JB4VP ‘24

Official Campaign Platform

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TREATY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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As a candidate for a position within the UASU and University of Alberta student, I recognize that the University and Student’s Union are built and operate on Treaty 6 territory the l historical land of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux. I also acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Settlements and the Métis Nation of Alberta.

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As a settler to this land, I also recognize my responsibility in the pursuit of reconciliation between the Indigenous peoples and the various generations of settlers. In conducting its operations and serving students, the UASU must remain cognizant of the challenges and barriers facing our indigenous members and community and support them in their efforts to create healing, decolonize our organization and find common ground.

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LETTER TO STUDENTS:

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My name is Joachim Bony, JB for short. I am a third-year business student pursuing a bilingual bachelor’s degree with a major in Business Economics and Law, and a minor in Political Science. I am running to be your Vice President of Operations and Finance (VP OPS-FI) for the University of Alberta Students’ Union (UASU). Having previously served in a similar role at the Francophone Campus, Campus Saint-Jean, I have witnessed the impact of direct, pragmatic leadership on students’ lives. My time as VP OPS-FI has introduced me to governance, financial management, and oversight within the Campus Saint-Jean (CSJ) Faculty Association (AUFSJ). It also made me recognize the ongoing challenges faced by students and their need for support and assistance.

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My goal is to improve our union by staying connected to students’ needs and addressing urgent concerns. Pragmatic leadership focused on tangible outcomes is my approach, and I am committed to serving as an effective representative for our student community. As a candidate for the position of Vice President of Operations and Finance (VP OPS-FI) in the University of Alberta Students’ Union (UASU), I recognize the challenges faced by students. Many students seek help or information about services and resources they pay for, yet remain unaware. Whether it’s understanding healthcare coverage, accessing ONEcard services, or supporting student groups, I am committed to addressing these issues.

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My vision for the UASU centers on accessibility and visibility, sustainability and transparency, and finally, Impact. We must ensure students know what services are available and can easily access them. By engaging with student groups, faculty associations, and the student community, we can make a tangible impact. Let’s refocus on the basics and revitalize the UASU’s role in supporting students:

 

1. Accessibility and Visibility: My campaign’s first theme focuses on making services visible and accessible. Knowing what UASU offers is crucial for students. By creating permanent liaisons with student groups, we ensure continuity and better service. These liaisons will keep track of work between groups and UASU while assisting them in accessing resources. This approach allows us to serve students consistently and effectively. Also, launching a new communication effort will play a central role in the UASU reaching a lot more students everywhere in our University.                                                                                                          

2. Sustainability and Transparency: To enhance sustainability, we’ll optimize services based on student demand and impact. We’ll recalibrate less sought-after services, prioritizing what students need most. Additionally, we’ll allocate resources effectively to benefit students. Transparency is key- we’ll establish a yearly, simplified financial and operational report for UASU. Students shouldn’t have to search for information about where their money goes; it’s their right to know.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

3. Impactful Efforts: Let’s make the UASU’s impact felt by students. First, we’ll oversee the introduction of a new jobs and volunteer positions registry, supporting student employment. Given rising tuition and costs, this is crucial. Second, we’ll champion student entrepreneurship by collaborating with existing campus entities. Leveraging our ability to engage with the alumni community will further enhance opportunities. Lastly, we’ll improve SUB maintenance management to avoid financial strain and ensure timely renovations. This will aim to prevent a repeat of the Myer Horowitz theatre that ended up costing upwards of $17M, instead of the $1.5M. Along with that effort, I’ll advocate, along with other executives, for better maintenance across all University facilities, for a safer, more appropriate educational setting.

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That’s my vision to make sure the students’ union serves us as it is meant and to improve our experience in University.  Also doing it more effectively, transparently, and proactively. It's a plan aimed at making sure we know more about our UASU and that our UASU knows us better to serve us in ways that are meaningful to us.

 

 

 

 

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General Aims:

 My platform aims to make the University of Alberta’s Students Union a more sustainable, proactive, and transparent organization aimed at supporting students from the moment of their acceptance into an undergraduate program at the University of Alberta until their graduation at the end of their degree and afterward by remaining an entity engaged with the alumni community. The goal of this candidacy is that by the end of the upcoming one-year mandate, a majority of the students will know about their SU, benefit from more of its services more effectively, and how it is run.

 

JBforVP Operations and Finance ‘24 means a Students’ Union that is:

 

 

 

 

 

Accessible and Visible:

 

• Creating direct and permanent liaisons between the UASU and the various FA’s across the U of A, working in conjunction with Student Group Services, to better engage with them regarding governance, event organization, financing, and advocacy.

• To ensure direct UASU access for students through their faculty associations (FAs) and lower-level Student Representative Associations (SRAs) by ensuring a more direct permanent interaction with these groups.

• To facilitate the access for student groups to resources offered by SU, as well throughout the University as a whole, including grants and other funding opportunities as well as physical and mental health resources.

• Goal: To centralize, declutter, and simplify the ability of student and faculty associations to respond to the student community’s needs through access to resources and with more continuity. Also brings UASU closer to the terrain whilst maintaining the independence and autonomy of FAs and SRAs.

 

• Launching an outreach campaign across the University of Alberta Campuses laying out the basic information of UASU services to all students.

• Including posters and banners in addition to a renewed Social Media push and in-person presentations, updated throughout the year for various occasions and carried out through the FAs and SRAs and led by Executives; In both French and English.

• Ensuring all UASU services and businesses are identified and promoted more clearly to show the whole student community where and how their union is invested and at work across Campus.

• Goal: To make the UASU a visible entity around the University with a laid-out mission and vision that resonates with students, as well as putting a face on the organization. To address the lack of knowledge, especially on satellite campuses, about a host of SU or affiliated services. Focusing on Health coverage through the Health and Dental Plan, the Peer support center for support with personal difficulties, or InfoLink for access to basic information and services like OneCard and UPass.

 

 

 

 

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Sustainable and Transparent:

 

• Establishing more efficient SU service and business evaluations that are centered around the overall student experience to optimize existing resources Creating ways of evaluating UASU services and businesses focused on students to optimize the use of SU resources:

• 1. Receiving and integrating student experience into the evaluation process of the services and businesses of SU to better understand the needs of students and adapt the SU’s work to them.

• Metrics will include the number of students seeking those services, the estimated cost per use of those services, and, importantly, the feedback from students regarding service quality.

• Goal: To evaluate the services provided by UASU, as well as its business activities, more holistically, aiming to consider their importance to students. This will help the UASU recognize the value of the services it provides to students and understand its coverage of their needs

• 2. Optimizing services through consolidation of those that students still need in a limited capacity and rerouting resources from the consolidated services towards those seeing higher demand or interactions from students.

• Goal: To enhance efficiency and student experience. By streamlining less-used services and reallocating resources to high-demand ones, the union can effectively meet student needs, and improve satisfaction, and sustainability, ultimately benefiting the student body.

• Establishing a yearly, mandatory, simplified financial report of operations by UASU.

• Using Social Media and regular UASU-organized events, the Union will present information from its audits and financial reports in a diluted and simplified matter, accessible and visible to all students across the University, in both French and English, so that students have access to it without having to look for it.

• Goal: Improving transparency by giving students easy and direct access to the financial information of the Union and enabling them to hold the executives accountable with simplicity.

 

 

 

 

Impactful & Meaningful (Details being finalized)

 

Employability:

• Continuing efforts ensuring the introduction of a new job registry platform to replace the Jobkin Job registry for student jobs along with the inclusion of volunteer positions for the students.

• Goal:  To help students gain access to the job market, enabling them to become self-reliant during their university years and find employment related to their field of study upon completing their degrees.

• Exploring, in collaboration with eHUB and other entrepreneurship and professional development organizations within the University, a single hub for student entrepreneurship, leveraging the SU’s role as a core entity in the Campus community and its ability to reach the alumni community.

•  A space for continued engagement with entrepreneurs from the alumni community and the Edmonton business community, accessible to students through the services provided by SU.

• Goal: To empower students to translate their degrees, ideas, and aspirations into practical actions. This involves leveraging the support of the broader University of Alberta (UofA) community, including alumni, and providing facilitated access to resources already available within the institution. Additionally, addressing students’ employment and revenue-related hurdles is a secondary focus.

 

Maintenance of Facilities:

• Ensuring maintenance projects at SUB are continuous and proactive to avoid situations like the Myer Horowitz theatre, where works are pushed back for too long and lead to out-of-control spending of students’ money once underway.

• Monitoring the timely replenishment of the Sustainability & Capital Fund to address deferred maintenance and take on other projects aimed at making SUB more sustainable as well as sustainability projects by students.

• Advocating with the University, in collaboration with other executives, to do more to address the deferred maintenance of buildings and facilities used by students, to prevent a repeat of the Humanities Centre situation, and to keep facilities up to date, functional, and safe across campus.

• Goal: To highlight the need for students to have access to facilities with a respectable and consistent level of maintenance and safety, especially given the increasing cost of tuition. Secondarily, to ensure financial sustainability given the limited resources of UASU for the planned maintenance of SUB as well as sustainability initiatives by

• Building on the efforts to expand the UASU Perks and Member Mondays program to help address the affordability crisis by also seeking new partnerships, particularly with local businesses around Campus in addition to the discounts already available to University Students in general as well as those under UASU Perks.

• Goal: To play a bigger role in supporting students amidst the affordability crisis we are currently facing by leveraging the size of our membership to the benefit of our members.