
Over the weekend, from Nov. 2 to 4, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) held their bi-annual general assembly conference at McMaster University.
Wilfrid Laurier University was in attendance, alongside seven other member universities of OUSA, to discuss new and renewing policies.
Laurierโs representation at this conference was six delegates; a number that proportionally represents the total population of students enrolled at both Waterloo and Brantford campuses.
โItโs an opportunity for all members of the different institutions that are a part of OUSA to give their input on policies that weโre renewing,โ said Shannon Kelly, OUSAโs vice president of finance.
โIโm on what we call a steering committee of OUSA, which is basically the board of directors,โ Kelly said.
One of the primary missions of these conferences is communication and collaboration between the eight member schools of OUSA.
The representatives present are committed to lobbying studentsโ needs in the most accurate and effective way possible, by sharing critiques and creating dialogue for changes and additions to policy proposals.
Upon the success of this conference, OUSA will now go forward and begin lobbying to the provincial government for their policies and their immediate implementation.
โMy role was to facilitate โbreak-out sessions,โ where members from different delegations will critique the papers in order to improve it, so weโre best reflecting the needs of students in the policies that we have.โ
โThe three topics that were on the ballot to renew were teaching and assessment, technology and abled learning as well as tuition,โ Kelly said.
โWe also decide what policies we will be renewing during the next general assembly.โ
โTypically, steering committee members will offer a paper โฆ I offered the technology and abled learning paper,โ she said.
โIn particular, there was a section on teaching and learning quality which we focused on effective methods of pedagogy, evaluations of teaching, as well as faculty renewal strategies we felt best served students,โ Kelly said.
โA huge area that we talked about as well was something called high impact learning.โ
โThis also included focusing on co-curricular records and allowing students to articulate the skills they learned through those experiential learning methods and to ensure theyโre getting the highest quality education โ
โWe also talked a little bit about inclusive learning โฆ this included different ways of testing students and student assessments because, as we know, sometimes multiple choice isnโt the best testing method for a lot of students, but sometimes for certain disciplines thatโs the best way to do it,โ Kelly added.
OUSA delegates also posed concerns about sensitivity training for faculty members โto best serve students and ensure that they feel safe and comfortable in their classrooms.โ
Upon the success of this conference, OUSA will now go forward and begin lobbying to the provincial government for their policies and their immediate implementation.
โWe are doing what we call our lobby conference that we do every year next week, where we have our priorities and take them to our various MPPโs at Parliament Hill,โ Kelly concluded.
OUSA has scheduled meetings with several policy-makers and representatives from the provincial government for next week in order to present these new and renewed policies and move forward with their enactment.
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