Point of Inquiry: A student union is a bold promise — how can the AMS live up to it?

Point of Inquiry is a column written by AMS Columnist Quyen Schroeder about our student union’s governance and policies. It seeks to analyze the AMS with a critical — but constructive — eye.

Quyen Schroeder (they/she) is a fourth-year student studying English language and computer science, and they’ve been a committed observer of almost all AMS Council meetings since February 2023. She also ran as “Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword” in the 2025 AMS Presidential election.

The Alma Mater Society (AMS) is our student union. Much of our university experience is connected to it: student clubs are funded and constituted through the union, the AMS provides student services such as AMS Safewalk and the AMS Food Bank, our health and dental plan is managed by the AMS and our union advocates to the university and the government on our behalf.

Despite our union’s near ubiquity in our lives, nearly five out of six eligible voters did not participate in this year’s AMS elections.

For some, this is because of valid frustration over our union’s poor handling of introducing trans healthcare, questionable revisions to its sexualized violence policy or relative silence regarding the ongoing genocide in Palestine. For others, it’s a sense of apathy, not knowing or caring what our student union does for them. Some find our student union too juvenile to bother participating in, from what former executives allege is a culture of “petty politics” and “casual bullying” to the outsized participation of three, seemingly unserious joke candidates who ran for president this spring.

I’ve spoken to people who have cited these as reasons for why our student union should be dissolved. They argue its failings outweigh both its current services and its future potential.

I am under no delusion that our student union is without flaws. I agree with the critics that the AMS has repeatedly failed students in the past few years, and I’m sure I will discuss many of its shortcomings over the course of this column.

However, I still believe our student union is a gift handed down to us by the generations of students who came before. Their work and advocacy has given us the U-Pass, a health and dental plan, numerous student services and an organization positioned to make change. Looking ahead, I think our student union can and should be a force for social and institutional change — and I think, despite its flaws, it remains well-positioned to do so.

Our union can advocate for change on a scale that is simply not possible for any of us as individuals. In the time it takes to advocate for major infrastructure — like the SkyTrain to UBC, which has been debated for nearly two decades — the student body experiences multiple generations of turnover. Historically, some divestment campaigns have taken a decade to achieve a commitment from the university, followed by another decade before the university fully follows through. Our union can serve as a source of consistent, sustained advocacy by focusing its resources and decades of institutional memory to movements on a scale that cannot be matched by individuals or smaller student organizations.

We take for granted that the AMS is independent of the university, relatively immune to most adverse consequences for its advocacy. This is not the case everywhere. For instance, at my brother’s school — the University of Texas at Austin — the university tampered with the student government’s election, affecting its results. Further, former student politicians at UT Austin have claimed that the university prevents the student government from speaking against the university and has removed some of their social media posts. Since student government at UT Austin is not independent, the university is able to subvert attempts at student advocacy, limiting how students can challenge systems of power.

This cannot happen at the AMS. The university does not appoint our executives or have direct power over our elections. Our union can spend its funds as it wishes and speak out on causes opposed by the university. Even should our union’s advocacy cause the university to disassociate with us — as has happened earlier this year with the Student Society of McGill University — our institutional independence would allow the AMS to continue existing, providing services and fighting for students.

A student union is charged with advocating on behalf of student interests. Our union should not be so insular that dozens of students need to protest at council meetings for the AMS to take notice of them — as has been the case when considering coverage of trans healthcare and sexualized violence policy revisions. The AMS should acknowledge student movements and wholeheartedly champion them — beyond routine proposals, surveys and lip service.

When the AMS endorses a strike, its executives should be in the streets alongside students, not just rubber-stamping a message — especially when given a decisive mandate from their constituents. Yet, when the 2025 student strike referendum passed — the yes-vote receiving at least 2,500 more votes than any elected candidate — the AMS’s support was unenthusiastic and immaterial.

Our campus would not be the same were it not for protests helmed by the AMS. In 1922, over a thousand UBC students marched through Vancouver to the partially-built Point Grey campus we study on today, pressuring the province to continue its construction. In 1963, the AMS co-organized the “Back Mac” campaign in support of then-UBC President John Macdonald’s appeals to the province for additional funding. The campaign amassed nearly a quarter of a million signatures and secured $370,000 in additional funding for the university.

Our union has the potential to be a pillar for activism again. Student organizers should have the AMS as an ally and a resource, not as an opponent as so often has been the case in recent years. Our union should actively support student movements by using its greater reach to the student body and offering its expertise, particularly when movements seek to advocate to the university and the province.

While recent student movements have centred on broader sociopolitical issues like climate change and opposing genocide, students at UBC also face more banal issues — such as the lack of on-campus housing, food security and rising tuition prices — many of which are more general than the focus of existing resource groups but still affect a significant portion of the student body.

Evidently, the AMS's surveys on annual budget proposals, tuition increases and 25-year-long housing development plans are insufficient in making timely progress on these matters. Though the AMS devotes many of its resources to maintaining existing student services, its advocacy can and should go beyond writing reports or attending meetings. Our union should continue its history of leading movements and organizing protests to pressure those in power to prioritize the students’ needs.

As students, we are responsible for pushing our union where we want it to go, and our union should be receptive — not just at governance meetings, but wherever student priorities emerge. When students attend council meetings, they should be treated as collaborators, not as threats or nuisances.

At the same time, we must support our union’s student politicians when they make progress — even when it’s not as far or as fast as we’d like. Antagonism, yelling and name-calling is an ineffective rhetorical strategy, serving only to heighten tensions and to pit students and the AMS against each other. Even in disagreement, we should treat each other as allies, not as villains.

In return, we deserve an AMS that advocates for bold, lasting change.

First online June 3, 2025, 7:23 a.m.

Share this article copied!

Submit a complaint Report a correction