Happy Spring!!! I know the weather hasn’t been showing it, at least not everyday, but I hope you’re all enjoying the longer days and warmer weather where we can find it.
We started off March with our Spring General Assembly!! A huge thank you to the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association for hosting us and keeping us very well fed all weekend. You can read more about our guest speakers and everything else we got up to here. After 4 productive days, we passed two new policy stances:
- A Comprehensive Access Strategy
- Tech-enabled Learning
I got to author A Comprehensive Access Strategy, and as my third and final time authoring, it was very bittersweet to pass this last paper of my term, and I cannot thank my co-authors enough. I’d like to give a very special shoutout to our Managers of Research and Policy for the endless hours of work that they have put into these papers, and to all of the guidance that they’ve given our authorship teams this year - you’ve both been instrumental in my own personal professional development, and I know the rest of the authors would say the same. Finally, a huge shout out to Tiffany Li Wu, our Manager of Operations and Communications, for planning and executing the conference itself! None of this would have been possible without our incredible Home Office staff.
This General Assembly also saw us pass our Strategic Plan for 2025-29, which lays out our organizational and strategic priorities for the next 5 years, as well as our new Bylaw - both of which have been years in the making.
March also saw the Honourable Nolan Quinn return to his Ministerial portfolio, which has now been renamed the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security. We are eager to learn more about this expanded scope and the priorities that the government will have with their new mandate. Further, the NDP announced that MPP Peggy Sattler will be returning as Shadow Minister to the portfolio, while the Ontario Liberal Party assigned MPP Tyler Watt as their post-secondary education critic. We value the relationships with all our political counterparts, and are eager to discuss all the ways in which we can continue to collaborate to actively address student concerns.
OUSA also officially published Response to the Blue Ribbon Panel Report, in which we present our key policy stances that bring forward the student perspective on many of the issues discussed in the original report. Additionally, our Managers of Research and Policy have finished putting together the Affordability Report, composed of data from our 2022 Ontario Undergraduate Student Survey. It examines student financial aid and employment trends, and the results indicate that affordability of education continues to be a primary concern for students. Both of these projects are excellent, and our Managers of Research and Policy deserve another huge shoutout for all the work that they put into these – from the bottom of my heart, thank you Octavia & Abi <3.
April began with OUSA’s annual Partners in Higher Education Dinner (or PiHED) - but more on that at the end of the month (and trust me, I can’t wait to talk about it). Across most of our member institutions, we have watched many of our new Board members be elected and hired. Congratulations to each of you - you’re going to love it here, and although it’s bittersweet, we can’t wait to pass the torch. And in the meantime, best of luck to all of those heading into their exam season!
Talk soon,
Michelle <3