Turning Capacity into Impact: Powering Student Voice, Building Community, and Leading Change 

We’ve had an exciting May, with our 2025-26 Board officially starting their term, finalizing the Long-Range Plan, and the implementing of a new organizational structure that has been in the works since our governance review in 2022.  

Our last major organizational restructuring happened in 2017. Since then, as we’ve continued to hear from students what they need and want to see on their campus, we’ve grown in our responsibilities, service offerings, staffing levels, and more to help meet those needs. This restructuring was recommended in 2022 to enhance staff capacity, improve succession planning, and better align staff with WUSA’s Long-Range Plan priorities so we can continue to deliver the best service possible to our members and support our student leaders. 

You can read more about our new 2025-30 Long-Range Plan by checking out a summary on our website. A version with more details and success metrics is being developed with the 2025-26 Board and will be shared soon. 

What To Expect from Our New Long-Range Plan 

WUSA’s new Long-Range Plan is centered around turning our growing capacity into real impact for students. It lays out how we will better understand what students need, earn and strengthen student trust, and create a more connected and vibrant campus life. It focuses on six main goals:  

1. Understanding student needs and being known for it 
2. Strengthening student trust, voice, and impact in WUSA 
3. Revitalizing social life and belonging at Waterloo 
4. Improving how we operate and building student-first partnerships 
5. Being a place where people are proud to work 
6. Advocating for the collective interests of students.  

The plan was shaped by extensive student input through focus groups, feedback from student leaders, consultations with students, and feedback that WUSA has been collecting over the last few years. This new direction is set by students, for students. 

We want to be more than a service provider; we aim to be a trusted partner as students go through their undergraduate degree, standing up for student needs, and ensuring they’re heard, seen, and supported at every level. Whether we’re tackling affordability, mental health, or improving academic fairness, this plan aims to make the student experience more inclusive, impactful, and empowering. 

What’s the Change to the Org Chart? 

WUSA’s new org structure has two new Senior Director positions that will report to the Executive Director – a Senior Director, Operations and a Senior Director, Outreach and Engagement. These Senior Directors report to the Executive Director and provide strategic coordination across the organization, allowing the Executive Director more time to focus on governance and supporting the Board. With greater leadership capacity, we expect better coordination across student groups and campus departments – whether it’s for events, advocacy, services, or any of our other offerings. 

You can see the new org chart below for a rough idea of what the structure looks like. Please note from the Director-level down, it is organized by areas of responsibility rather than specific positions. 

What This Means for Students 

This new structure gives us more capacity to support the Board and student leaders more effectively, keep big projects moving forward year-to-year, better align our day-to-day work with WUSA’s strategic goals, and create more capacity for events, advocacy, and services that students tell us they care about and want to see.  

We’re excited to use this new structure to bring the 2025-30 Long-Range Plan to life and build a stronger, more responsive WUSA that’s ready to be delivered to students – now and into the future.