Hello and Happy April!!! I hope you are all enjoying longer and brighter days!
This past month was a busy one as we started off March with our Spring General Assembly from March 10th-13th! Delegates from our member schools came together to discuss and debate recommendations for our policies on Student Financial Aid, Mature Students, and Tech-Enabled Learning. After three days of great conversations, all three papers passed and will now take their place in OUSA’s policy library. A big shoutout to all delegates who participated in General Assembly, and thank you for your time and commitment to ensuring our policies represent students well! The papers will be coming out over the next few weeks, with the Mature Students policy dropping this Friday on OUSA’s website.
We also recently wrapped up analysis on the 2020 Ontario Undergraduate Student Survey (OUSS) with the third and final report on Quality now published. The report explores the quality of post-secondary education, and the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on various aspects of student life. Make sure to check out the report here!
In the month of March we also saw the Ministry of Colleges and Universities release the tuition framework for 2022-2023. This framework included an extension of the freeze on domestic tuition, and a 5% regulation on increases for out-of-province tuition. OUSA has responded to this framework in a number of ways, emphasizing that although this freeze is welcomed, operating grants to institutions are essential when tuition freezes are implemented, in order to prevent dramatic increases in out-of-province or international student tuition to fill this gap. OUSA will continue to discuss with students on our campuses to assess the impacts of this freeze. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out!
Looking ahead to the month of April, we will be hosting our Teaching Awards on Wednesday, April 6th! The Teaching Awards are an opportunity for our alliance to recognize stellar instructors across OUSA’s member campuses, and their investment into students. The ceremony will be livestreamed on Facebook so make sure to stay tuned for our announcement on the winners.
This month we aregearing up for the Ontario budget announcement (check out OUSA’s pre-budget submissions from earlier this year) coming out at the end of the month. We are also hard at work planning our “Get Out the Vote Campaign” for the upcoming provincial election (stay tuned for that!). As the election draws near, I highly encourage everyone to get involved. Whether by volunteering for a campaign or working for Elections Ontario, this is a great opportunity to expand your civic engagement!
Until the next (and final) time,
Eunice :)