Hi everyone!
My name is Ruth Osunde (she/her) and I am going into my fourth year of a joint honours degree at Queen’s University. This year, I will be Vice President University Affairs at the Alma Mater Society, the undergraduate student body representative at Queen’s. I was raised in Lagos, Nigeria and moved to Canada towards the end of my primary school education.
Coming from an advocacy background, my interest has always been aligned with building an encouraging positive relationship between the university and its students. My degree is in Psychology-Health studies which is a combination of disciplines that I adore. Both degrees emphasize my interest in people and building community.
My journey to being Vice President has been unconventional; coming from Nigeria, my education curriculum was very different since it was not built on the concept of “For students, by students”, which is the go-to phrase of the Alma Mater Society. I was used to teachers and parents creating and leading student life, coming to Canada, my high school experience was based in Mississauga. For the first time in my academic career I was allowed to be directly involved in decisions that affected me, I found myself in the role of Student voice (a part of the trustee group for my school board).
A lot of this work included finding ways to liaise between the principal's office and the student body, it was exhausting. Half of my grade 11 year was spent at home during COVID, which I think was an experience that shaped my outlook/approach when going into university. Coming in I wanted to be a “regular” student- not entirely sure what that meant anymore- but that was my outlook on university.
Despite wanting to rest and take things slow, I couldn’t abandon my advocacy/ equity background so I joined the ASUS equity conference as the outreach manager. As a Black student my experience in my first year was difficult before I found my community, I had experiences that made me consider leaving Queen’s but through programming, supports like the yellow house and the increased work on the Scarbrough Charter I felt like my impact would be better felt here. So by my second year I had set out to once again be directly involved in improving my experience at Queen’s.
In my first year I had a mentor through the Qsuccess program, I found it super useful and decided I wanted to mentor first year students. I also decided to work in residence as a residence program assistant, the year before I had experienced what a lack of culturally aware programming looked like and wanted to be directly involved in providing students with my lived experiences a better Queen’s experience. Additionally, I was able to find community within the Queen’s Black Academic’s Society and the Queen’s Black Fashion Association. In my third year, I was a senior manager in the Alma Mater Society. The Social Issues Commission was a big part of my third year. Being hired on, I became very interested in being able to solidify the commission back to its pre-covid state. This included establishing the pillars my role would support, which included hiring equity, policy and procedures and training. In this role I was able to establish the Menstrual Equity Project, expand the Equity library to include fictional work and deliver the commissions equity training sessions. Additionally, I took on the role of the Co-Lead with the Black Clubs Caucus to support the university in accomplishing their goals around the Scarbrough Chater which include building community, strengthening campus experiences and black alumni support. Lastly, I assumed the role of Co-President of QBFA which allowed me to be involved in creating safe spaces for black creatives on campus.
All of that aside, my experiences have led me to the role of Vice President of University Affairs. Every opportunity has reinstated this drive for fairness, equity and the importance of providing people with tools to advocate, when running for valedictorian in high school I used to say “being the voice for the voiceless” but no one is voice less, they usually need support in directing their voice to the right places. My advocacy priorities are around empowering students by having important conversations around the role lived experiences play in universities, equity, food insecurity and housing insecurity as well as accessibility in education including physical spaces.
In my rare free time, I enjoy reading, watching History Teatime with Lindsay, and cooking. I recently downloaded the New York Times games and can often be heard saying, “Give me a five-letter word that starts with…”.