OUSA GA at Waterloo University March 6th-9th
This last week I had the pleasure of bringing eight delegates from Brock University to the OUSA Winter GA held at Waterloo University. After going through all of the application processes, booking of transportation and accommodations, organizing of meals and all of the logistics of this conference, I am very proud to say that everything paid off with a massive success. Our delegates did a phenomenal job advocating for students and drafting amendments to two policy papers “A Comprehensive Access Strategy” and “Tech-Enabled Learning” that were accepted and have been officially published by OUSA. The conference went really well with our Brock students sharing and debating ideas with delegates from eight other Universities including, Waterloo, McMaster, Queens, Laurier, and others. We got to hear a talk from Nobel Prize recipient Strickland on promoting education in the sciences, it was a very rare and welcome opportunity to learn and hear from someone so distinguished. As well, we had a presentation from the eCampus Ontario Open-Library team, a team focused on the development and implementation of Open-Education Resources (OERs). OERs are Open-Sourced textbooks and academic resources that enable students to learn course curriculum that would normally have to be paid for through expensive textbooks, completely for free. These are wonderful tools that promote financial accessibility and lower-barrier education for students. This presentation was especially helpful for me, since being an author for the Tech-Enabled learning paper, and directly authoring the section on OERs, this gave me the chance to hear perspective and insights directly from the team playing a forefront role in the implementation of these resources. I am very happy with everything that we achieved this conference, and I am proud of the work our fellow Badgers put in.
Our delegates have had very positive feedback to give about the conference, and our Brock delegates were met with very positive reception from the other delegates in attendance. I’m happy to share more about our successes and contributions if anyone is interested, but in any case, Go Badgers!!
Pre-Provincial Election Candidates Tabling Event
On Monday, March 24th, we hosted a Pre-Provincial Election Candidates Tabling Event where we had multiple candidates from around the Niagara region come out to Brock and speak with students before the Provincial Election took place. It was an opportunity for students to learn more about the elections before they took place, as well as network and connect with the candidates who were running to represent them! The event was a big success and I’m happy we got to share the chance for students to get politically involved and for candidates to engage with our students! We also did an on-campus voting booth during election day, and together with the BUSU coms team launched many posts and elections-based social media advocacy and awareness campaigns. I am very happy with how everything turned out, and I am glad we got to encourage our students to get out and vote!
Pizza with Politicians: Student and Political Leadership Networking Event
Another big upcoming event I have planned and have been working on with the BUSU team is “Pizza with Politicians”. The Pizza with Politicians event is a casual networking event ran here at Issacs which will be held on Thursday, March 13th from 7-9pm. This event will provide the opportunity and platform for students to engage with politicians on a more informal and leveled nature. The goal of this event is to enable prospective political changemakers, and curious students alike to speak with politicians one-on-one in a may casual and barrier-reduced environment. It’s a great way of getting students involved, learning about our current political affairs, making connections with likeminded peers, and envisioning themselves in the types of roles they may one day occupy.
We have multiple MPs, MPPs, and Mayors from the Niagara region confirmed to be attending this Thursday and are very excited for the event. If interested the Board of Directors members are more than welcome to attend! Please just sign up on our experience BU page and come out for this exciting event!