Matt Tan is running to be a staff representative on UBC’s Board of Governors. Serving as the incumbent staff representative governor for UBC since 2023, Tan is currently the associate director, partnerships, at UBC Athletics & Recreation. He previously served on UBC Vancouver’s Senate from 2020-23.
The Ubyssey spoke to Tan about his campaign and what he hopes to bring to the board. We asked him the same questions we asked all candidates, and edited this interview for length and clarity.
The Ubyssey: Why are you running and why should people elect you?
Matt Tan: First and foremost, I really care about everyone at UBC. Students, community and faculty. Having worked for UBC for 18 years, it's been about how do you make UBC better? How do you help UBC in a way that is beyond your day to day? Serving on the board has been the absolute honour of my life. To be elected by my peers three years ago and to serve is just something that I believe we should do. I think we should give back. I think we should serve. I think we should try to make a difference. That's why I'm running again. To continue to work and try to make UBC better. I've learned a lot in this first term, and I want to keep building, keep going, finish off what I can, make a difference and make UBC better for everyone.
Last week, the federal government announced it would be further reducing the number of new international study permits from 437,000 in 2025 to 155,000 in 2026. This is a 65 per cent decline. How should the university respond to budget shortfalls that may result from this?
Firstly, I think we should still continuously advocate. These changes are so impactful to universities. Canada as a brand is starting to be viewed as not welcoming to international students and that's terrible. Canada should be a place that is always open for everyone pursuing a better life.
In terms of budgets, the university will have to make some choices in terms of ‘are there efficiencies?’ ‘Are there ways that we can work more creatively?’ or find revenue sources that we haven't explored. How can we again make these tough decisions together, but at the same time too, there's going to be debate. There's trade-offs. If we keep funding in this area, we might need to make some tough decisions in another area.
I think the strategic plan refresh will help us refocus. I've been a big proponent about student experience. I work for the UBC Thunderbirds and in athletics and recreation. We know that students, when they have community, when they have events to come together, we know they do better. With the budget, we do get a lot of funding from the provincial government which we're thankful for. At the same time, we should push the provincial government to ensure that we stay well supported.
We knew the international student numbers were going down. There's a reason why UBC isn't in the news like other post-secondaries across Canada. It's because of good fiscal management and fiscal restraints. It's about planning. It's about trying to make the best of a tough situation. There are ways that we can plan. There are ways that we can come together to discuss. As we look at this strategic plan refresh, we have priorities that we can work together on and again, it's about reaching and talking to the community, talking to everyone about how we can make UBC better.
Earlier this year, the UBC Library announced a “significant structural deficit” in its funding, despite UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon stating that the university is in a financially strong position. What do you believe is the correct response to the library’s problems?
It goes back to my earlier comment around these tough decisions. Are we able to accept this trade off, where we end up closing the Education Library? I am very curious to hear what we're going to be doing with that space moving forward, and if there's a way to repurpose the space that will benefit the community and especially students, because it's a great study space. That's something that we need to pursue. As a university, we should also be thinking about evolving with the times and not shrinking away from these tough decisions. At the same time, what are we going to do next? What are we going to do with the space? How are we going to create a study space for students who want to use it? Space is a premium. Vancouver is so expensive. It's about making the best use of space, making the best use of this asset that we have.
Should UBC organize teaching and learning around the tradition of a university as a place of pure knowledge-seeking, or around the interests of the post-graduation labour market?
I think a university can be a place for both. Universities have traditionally been a place of learning. Now you see commentary from governments and outsiders who are saying we also need to create a place where students are employed. I think both are valuable. Absolutely we want our students to be employed. President Benoit-Antoine Bacon talks about the self-determined future, and I think it is important. Students need to self-determine their future, but also have great lives, great careers and that's an important factor. When I think back to UBC and undergrad, it was really about how to learn. You learn how to learn, you learn how to work together in a team. You work with other people. I would just say that a university can be both.
Over the last three years, some students and staff have called on the university to divest from companies they say are complicit in the Palestinian genocide. If elected, will you push for divestment from these companies?
I think what's happening, not just in Palestine, is that there's a lot of tragedy and a lot of geopolitical conflict going on around the world. There's actually been some really good work done with UBC Investment Management, and they're developing a human rights framework around responsible social investing. At the last board meeting, I asked the question to the administration, ‘where are we at and how can we quicken the work?’ ‘How do we support this work to speed things up?’ They're working with external consultants, well respected external consultants who have also I believe consulted for a number of other pension plans.
What they're developing with this human rights framework is something that will stand across multiple conflicts and also something that is really a leader in the space. We're really leading the charge to develop this human rights framework so that we can still ensure pensioners and pension plans and the endowment is still performing well, but at the same time applying a fair criteria that will exclude certain companies. There's a lot of good work done. From what I understand, too, is that UBC Investment Management is also working with student groups who have concerns and it is an ongoing dialogue. This work takes time. I'm encouraging the administration and my board colleagues to make this work get done faster. We're progressing in the right direction.
Despite a 44 per cent decrease in UBCV greenhouse gas emissions since 2007, the university is not on track to meet its 85 per cent reduction goal by 2030. Is there anything you would do differently to attempt to meet this goal? If not, how do you plan to approach climate-related issues at UBC?
UBC has done some good things. We need to continuously innovate and look at ways that we can continue to push the envelope on this. We have done some good work, but we need to think further ahead. AI is an interesting one, because we hear about the amount of power that AI ends up using. I know the province has come out and said we're not prioritizing and powering AI centres and so forth. But at the university, we also would miss out if we weren’t exploring AI and how it can help us. When we look at our goals and what we're trying to achieve, we need to think of ways that we can try and achieve these metrics and goals that we've set out.
With these sustainable targets, we need to keep trying. We need to look at it in different ways and continue the good progress made to date. We're not there yet. So keep pushing. Keep trying, keep encouraging staff and units to do more.
Are there any issues important to your candidacy that you haven’t got the chance to talk about already?
I'm pushing on a few things, and I would love to talk about a couple of them. SkyTrain to UBC is something that the board has looked at and is something I’m pushing for. It will be life changing, positive and everyone will benefit greatly.
The student groups, AMS, Student Union Okanagan and Graduate Student Society presented to the board in September and talked about one of their priorities being work-learn funding. From what I understand, there was an amount that was given to us by the federal government, but that amount is no longer there and I'm trying to educate others around me, including other Board of Governors members and administration workers. Funding is so amazing because it provides a subsidy for students that then benefits from working with staff and faculty, and the university ultimately benefits from all of this because of the work that's done. I think work-learn funding should either go up or be restored. It's a really cool kind of mechanism and process that everyone benefits from.
I would love to see more positive community building events. We have staff and faculty sports day, and for the wider community, there's the Harvest Festival. I would love to see more positive events on the Thunderbird side. We're doing a lot with football Homecoming and the hockey Winter Classic. Even this month, we've had basketball Courtside event and coming up, we have our volleyball Pride Night . I would love to see more events to bring the community together, and also well-being grant funding made available.
Finally, how do we keep UBC stable? In the news, almost every week you hear about a post-secondary that has to make dramatic cuts and layoffs. I think UBC hasn't been in the news because perhaps financially, we're doing what we can to balance the needs of our students' experience and delivering on our core pieces as a university, so continuing that in the next couple of years with these caps will still be kind of lean with tough years ahead. But if we can, we should plan and come up with ways to deal with these fiscal realities while still advocating for change. We want to advocate and try to hope that there's more support or more funding.
For the candidacy, it would be an honour of my life to serve UBC. It's really about working together with the 20 other governors and the administration. As one of 21 governors, it's a lot of reaching across, building relationships, building bridges around how we come together and make UBC better.
