WUSA’s Annual Plan Highlight

What is the Annual Plan? Put simply, it is how the elected body of the student association decides on the direction and goals of the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) for the governing year. WUSA’s 2024 / 2025 Annual Plan is now live and can be found on our website.  

The Annual Plan is also used to support the completion of WUSA’s Long-Range Plan, which sets the goals and objectives for WUSA on a much larger time scale of 5 years and lasts multiple presidential terms. This is reflected in the Annual Plan by indicating how each goal ties back to an objective outlined in the Long-Range Plan. 

This elected body of the student association decides on the plans based on previous research, ongoing projects, their election platforms, information from WUSA full-time staff, and other resources to the best possible understanding of where improvements need to be made. This is often completed during the first months of a board’s new term in office, in which board members discuss the items they wish to prioritize for the coming year. Different perspectives and opinions are debated amongst board members regarding what should be prioritized before a final version is put together and voted on by the board. Once approved the plan will be put in place and made public for everyone to see on WUSA’s website.  

In previous years the annual plan has included items such as the WUSA goose statue and the development of a new restaurant on Campus. The goose statue has now been fully completed. It can be found in the small park in front of the Physical Activities Complex (PAC). The new restaurant is called Chaska, a new Indian street food style restaurant owned and operated by WUSA, which is set to open in the Student Life Center (SLC) sometime this year. This year’s annual plan has already resulted in changes to WUSA Events which can be read about at the end of this article.  

Annual Plan Breakdown:  

The Annual Plan begins with a letter from the president to the student body, providing an opportunity for the president to communicate their message and priorities for the governing year.  

The plan is then bisected into Operational Goals and Advocacy Priorities. Operational Goals focus on the inner workings of WUSA and its regular operations. This can include the expansion of services, the development of new operations, or reflecting on already existing parts of WUSA to ensure that they are continuing to meet the needs of students at the University of Waterloo. 

This is also where you are likely to see items brought to a previous general meeting for the next steps, for example, the potential plans for a recording studio or the research and recommendations regarding the Athletics Fee.  

The Advocacy Priorities, on the other hand, focus on initiatives and advocacy goals for various stakeholders, including students, Waterloo’s university administration, the local community, and different levels of government. The advocacy priorities can be found on page 6 of the WUSA’s 2024 / 2025 Annual Plan.  

Having these Advocacy Priorities is essential to ensure that the Advocacy team can focus its time and energy on developing stances and creating resources used in their advocacy work. This can take various forms, such as WUSA’s Representative Survey Platform (RSP), focus groups, or OUSA consultations. For WUSA’s most recent research, please feel free to look at the Research and Consultation Web Page.   

This also helps support WUSA’s advocacy work by ensuring that advocacy goals are well supported through research and consultation with the student body. These resources are also then used to support efforts by directors, officers, and staff in advocating to key stakeholders.  

So how then do these points on the Annual Plan result in real change both on an operational and advocacy level?  

A clear example from the most recent Annual Plan is the inclusion of a point calling to “develop a plan for expansion of on-campus event offerings”. This plan is still in development, but due to the addition and discussion around this subject, the decision was made to hold a concert by Dillon Francis which happened earlier in September 2024.  

The decision to include that as a point on the Annual Plan, in addition to a small fee increase approved at the previous annual general meeting, resulted in bringing a concert to campus, which is the first of its kind in the past 10+ years. Thus, it shows how WUSA is committed to changing and continuing to improve going forward.  

Rory Norris 

Communications Assistant