Here’s what happened at the February 19th WUSA Board of Directors meeting: 

Items Adopted by Board: 

• Board accepted the Election Results recommended by the Elections and Referenda Committee and included them in the Annual Members’ Meeting for ratification. 
• Board approved the Student Safety Advocacy Position recommended from the Advocacy Positions Committee; it will be posted here in the coming days. 
• The Ownership Consultation Committee recommended that the March Roundtable be for all student members to give their early input on what should be part of WUSA’s 2026-27 Annual Plan. 
• The Audit Committee recommended that PwC: PricewaterhouseCoopers be the recommended audit firm for 2026-27. This will be confirmed at the Annual Members’ Meeting. 

Annual Members’ Meeting – Hybrid Platform Presentation

WUSA’s Director of IT gave a presentation about a new online meeting and voting platform which will be used for the upcoming Annual Members’ Meeting on March 25. This will allow everyone to vote on motions whether they are in the room for the meeting or watching along with the live stream on YouTube. The request to introduce this platform came last year as Board wanted to make it more accessible for the up-to 1/3 of student members who are away on co-op in the winter term. 

Policy and Bylaw Amendments

The Board reviewed the proposed bylaw and policy amendments from Director Samir Sharma. This included clarified language for what would need to happen if the Executive Director (ED) is terminated or the role is unexpectedly vacated. This process includes the potential for an executive committee to be activated and delegate ED responsibilities to Senior Directors, until an interim executive director can fill the position.  

Advocacy Committee Terms of Reference: Recommendations from Governance Reform

This was the final step of approval of the development of the Advocacy Committee – a body requested in a motion calling for governance reform from the 2025 Annual Members’ Meeting. The committee will be granted ability, with some conditions, to pass advocacy stances on behalf of the Board as they will be focused on the advocacy initiatives of WUSA and developing issues impacting undergraduate students. The committee is mainly made up of WUSA’s President and VPs, faculty society leaders, student senators and 3 at-large, elected students. This committee will take effect next governing year, students can keep an eye out about how to run for one of these at-large student seats.  

How WUSA Should Handle Proxy Votes at Annual Members’ Meetings

Board discussed how the logistics around proxies (members unable to attend giving their right to vote to someone else attending the meeting) have led to complications and confusion in past years. Board decided that proxies will function as early votes and cannot apply to procedural votes at the meeting, will be discarded if motions are significantly amended on the floor, and will be automatically be delegated to the Chair for counting purposes based on the new voting platform.  

There was then a discussion on how many proxies could be delegated to an individual at the meeting if the online platform did not exist; the Board arrived at a maximum limit of 10 proxies. The Board then also noted that a member should be able to revoke their proxy at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting if they wished.

Reports

Executive Director Report

• Expressed concern around some of the turnaround times of the Advocacy Committee’s approval window of new positions and stances and how it would be operationally difficult to centrally organize campaigns and responses adequately.
• 1,127 students attended events this past month.
• WalkSafe coordinators have been hired and are going through training. Preparing for a pilot launch March 2nd. 
• There was a Research Roundtable engaging students on education technology and Course & Degree planning.
• Also discussed all the various promotional campaigns going on though WUSA’s Marketing and Communications teams.

President’s Report

• President Damian Mikhail has been setting up meetings with incoming Directors and Officers.
• There has been work done with faculty student leaders on the Academic Affairs Advisory Committee (3AC) advocating for student seats on Policy 70 petitions committees across campus. 
• There is continuation in pushing hard for course and degree planning – it will be good for students to have these tools. 
• Damian talked to some city officials and we have some reassurance that there will not be an injunction for St. Patrick’s Day this year. 
• Damian has talked to media outlets like CTV Kitchener and The Record about the Ontario Government’s OSAP cuts. Students are quite angry as these cuts undermine the ability of lower income students going to post-secondary institutions. Students are already having a tough time with cost of living. We also had a statement out expressing the anger with the decision.

Vice President’s Report

• Vice-President Remington Aginskaya-Zhi noted that OSAP cuts have been a big issue causing lots of student feedback – there will be further discussions outside of this public meeting about how WUSA plans to add to its response. 

Director Reports

Director Skyler Duggan noted that there is a Press Conference at Queen’s Park in Toronto on February 20 in opposition to these OSAP cuts and invited other WUSA directors to attend. Damian added that WUSA has been reached out to by various opposition parties and are sharing the student voice through many available channels. 

Board Member Time Tracker  

Making Board member timesheets public is an accountability mechanism for Board. These hours reflect the period of January 1-31, 2026.

	Board Responsibilities	Committee Work	Engagement with Students	Ongoing Initiatives	Irregular Meetings	Miscellaneous	Total
S. Sharma	4	15	1	10.5	4.66		35.16
A. Razmjoo	7..75	5.25	4	3	3.5		15.75
S, Duggan	4.5	6	3	3.5	3.25	0.5	20.75
A. Chang	7.5	5				0.5	13
M. Manohar	3.7	16.5			1	1.5	22.7
K. Traynor	3	17.5	1.5	3.75	3		28.75
M. Kanji	15.16	35.14					50.3
R. Norris	4.5	14.25			0.5	0.25	19.5
I. Khan	4.5	18.5	5				28
R. Sayed	4	5	5.5	3	2.5		20
M. Bouzanne							0

Annual Members’ Meeting Agenda

The Board spent most of the meeting discussing the various items going to the March 25th Annual Members’ Meeting: 

• A report, bylaw, and fee change related to the Governance Reform project that WUSA’s Board and committees have been working on this year. 
• WUSA Accountability Act – to create publicly accessibly attendance tracker for student leaders attending governing bodies 
• Club Funding Increase – to increase WUSA clubs funding from $75 per term to $200 per term 
• Officer Compensation – a motion to approve increased compensation for WUSA’s student officers on their 12-month contracts 
• Pay What You Can program – funding to continue the food security program 
• Other WUSA bylaw changes and Student Life Endowment Fund bylaws  
• Amendments to Corporate Social Responsibility Policy to strengthen commitment to Palestinian human rights 
• Improving Student Advocacy Access Through Laurier Students’ Public Interest Group (LSPIRG) Membership 

You can review the full agenda at WUSA’s 2026 Annual Members’ Meeting Agenda – Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association.