The AMS, Students’ Union Okanagan (SUO) and Graduate Student Society (GSS) sent a common message to the Board of Governors on Sept. 24: UBC needs to do more to make student life more affordable.
Every year, student representative organizations make requests to the Board for their support in responding to student priorities. This year, chief among their asks was the AMS’s request for $4 million to expand the Work Learn program and an additional $1.2 million contribution to food security initiatives.
President’s priorities approved
The meeting opened with remarks from President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, who told the governors what he told university senators the previous week: despite a “complex year” in higher education the university remains in a financially strong position.
Though when the time came for Bacon to present his priorities for the year, 2025 being a post-election year was cited as an opportunity to secure “stable operational funding” from the federal and provincial government. He also said the university intends to engage the federal government on the “damage” its international student caps have caused to universities.
“It will be a big year in terms of government relations,” Bacon said.
Bacon’s other priorities include launching the new strategic plan and defining “a set of strong and meaningful key performance indicators” for it, implementing the other ongoing institutional plans (with an emphasis on the Indigenous Strategic Plan, Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism — or StEAR — Framework and the Climate Action Plan), moving forward on collective bargaining, moving forward on the “budget reimagination process” and enhancing the university’s reputation outside BC.
‘Milestone’ strategic plan endorsed
Following the Senate’s endorsement, the board endorsed the final UBC Strategic Directions 2025-2030 report, the university’s latest institution-wide strategic plan, functioning as an updated version of the 2018 report Shaping UBC’s Next Century. It establishes seven “directions:”
- “Create Flexibility for Learners,” meaning “Increase program and pathway flexibility, interdisciplinarity, access and agency for diverse learners.”;
- “Enhance Experiential Education,” referring to the push for an education that prepares students for an “evolving, complex workplace and society”;
- “Discover and Innovate for Impact,” which refers to supporting work research and teaching that will “translate into learner, economic and societal impact”;
- “Partner for Purpose,” which encourages further and deeper partnerships with other institutions;
- “Excel in the Development and Application of Emerging Technologies,” which notes AI in particular;
- “Maximize UBC System Strengths,” meaning strengthening and strategically using the ties between the Vancouver and Okanagan campus to the university’s advantage; and
- “Nurture a Strong and Vibrant UBC Community,” meaning a commitment to invest in wellbeing and belonging among students, according to the report.
The board unanimously endorsed the report.
“This is indeed a milestone moment,” Board Chair Miranda Lam said. “This shepherds a new movement forward.”
In a question to Bacon, Governor hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies) commented that the work in the sciences, arts and humanities is unlikely to “have a direct utilitarian purpose for the government or for private industry.”
“How are we going to stand up and how are you going to see that as part of your mandate and your priorities, to actually build and support the core purpose of this institution, which is research,” he asked.
Bacon said the university executive is “well aware” that not all research can be commercialized, pointing to his own work on sensory systems. “At the same time as you point out, in the present context, government looks at us and says, ‘we're giving you lots of money. What are you going to do for us?’” and we need to balance those two things,” Bacon said.
AMS, GSS, SUO: students are still facing affordability challenges
When it came time for student presentations, all three representative organizations told governors that life at UBC was increasingly unaffordable. GSS President Emily Tang and Vice-President External Relations Aditi Adhikari made a dozen asks of governors generally relating to relieving the cost of living or education, ranging from support for extending PhD fellowships from four to five years, increasing PhD stipends, and designing future facilities inclusive of students with families and single parents.
The GSS also asked for more transparency around rent increases for on-campus students' accommodations, and for the university to allow graduate research assistants to unionize despite them not having the right to do so.
In March, the BC Labour Relations Board (LRB) dismissed an application by the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 2278 — the union representing academic support workers like TAs, graduate academic assistants — to add 3,000 graduate research assistants to their agreement with UBC, finding they were not “employees” within the meaning of the Labour Relations Code. Instead, the LRB found they are a “category of funding” akin to a scholarship, since the stipend they receive is intended to support graduate students financially over the course of their studies.
AMS President Riley Huntley and Vice-President Academic and University Affairs (AUA) Zarifa Nawar asked for $1.2 million in annual Food Security Initiative funding over multiple years, as did the SUO. This year’s budget currently allocates $800,000 to food security, consistent with recent years.
Both the AMS and GSS asked for a multi-year commitment to an additional $4 million to fund an expansion of the Work Learn program, which subsidizes part-time work opportunities offered to students by university staff or faculty.
For every hour worked in the Work Learn program, the funding committed by the university pays $9 of whatever their hourly wage is, and employers make up the rest of it with their own funds. It annually funds about 3,500 part-time positions. The current year’s funding amounts to “over $6 million,” according to the budget.
Nawar reported that between 2023-24 and 2024-25, the number of unsuccessful applications rose by 26 per cent, indicating that demand was far outpacing supply.
“The limitation is the funding pool, which has remained stagnant since 2021 despite inflation and rising student demand,” Nawar said. “Our ask here is fairly simple. Increasing Work Learn funding by $4 million for the next year, which, at the current subsidy level, increases student positions by 1,500.”
Bacon said $4 million in funding was a “big ask,” but his feeling was that “something” could be committed.
Governor Anthonia Ogundele said every year the Board hears student leaders raise food insecurity and affordability concerns. “It's a bit trying for me to hear that this continues to persist.” She asked administrators about progress reporting on these files and suggested that further key performance indicators could be developed in line with the refreshed strategic plan.
Governor Matthew Tan, who represents Vancouver campus staff on the board, asked university administrators for an update on the development of a socially responsible investment framework when a revised delegation of authority instrument relating to UBC Investment Management needed to be approved.
Vice-President, Finance & Operations Frank Laezza said a working group has been formed and a consultant, the Shareholder Association for Research and Education or SHARE, has been retained. The framework needs to be durable to respond to “conflicts as they arise” and not singularly focus on one ongoing conflict, he said.
Over the past year, students and staff groups have continuously called on the university to divest from companies complicit in Israeli human rights abuses and genocide in Gaza. As the governors were passing the budget in March, protesters called on them to make divestment happen.
A protest was held that same day, too, starting at noon.
Laezza said UBC Investment Management, the wholly-owned subsidiary that manages UBC’s funds, cannot divest instantaneously. Targets are necessary, he said, just like divestment from fossil fuels.
Governors Jasper Lorien and Irene Lanzinger expressed support for the ongoing work and that it should proceed with urgency.
The Board also approved the demolition of St. Johns College and allocated $47 million for the next stage of the Lower Mall Precinct Student Housing Redevelopment Phase 1 project, which will add over 1,300 student beds to campus upon completion. The project’s $560 million price tag is financed with significant support from the province, which is chipping in $300 million.
