Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance
Motto Educated Solutions
Location Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Established 1992 (incorporated 1995)
President Jen Carter
Vice presidents Stéphane Hamade (Finance)
Rick Camman (Administration and Human Resources)
Members AMS, BUSU, FedS, MSU, TOSA, USC, WLUSU
Affiliations CSA, CASA
Website Official site

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is an alliance of university student governments from across Ontario, Canada. Their common objective is to protect the interests of over 140,000 professional and undergraduate, full-time and part-time university students, and to provide research and recommendations to the government on how to improve accessibility, affordability, accountability, and quality of post-secondary education in Ontario.

Structure

OUSA has 3 main bodies: General Assembly, Steering Committee, and the Executive. OUSA's General Assembly meets on a semi-annual basis, rotating between member campuses. Each member association is allocated delegates based on proportional representation of about 1 delegate per 3,000 students. The General Assembly sets the macro direction of the organization, and approves all of its policies. The Steering Committee consists of 1 representative from each member association, and meets on a monthly or semi-monthly basis. Each member association designates who will be its representative on the Steering Committee, usually the Vice President University Affairs, Vice President Education, or President of the association. From the Steering Committee, a 3 person executive is elected to be President, VP Administration, and VP Finance. The executive drive the day-to-day operations of OUSA, are in charge of all financials, messaging, and advocacy, while managing the full-time support staff.

Membership History

The student associations of Brock University, Queen's University, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students at the University of Toronto are the founding members of the OUSA, which was informally created in 1992. It was formally incorporated in 1995. Many of the founding student associations had recently left the Canadian Federation of Students. They argued that the CFS pursued too many social causes at the expense of core student issues, that their demand for zero tuition fees was untenable, and that the organization had become dictatorial and staff-heavy.

Part-time students at the University of Toronto withdrew from the Alliance, as did Queen's Alma Mater Society, citing concerns over the organization's management in the mid-1990s. Queen's then rejoined the Alliance as an associate member in 2001 and then as a full member in 2004. As of May 2011, OUSA welcomed two new members, the Trent in Oshawa Student Association as associate members, and the McMaster Association of Part-Time Students as full members, who have rejoined after a 7-year absence.[1] As of May 2013, the University of Windsor Students' Alliance voted through a referendum to leave the Alliance. On April 29th, 2014, the McMaster Association of Part-Time Students withdrew from membership in OUSA. [2]

Today, OUSA's membership consists of student associations from the universities of Brock, McMaster, Queen's, Trent in Oshawa, Waterloo, Western, and Wilfrid Laurier.

Lobbying Activities

OUSA was met with early success shortly after its incorporation in 1995, when its advocacy was responsible for the creation of the Ancillary Fee Protocol with government led by New Democratic Party of Ontario with Bob Rae as its leader. This protocol meant increases in ancillary fees must be subject to a referendum, and ended the practise of universities of raising ancillary fees to circumvent the tuition fee controls set by the government. OUSA was less successful dealing with the right-wing Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris, which cut funding to universities and significantly raised tuition fee levels at Ontario universities, including a highly controversial "deregulation" of tuition in many professional and graduate programs. Despite dealing with an antagonistic government, OUSA was able to persuade the government to establish the Ontario Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, a permanent advisory board including student and university representation in 1998, and notable improvements to provincial student financial aid (1999, 2000). Over this period, OUSA also brought together the various stake holding groups (including competing student groups, faculty, staff and alumni organizations) in the university sector for the first time. Chaired by then-Executive Director Andrew Boggs, this coalition worked on issues of common interest, including election campaigns and information sharing.

OUSA claimed credit for the four-year freeze in 'real' tuition fee levels announced by then-Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Dianne Cunningham in 2001, along with other provincial higher education advocacy groups. OUSA has had more success dealing with the Liberal government led by Dalton McGuinty, and, with the guidance of then-Executive Director Adam Spence, is credited with a number of the policy proposals included in a report on post-secondary education written by former-premier Bob Rae], particularly his call for grants for low-income students.

Beginning in 1998, under the guidance of Executive Director Andrew Boggs, OUSA began increasing its cooperation with other provincial groups to build the profile of higher education in the Ontario general election. These activities continued under Executive Director Scott Courtice, when in 2005 OUSA and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations lobbied the Federal government and the Council of the Federation. This cooperation resulted in several joint initiatives, including media events and government submissions.[3]

OUSA's recent advocacy successes include: securing $74 million in government funds over five years in 2011 to develop a new credit transfer system that makes it easier for students to transfer between institutions, $310 million in additional funding for 20,000 new post-secondary spaces in 2010, $81 million in student financial assistance improvements in 2010, including: six-month interest-free grace period before loan repayment begins, doubling of exemption for income earned during school, 7% increase in OSAP loan maximum, implementation of Repayment Assistance Plan to cap and manage student debt, tying the OSAP maximum assessment for textbook and supply costs to the rate of inflation, successfully lobbied for $150 million investment in university infrastructure in 2009.[4]

Criticisms

Due to its moderate leanings when compared with other student advocacy groups, and because two of OUSA's former executive directors were hired by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities after their service with the Alliance (Barry McCartan, Executive Director, 1997–98, and Andrew Boggs, 1998–99), OUSA has faced criticism that it too cooperative with the government.[5] Both Boggs and McCartan work in the public service, not political, side of the Ministry and retain their positions regardless of the government in power.

OUSA also received criticsm for a mid 1990s proposal that asked for increased government spending towards universities along with increased tuition fees. This recommendation was reversed a few years later, and OUSA has called for tuition freezes and decreases since at least 1999.[6]

Publications

OUSA publishes an annual magazine titled Educated Solutions, which features articles from students, faculty, administration, civil servants, alumni, and other sector stakeholders. It is distributed on all of its member campuses, as well as sent to government officials and partners.Link to most recent edition

Conferences

OUSA hosts several conferences throughout the year. General timelines are as follows:

Presidents and Executive Directors

Presidents

Executive Directors

References

  1. ↑ "Newswire Press Release". Retrieved 2011-05-27.
  2. ↑ http://mcmaster.ca/maps/
  3. ↑ http://www.casa.ca/documents/Education%20Generation%20-%20February%206,%202007_Final.pdf
  4. ↑ http://www.ousa.ca/advocacy/successes/
  5. ↑ http://www.varsity.utoronto.ca/archives/118/feb02/news/tory.html
  6. ↑ http://www.ousa.ca/uploaded_files/pdf_files/Policy%20Papers%20and%20Statements/Beyond%20the%20Breaking%20Point%20-%20Tuition%20Fee%20Policy%20%2810.99%29.pdf

External links