Black History Month!

Within a blink of an eye, we are already through the second month of the year.

To start off OUSA's birth month, we launched the What is OUSA? campaign on social media. First, our Action Plan, which outlines the organization's annual goals, was published. Our summer internship applications opened and concluded, and we are excited to see who the new team will be. We also held a campus sweater giveaway in recognition of our 32nd birthday and our 3 winners were contacted! Finally, our campus visits reel series is now available for viewing on Instagram - this was a fun way to connect with students and listen to their concerns around OSAP and insights on post-secondary education!

We are all authors and storytellers. Following along with the pages and chapters, opportunities and barriers of our lives; a time before, during, and after this moment, and every other moment. My story, not dissimilar to yours, began inside a glass house, witnessing the unfolding dynamics around us. Uniquely, my story underscores that we carry a sacred duty to connect with our heart. Through this we possess limitless potential, striving for a collective liberation, rooted in the cultivation of wisdom.

Hey, hi, hello! 

Happy New Year dear friends! I hope 2024 has been treating you well thus far, and only continues to be as fulfilling.

Sreenidhi Jaganathan, OUSA Summer 2022 Research Intern present Should You Care? Cultural Sensitivity, Access and Community in Care at Post-Secondary Institutions.

As I enter the 4th and final year of my undergraduate journey, I am left pondering my countless career-induced meltdowns, as the post-graduation navigation of jobs is overstimulation at its finest. Although it seemed like an isolating process where only I could possibly be contemplating what to do after my time at McMaster, it was oddly comforting to see my peers in political science face the same dilemmas. 

One thing about political science students: they will do their very best to look like they got it all figured out, no matter the costs.

Hello friends!

November has been a whirlwind of events after events.

Firstly, the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH) hosted their annual conference where I got to co-host and where OUSA once again had the chance to present. Our brilliant RPAs, Octavia and Ananya, as well as our superstar MSU representative, Abby, facilitated a session on the mental health experiences of marginalized students in an evolving social-political climate. We were thrilled to see over 120 attendees at their presentation, and appreciate all the hard work of the CICMH staff in their planning and execution of the event!