Opening
Good evening everyone. Happy New Year and thank you for joining us this evening for our annual State of the USC event. Before we begin this evening, I’d like to thank you all for accommodating the date change. Last week was one of the most difficult weeks we’ve faced on campus in recent memory. As you all know, we lost four members of our campus community in the Flight PS752 crash last week. Our campus learned of the tragedy just hours before our scheduled event, and our team hoped that moving the event would provide space for our community to mourn this incredible loss together.
Before we formally begin our program this evening, I would ask that we join together in a moment of silence to remember Ghazal Nourian, Milad Nahavandi, Hadis Hayatdaavoudi, and Sajedeh Saraeian.
Thank you.
The loss of these four students has marked one of the most challenging events of our team’s first eight months in office. Other difficult events stand out as defining moments in our terms thus far: the deaths of Engineering students Ana Toner and Denver Grey Chamberland, Kings student Emil Pietruszewski, and Social Science student Jeff Courage; we’ve also reeled from the racist incidents towards black students at Western who stood up against injustice in their classroom; and the displays of misogyny and gender-based violence on Broughdale bedsheets in September.
These were not joyful moments for our executive team or for our campus community. But in each of these moments, we were reminded of the purpose and importance of the USC: to build and support our community, create a space for difficult conversations, and represent our constituents. In these eight short months, students have looked to our executive team on numerous occasions for comfort, assurance, and leadership. Every day our team comes to the office and strives to achieve our mission, to enhance the student experience and quality of life for all undergraduates at Western. The achievement of our mission is only possible when we believe that our vision is true: students have the power to change the world.
Tonight is an important opportunity for the USC to connect with our community and our most important stakeholders: undergraduate students. We do not exist without our constituents and our organization constantly works to support our students through service provision, programming, peer support, peer programs, and advocacy. All of you in the room tonight make the achievement of our mission possible as student leaders who directly contribute to our output, and as valued partners who support our ongoing work.
The State of the USC has historically been an opportunity for the USC President to speak in the UCC Atrium to a captive audience, define captive as you will, and provide updates on the year so far and activities and initiatives to come. And what could be more exciting? Me speaking to a group of people in the Starbucks line while trying to speak louder than the Booster Juice blender and taking credit for all of the hard work that the whole executive has done this year?
So, in an effort to make this event a little more meaningful, enjoyable, and relevant, our Executive, upon Nico’s suggestion, have made some changes to our annual event, but have maintained the general purpose. My first role of the evening is to welcome you to the new State of the USC, give a brief overview, and introduce the rest of our executive team who will speak to their individual portfolios before I offer some closing remarks.
Eight months ago, our bright-eyed, bush-tailed team sat together and brainstormed dozens of ideas that we could execute to better our campus and the lives of Western students. Oh how we were young. Many were ridiculous, most revived on the four year student leader cycle. And in the end, we settled on 24 priorities that we compiled into an Executive Roadmap.
As student leaders, we realize just how quickly our terms fly by. We are both blessed and cursed to have one year terms. On one hand, the regular turnover ensures our student leaders and our ideas are fresh and keep up with the quickly changing demands and desires of our students. On the other hand, many of you know that one year is simply not enough time to conceive, ideate, plan, and execute all the optimistic initiatives in a post secondary setting. On a third, unrelated hand, it gives us the opportunity to reap the popularity these positions bring for twelve short months, before getting out of here ASAP. Much of our organization’s strength stems from our transition program and the constant support of our senior managers and full-time staff, who provide institutional memory and sustainability for the USC. This allows us to think beyond simple, short-term initiatives, and place our mark on the future of our organization and this institution.
However, I’m proud that our team has found great success in many of our priorities already this year. We entered our roles in the most uncertain climate in the history of student associations – where our funding was in question and our autonomy was being threatened. I’m pleased to report that our organization is as strong as ever, and the Student Choice Initiative has only given us the motivation to work harder, listen closer, and advocate louder to ensure our students are best supported to achieve holistic success.
Our team has focused on engaging our students, promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion, and ensuring that we always faithfully represent our students to the best of our abilities. We’ve been busy consulting on university policies regarding gender-based violence and self-reported absences, working with the university and our countless student leaders to produce a fantastic Orientation Week, facilitating one of the most vibrant clubs systems in North America, and hosting an absolutely seamless Purple Fest to kickstart our simple year without any surprises.
We’ve received attention from campus, local, provincial, and national media. And that was just about ASAP Rocky.
We’ve advocated to all levels of government on issues of affordability, student employment, gender-based violence, transit, student safety, and others. We’ve continued to provide support for our students by revamping the training for our Peer Support Centre volunteers, initiating a discussion about creating a more inclusive campus, collaborating with our associates and coordinators to provide relevant programming and supports, and working everyday to make Western a safe and welcoming place for all of our students.
We’ve started to think more critically about how we tell our story. Students now hear from us more directly and more often, and we’re constantly thinking about how we can be more relatable and more relevant to our constituents.
Finally, among a host of governance and financial changes, many related to the Student Choice Initiative, the USC has restructured our executive team on the backdrop of the constantly increasing potential of our organization. With the unanimous backing of Council, next year our team will consist of six student leaders: a president and five vice presidents, with two whole positions dedicated to student advocacy.
The work I described may sound like a lot for eight months; and that’s because it is. I’m not one to toot our own horn, but tonight I, and we, are going to. The Executive, our council, our staff, our associates, coordinators, and interns have all worked incredibly hard for the past eight months to give our organization the energy and passion it needs to thrive.
I’m now excited to invite the rest of our executive team to discuss their portfolio-specific accomplishments and plans for the next part of the evening.
Closing
Thank you to our team for sharing the highlights and visions for each of their portfolios.
We are so lucky to have a passionate and dedicated executive team who have literally worked day and night for the past eight months to best serve our students. Cecilia has even been sleeping in the office to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning currently threatening her apartment. I’m not kidding. Seeing each executive member speak at this event about their portfolio’s work has been a true privilege for me and a tradition that I hope continues for future State of the USC events.
I hope that this evening you have been reminded of the importance of our organization in contributing to the student community we enjoy at Western. The USC is more than just a Robert’s Rules meeting body – we are a thirty million dollar organization completely dedicated to enhancing the lives of our 30,000 members. We own two restaurants, a retail store, and a movie theatre. We co-host Canada’s best Orientation program. We facilitate a clubs system for over 15,000 members. We offer a Peer Support Centre and on-campus Food Bank for students in need. We provide relevant campus-wide events and programming. We provide hundreds of paid part-time jobs and leadership opportunities for undergrad students. We host seven peer programs dedicated to the creation and promotion of safe and inclusive spaces on campus. We advocate on behalf of students to all levels of government and university administration. We are your university students’ council, but we are also so much more.
While our terms will quickly come to an end and the USC’s general election is right around the corner, our team’s work is not yet done. For the next two months, we look forward to hearing how everyone will do our jobs better than we have, but for all of you running, remember that you have to work with us for a whole month during transition. I remember the feelings of excitement and anxiety, fear and wonder, and general inability to grasp the amazing journey I was on, and continue to be on, this time last year when Cat and I were gearing up for our election. I wish all of you who have decided to throw your hat in the ring the best of luck, and offer you one piece of advice: take a step back, enjoy it, and be proud of yourselves.
We still have a lot of initiatives to come: from starting long-term conversations to expand student spaces on campus, to taking proactive steps to better support our students financially, academically, and mentally, to ensuring we continue to plan events that excite our students and make people wonder how we even did it in the first place. Here’s hoping our performers will show up next time.
Our main goal for the next four months, however, is simple: to prepare our successors for success – both those who will be elected and selected in the coming months to those to come many years down the road.
I leave you with these parting words: remember that while tonight we are celebrating the strength of our organization, our collective work never stops. We need every single one of you to be champions of the USC in your classrooms, your residence buildings, your clubs, your fraternities and sororities, your offices, your meetings, and your communities. As I said during my opening speech at April’s Partner’s Reception, we are all at our best when our students are at their best and we firmly believe that we are collectively stronger when we are aligned in our vision and goals.
Thank you to each and every one of you for joining us this evening and to those partners and champions of the USC who couldn’t make it tonight. Without you – our student leaders, our partners, our friends, but most importantly, our students – we would be nothing. On behalf of our team, best wishes for the new year and thank you for your continued support.
Now, without further ado, I’m happy to introduce our keynote for the speaker for the evening, who will be giving their two hour long information session on Robert’s Rules. Just kidding, that’s it from us, stick around for some refreshments, and we’ll see you at the Arkells concert January 29th.