OUSA Highlight
What is OUSA? OUSA, also known as the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, is the provincial lobby organization of which WUSA is a member. It represents students from 9 member schools including Waterloo, Laurier, Brock, Queens, McMaster, Western, Trent, Laurentian, and Ontario-Tech. OUSA works to advocate for student-related issues, develop policy pertaining to student concerns, and develop resources and reports to support in their advocacy and that of their member organizations such as WUSA. All of this and more can be read about on the OUSA website. Waterloo is a founding member of OUSA along with Laurier, Brock, Queens, and the University of Toronto, though UofT is no longer a member. Being an OUSA member increases our advocacy reach and negotiating power by working to represent hundreds of thousands of students collectively, rather than representation by school.
Each student union has a voting member on the steering committee, which oversees the general operation of OUSA, and sends delegations to each annual meeting equivalent to their student population. Waterloo, for example, can send up to 12 voting delegates. Delegates are responsible for advocating for the policy goals of Waterloo students, critiquing the policy papers for issues or concerns, and being representatives by voting on issues at the general meeting. If this sounds like something that you would be interested in sign up for the WUSA Leadership Email List, or keep your eyes on the WUSA Jobs and Opportunities Webpage.
Policy papers are developed and voted on by the member schools at each biannual general meeting. Policy papers are usually reviewed and updated every 2-3 years to ensure that they keep up with students’ evolving needs and that the included recommendations still stand. In this most recent general assembly, which took place between October 24th and 27th at the University of Brock in St. Catherines, the policy papers focused on student financial aid, environmental sustainability, and a response to the Blue-Ribbon Panel Report. The Blue-Ribbon Panel was a group of experts put together by the government of Ontario to investigate the current financial stability of the post-secondary sector in Ontario. These most recent papers were approved by the general assembly and will be released on the OUSA website over the coming weeks. Previous policy papers still in effect can be found on the OUSA Policies Webpage.
These policy papers are then used to advocate to the government on issues or policies students want to see changed or improved. This is done at the OUSA lobby week, also known as the Student Advocacy Conference, which takes place in November where the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the various student unions go to Queens Park and meet with politicians, such as MPPs and ministers. These meetings provide the opportunity to provide critique, information, and push for the recommendations that are outlined in the policy papers.
In addition to the advocacy and policy papers, OUSA also works with the student unions to develop new research reports that survey students directly. These reports can be seen on the OUSA Research Reports Webpage. This year the Ontario Undergraduate Student Survey (OUSS) went live on November 4th. You will have until the 13th of December to complete the survey to be eligible to receive one of ten $100 visa gift cards. In addition, the school with the highest response rate will be crowned the greatest school by the OUSA Mascot.
Rory Norris
Communications Assistant
