Point of Inquiry: Why doesn’t anyone know how the AMS works?

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. They can be reached at q.schroeder@ubyssey.ca.

Do you think our student union is bad at communication? I do, and I think that hurts all of us.

Now, I know that not everyone cares about the AMS. Even though every student on campus benefits from or is affected by the AMS and its services — be that through participating in clubs, using U-Pass or accessing support through the AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre — few take the time to learn the specifics of its governance.

This is even a problem among the most engaged of all campus populations: student politicians. Every year, a couple of candidates for the student seats on UBC’s Board of Governors (BoG) and Senate do not seem to understand basic information about the position they are running for, such as that the AMS is a separate entity uncontrolled by UBC’s BoG or Senate, for example.

I don’t think it is realistic to expect every student to have a thorough understanding of their student union’s governance process — the point of electing representatives is to offload that responsibility. However, when groups of students are looking to engage with the AMS, it is better for everyone if they are knowledgeable about the student union. Many discussions about our student union fail to engage with the realities of the institution, instead often presenting an incomplete (and often uncharitable) view of the AMS.

So, the responsibility falls on the AMS to ensure that students who seek to engage with them are educated. Having these advocates know more about the AMS benefits all of us. Campaigns that are ultimately destined to go nowhere because of misunderstandings about our student union waste the energy of students and the AMS, as well as degrade each group’s perception of the other. It also distracts from where progress can actually be made.

This is certainly a big ask both from student organizers and the AMS. When our student union sees students and groups organizing against it, instead of becoming defensive, they would have to reach out and provide honest-to-goodness, beneficial education. For organizers and other engaged students, they would need to accept this education starting from an assumption of good faith.

An example of a poor attempt at communication from recent months was from this February, when then-AMS President Christian ‘CK’ Kyle sent an email to all UBC students, addressing the removal or resignation of three vice presidents by detailing the function of the Executive Performance and Accountability (EPA) committee.

(Drédyn Fontana was one of the vice presidents discussed in this email. A statement by Riley Huntley is quoted in the email. I ran as joke candidate Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword against both of them in the 2025-26 AMS Presidential election.)

Reactions to this email were mostly of ridicule. So why didn’t this work? Firstly, students did not have a reason to care about the topic. Many students are unable to name the AMS executives, much less care about the procedures that caused them to be removed from office. The email doesn’t help with this — it doesn’t put forward an argument as to why students should want to learn the intricacies of this process outside of vague references to transparency and student fees.

Kyle’s email was lengthy and excessively technical. Instead of using plain language to clearly explain the function of the EPA committee, Kyle quotes 76 words of AMS Code and includes specific code citations for those provisions (“Section V, Article 13(3)(4)”). Similarly, he quotes both the full Council resolution to conduct the investigation that led to then-VP Academic and University Affairs Drédyn Fontana’s removal and the statement given during a council meeting by then-Vice Chair of the EPA Committee Riley Huntley. While in some contexts, including this level of quotation is appropriate, doing so when addressing an audience unfamiliar with the AMS’s governance is overwhelming and unnecessary.

When addressing a general audience — like the over 60,000 students Kyle’s email was sent to — who are broadly uninvested in the AMS and its governance, specific procedural discussions are unproductive. However, many students are interested in specific areas of the AMS’s services, such as club management, food security or the AMS/GSS Health and Dental Plan. It is not just possible but important for the AMS to share relevant governance information with these students who want to see the AMS improve.

For instance, during the summer of 2024, Sulong UBC was advocating for the AMS to reinstate staff access to the AMS Food Bank. The AMS should have been willing to discuss the situation and collaborate with them toward finding a resolution. Instead, the AMS took an antagonistic approach, using Instagram posts and updates to AMS Food Bank webpages to publicly oppose the resolution to reinstate staff access during the Sulong-petitioned special general meeting. The AMS was even accused of sabotaging turnout at the meeting by changing to an online format and requiring RSVPs in the 24 hours prior.

Sulong UBC organizers even attended an AMS Council meeting seeking opportunities to collaborate with the AMS by asking how to support the union’s requests for increased food bank funding. Sulong’s website claims the AMS didn’t tell them, despite their showing clear engagement and a desire to support.

The AMS should not just wait for these engaged student groups to seek education from them. While previous AMS executives held office hours, they were rarely attended by students-at-large. The AMS needs a more active approach — one where they reach out to organizers early.

If the AMS wants to engage with more of the student body, they should focus on messages with a clearer impact and avoid detailed governance specifics unless necessary. But at the same time, realities should not be simplified to the point of being so vague as to seem irrelevant.

For instance, this election season, a referendum that would have increased AMS fees by around $5 failed. The referendum warned that if it didn’t pass, the AMS “may be unable to maintain support for key UBC student services at current levels,” going on to mention clubs, events and Nest spaces as potential spheres that could be affected. While this may be true, it does not describe a clear, specific impact on students — there are no details about what the increased fees would be used for or the consequences if the referendum failed. There’s no reason to get excited if it passed or be afraid if it failed.

I think this lack of motivation is what caused this referendum to fail. In recent years, students have been willing to vote for increased fees when given sufficient motivation — such as in 2023 when students approved a $52.50 increase in the AMS/GSS Health and Dental Plan fee after being warned that its failure would mean significant cuts to drug and mental health care coverage. Had this year’s fee increase referendum given specific consequences if it failed — such as describing that the AMS would need to limit the number of clubs and reduce the club membership fee subsidies, as it did at a recent council meeting (resulting from a 2022 fee decrease) — it’s possible the referendum would have been successful. Explicitly connecting to something students care about is a proven way to motivate students.

I think there’s a tendency to feel as though a group that is not completely in support of you — that is, if they have criticisms or are pushing for small changes — is against you. I don’t think this has to be so. Groups critical of the AMS should get just as much support because they challenge our union for the better, to improve. Institutions tend towards stagnation and the status quo — ideally, student organizers provide a catalyst to keep improving.

They aren’t the opposite of student needs: they are student needs made manifest.