Summer has flown by faster than I expected, every day filled with new information, passion and excitement. My main priorities over the summer included mental health services accessibility, improving student group accessibility for students and supporting our residence associations and restructuring the Council of Residence Associations. 

Mental health services

This summer consisted of many conversations surrounding the accessibility of mental health services. I continued working on the mental health resource website and am exciting to say it’s finally come together. UASUCares is nearing launch and I am thrilled to have this resource available for students for many years to come. I have been working closely with the office of the Dean of Students to further develop our services here on campus and find ways to improve accessibility. We are in the midst of forming a mental health service providers committee, where services across our campus can come together, share data trends, collaborate and enhance accessibility to students in terms of mental wellness. Coordination of resources is quite important in my eyes and I will continue working this year to ensure students understand the best resource for them and have a positive first time experience when addressing their mental health concerns. Beyond that, with government funding announced for the next three years, it will be important for the Students’ Union to work closely with the university to ensure that all of our services remain accessible to students and our campus continues to be a positive environment for the entire spectrum of mental wellness.

Student groups

Accessibility to student groups has been a point I’ve brought up quite frequently in my campaign, I truly believe in enhancing opportunity to allow students to become more involved on campus. BearsDen has launched a new version, and we have been looking at the functionality and feasibility of this resource closely over the summer. I have been working with InfoLink to develop a student event calendar to allow students more access to events since event promotion is an area BearsDen does not excel in. We have also been working closely with the Dean of Students office to look at the new student group policy suite to ensure that our student groups have a deep understanding of their rights and the functionality of groups as a whole. I will continue to work over the year to develop a smoother registration process for student groups and keep assessing BearsDen to see if there is a new direction we need to head towards and the reality of that will look like. 

Residence associations

I’ve been working closely on supporting residence associations over this summer, focusing on helping the Lister Hall Student Association set up after their suspension of two years. It is important for me to work closely with each residence association to ensure that they have the full support they need throughout the year. Residence Services employees have unionized this past year and there have been some changes in residences; it’s important to me that the associations provide residents full support ensuring a smooth transition. We have had our first Council of Residence Associations meetings earlier in the month, and it’s exciting to see everyone so passionate about their residences filled with ideas and energy. I have made some structural changes to CORA this year; we will be writing a report on each residence focussing on structural and operational advocacy items so that ongoing advocacy can occur within each residence. A smooth advocacy transition year to year will allow for direct observation of change and provide resources for residence associations to work together on common issues.

These four months have flown by, I certainly hope the rest of the year doesn’t go by as fast as there is still much to be done. Being your Vice President Student Life has been an honor and a privilege, I will continue to work hard in all of my areas to ensure we continue making progress in these important issues. I appreciate you taking your time to read through all of this and if you have absolutely any questions, feel free to message me or drop by my office anytime.