This February the “community relations” bit of my title was most prevalent, with amazing conferences and partnerships formed across Canada.

Converge 2017

Early in the month, I had the incredible opportunity to represent UVic at Converge 2017, a conference where students, politicians, and university executives came together to develop a vision for what we wanted Canada to become. Looking forward to 2067, we talked about innovation, reconciliation, pluralism, and inclusivity in a rapidly changing global landscape.

The highlight of the event was hearing from Prime Minster Justin Trudeau on what defines Canada. He clearly explained how openness to immigrants was a competitive advantage for Canada. He stated that we are a society that has understood that defining ourselves based on ethnicity, language, religion, etc. doesn’t work. He emphasized that there is no ‘typical’ Canadian, and that we have discovered how to make our difference a source of strength.

There were many other amazing speakers at the conference, but what was truly valuable is having the opportunity to discuss a myriad of student issues with university presidents and staff, members of parliament, and more. Many were intrigued with the potential of open textbooks to reshape education and I am hopeful that conversations will blossom into action.

Count on Our Vote

This March you will be seeing a lot more of the Count on Our Vote campaign – a joint campaign between the Alliance of BC Students and the UVSS. In the second week of February myself and three amazing volunteer leaders (Chitra, Pauline and Gerrald) went to the Alliance of BC Students campaign conference to work with other student unions to prepare for launch.

Chitra, a volunteer leader, says that “as a volunteer, it was an amazing experience meeting students from other student unions. I’m really excited to be working together on the such an important campaign. We are really optimistic that student voter turnout will be higher than ever this election!”

We have the swag all ready to go and are excited for a big launch this week!

Interested in volunteering for Count on Our Vote? Email campaigns@uvic.ca!

Joint Lobbying

This week will also be the culmination of a lot of hard work with the Alma Mater Society of UBC and the Simon Fraser Student Society to lobby government on student issues! We will be meeting with Andrew Wilkinson, Rob Fleming, David Eby, and Andrew Weaver to make the following three requests:

1. Clearly outline student housing rights outside of the RTA.
2. Reaffirm commitment to maintaining the 2% domestic tuition cap
3. Continue investments in the BC Open Textbook Program to allow existing resources to be kept up to date and support the creation of ancillary textbook materials.

Stay tuned for the results in March updates!

What’s Next?

The month of March will be focused on getting out the vote for the provincial election! Get excited for debates, forums and speakers, centered around student issues! Make sure you pledge to vote @ CountOnOurVote.ca.

P.S. Congrats to incoming Anmol Swaich! March will also be full of training to make sure Anmol can hit the ground running with great ideas in May!

Director of Campaigns and Community Relations, Maxwell Nicholson and Director of Student Affairs, Emma Kinakin meet with Minister Wilkinson to lobby on provincial student issues.

What a wonderful last couple weeks it has been at the UVSS! Definitely some exciting updates from the campaigns department and much more in store for next semester.

Lobbying on Housing

First, we have continued to meet with Saanich city councilor Fred Haynes and the University of Victoria to discuss a viable solution to the housing crisis in Victoria: allowing universities to build more student housing. Currently the government restricts universities from self-supported capital projects, which restricts their ability to respond to a growing demand.  The problem is complex, but we now have the support of the Union of BC Municipalities (all the mayors in BC), the Alliance of BC Students, the Simon Fraser Student Society, the UBC Alma Mater Society, the UVic administration, and the Camosun administration, and are continuing to put pressure on the government to fix this problem. On the 29th I had the pleasure of saying a few kind words about Fred’s leadership on this issue to a room of Saanich community leaders at the Victoria Caledonian Brewery & Distillery (lovely craft beer!).

Meeting with the Minister

On the first of December we continued the conversation about student housing, lobbying the Minister of Advanced Education about the housing problem and four other issues, recommending they:

1. Increase funding for BCcampus’ Open Textbook Project by $500,000 a year for the next 3 years to expand the number of open textbooks available to BC students. (See the UVSS TextbookBroke Campaign)
2. Provide targeted funding to post-secondary institutions for mental health support services for students (See the UVSS ReThink Mental Health campaign)
3. Establish a needs-based student grant program that addresses student needs and provides incentives for completion and conduct a review of the current B.C. student loan eligibility requirements and interest charged on B.C. student loans.
4. Provide resources to institutions implementing Sexual Misconduct policies, expand the scope of Bill 23, and create a dedicated provincial task force to create a comprehensive provincial wide plan to address sexual violence. (See the Let’s Get Consensual Campaign)

Our pragmatic approach was well received, and we will continue to be pushing for these important student issues!

A productive & enjoyable discussion about the student experience w/ elected reps from @UVSS. Thoughtful and impressive leaders. pic.twitter.com/wBQbvCVrhp

— Andrew Wilkinson (@Wilkinson4BC) December 1, 2016

Bell Sponsors Mental Health Event!

Finally, exciting news on the mental health front – Bell Let’s Talk is partnering with us with a $3,500 for our Mental Health Awareness Week, which will feature keynote speaker Kevin Breel on January 18th, a renown speaker with a TED talk boosting almost 3 million views! Stay tuned for more event details.

I am truly honored to represent students on these issues, and my door is always open to hear what you want to see from the campaigns department! In the meantime, good luck on exams, and have a wonderful holiday season!

-Maxwell Nicholson, Director of Campaigns and Community Relations

UVSS Director of Outreach, Alysha Flipse and Director of Campaigns, Maxwell Nicholson present student issues to the government on October 11th.

The University of Victoria Students’ Society is at it again! In addition to providing students with many fun events throughout the school year, your student-run non-profit also does municipal, provincial, and national advocacy to represent everyone in the UVic community. On October 11th, UVSS Director of Campaigns Maxwell Nicholson presented a series of student-focused recommendations to the BC Government’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. By doing this, the UVSS intends to raise awareness and seek solutions for the provincial issues that matter most to students. Our four requests were inspired by your responses to the annual survey sent out in June 2016.

Our first recommendation to the committee was for the government to increase funding for the “BC Open Textbook Project” founded in 2012. This government sponsored project works to replace standard, stagnant and costly textbooks with open-sourced options that are peer-reviewed, high quality and free of charge for students. Over the last ten years, textbook prices have risen four times the rate of inflation, presenting a serious affordability concern for students. The BC Campus’ Open Textbook Project has resulted in $2.5 million of cost saving for students and presents a viable solution to this pressing issue. So far this year, the UVSS has done a lot of advocacy on this issue including the “#Textbookbroke” campaign that was launched in September. This campaign reached over 35,000 students on social media and was featured on CBC and CFAX radio.

Our second recommendation was to remove the barriers that prevent post-secondary institutions from building more on-campus student housing.  Right now, 10,000+ students apply for just 2,700 on-campus units. Although certain individuals may get accommodation from their families, most of student off-campus housing is from market place rental, making low-income families compete with cash-strapped students. Building more on-campus housing would take students out of this competitive market, but currently there are many unnecessary road blocks that prevent the university from building. That is why the UVSS has been working with municipalities, the university administration and various student societies such as the Simon Fraser Students Society, or the UBC Alma Mater Society to push for progressive reforms to the housing of university students.

The third recommendation was for the government to provide targeted funding for mental health support services for students. Mental health is a growing problem on-campus and recent statistics paint a concerning picture. In Spring 2013, the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) released a report which stated that 9.1% of students seriously considered suicide over a 12-month period. Throughout the last few months the UVSS has been working with UVic Student Mental Health Initiative to provide resources and support for students, but budget constraints restrict our capacity.

The fourth recommendation we provided was based on the recent student aid reforms in Ontario that create an up-front, needs-based grants program for low-income students. In Ontario, full-time students whose parents make a combined household income of less than $50,000 per year can now receive non-repayable needs-based grants that enable them to access post-secondary education. This is a good stepping stone that our provincial government can make to transform British Columbia’s schools into one of Canada’s most equitable education systems.

These suggestions received positive responses, with the committee expressing its appreciation for the specific nature of the proposals as well as our coordination with the University of Victoria and other student groups. We are optimistic that these recommendations will make it into the Finance Committee’s proposal for the 2017/18 provincial government budget. In the coming year we will continue to represent the UVic students by working with the government, the University, and other student groups to bring student issues to the forefront.

-Dakota McGovern