NEWS RELEASE
November 18, 2024
OUSA kicks off the annual Student Advocacy Conference
TORONTO – This week, seventeen student leaders from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) are heading to Queen’s Park to meet with MPPs and their staff to discuss student concerns. OUSA represents 160,000 students from nine universities across Ontario, and our student representatives will be advocating for OUSA’s priorities on investing in post-secondary education, housing, food insecurity, and responses to hate-motivated attacks.
“Students are eager to head to Queen’s Park to meet with MPPs and discuss how we can work together to foster a safe, positive, and inclusive campus environment for all students,” said Michelle Wodchis-Johnson, OUSA’s President and Vice President External Affairs of Western’s University Students’ Council. “We hope to engage in productive discussions about our advocacy priorities and how to better create a sustainable and high quality post-secondary experience.”
OUSA seeks to achieve an accessible, affordable, accountable, high-quality post-secondary education. Ontario’s post-secondary sector is struggling with financial instability and poor student wellbeing. Consequently, students are advocating for greater investments to post-secondary, changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program structure, enhanced supports to address food insecurity, and funding to support diverse mental health needs.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to discuss student concerns directly with the provincial government,” said Ruth Osunde, Vice President of University Affairs for the Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University and OUSA Steering Committee member. “We are looking forward to sharing our research and evidence-based recommendations that will support meaningful and responsible policy change in Ontario."
To follow along with OUSA’s Student Advocacy Conference, use the #OUSAdvocacy hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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OUSA represents the interests of 160,000 professional and undergraduate, full-time and part-time university students at nine student associations across Ontario. Our vision is for an accessible, affordable, accountable, and high quality post-secondary education in Ontario.
Tiffany Li Wu
Manager of Operations & Communications
Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance
416-341-9948