November Board Meeting Recap

Here’s what happened at the November Board meeting, held on November 26, 2025.

Owner Consultation Committee Recommendation

The committee has been organizing at least 2 roundtables per term to make sure students have effective was to engage with WUSA’s Board members and Research team to have their voices heard on a variety of topics affecting student life.
The committee recommended that the 11 at-large directors set up virtual office hours where each director is available for 2-3 hours per week to engage with students and hear their thoughts about WUSA.
- Booking information can be found at Board of Directors – Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association. Bookings will resume in January.

The Board discussed and approved the creation of a new Vice President role as part of governance reform and addressed the new position’s workload, new definitions for each officer role, compensation, and the process for naming and reviewing the new position.
The Board decided on appropriate titles for the new Vice President roles. The two Vice President positions are now called Vice President, Government Stakeholder Relations and Vice President, Student Experience. They also reviewed the necessary amendments to WUSA’s bylaws and Board policies that would codify the creation of this new position.
The Board structure has now formally changed from 11 at-large directors and 2 officers to 10 at-large directors and 3 officers.
The election cycle scheduled to begin with nominations opening on December 22, 2025 will have the following positions:
- President (full-time, 12-month officer role)
- Vice President, Government Stakeholder Relations (full-time, 12-month officer role)
- Vice President, Student Experience (full-time, 12-month officer role)
- 10 at-large directors (12-month role)
Board decided it would be best to get an outside 3rd opinion of the current changes being made as part of the Governance Reform project.
They have tasked the Executive Director to look for an external governance expert to give their opinions on the planned upcoming changes.

The WUSA Annual Members’ Meeting typically takes place during the last full week of March. While the date and official notice for this meeting will go out in the coming months, business items to be considered during the meeting are due 60 days prior to the meeting.
Board approved December 8, 2025 to January 23, 2026 as the submission window for Annual Meeting items.

WUSA goes through a financial audit every year to make sure student money is properly spent and there are no inappropriate financial transactions.
While this process begins in the spring term, it wraps up in the fall when the auditors deliver their report and WUSA’s audited financial statements.
Board has approved the financial statements and tasked the Executive Director to post them for public access by student members after finalization.

There were no questions from Board about the public report included in the agenda.

Damian Mikhail has been working on many advocacy activities, including meetings with the Undergraduate Operations Committee regarding degree and course planning, and efforts to release student course perception survey results to faculties, in addition to instructors.
Damian also has been asking for better degree tracking and course planning resources for students so there is less reliance on external tools like UWFlow.
Damian also attended federal lobbying and got to meet Kitchener Centre MP Kelly Deridder.
Waterloo’s Senate released a statement on Institutional Partnerships which student senators voted in favour of. This outlined some on the University’s principles that must be met to form a partnership.
When it came to the Freedom of Expression task force – some recommendations around Waterloo not allowing the hosting of statements from collective bodies – student senators voted against, but these recommendations passed nonetheless.

There was no Vice President report as VP Remington Zhi is in Toronto at a provincial advocacy week.

Published: Wednesday, December 3, 2025