Advocacy
Advocacy is actively standing up for you and ensuring that your needs and concerns are heard, acknowledged, and addressed. Your elected student representatives are focused on representing and championing the issues that have a direct impact on your university journey in and out of the classroom.
As a non-partisan organization, the UASU serves as the collective voice of all 34,000 UAlberta undergraduates. We firmly believe in the accessibility and affordability of post-secondary education, which serve as our overarching priorities. That's why our advocacy priorities and policies are shaped by students themselves, ensuring that your voices hold significant weight in the decision-making process.
Your UASU provides essential advocacy work to make sure that students’ voices are prioritized in decision-making within university administration, federal and provincial departments, and elected officials at all levels of government.
Advocacy Areas
The UASU focuses on 4 main areas of advocacy to help better the lives of students.
As members of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), your Students' Union tackles federal issues like financial aid, textbook costs and copyright, and student employment programs.
Recent wins:
- Helped eliminate interest on Federal Student Loans starting April 1, 2023.
As members of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS), we address provincial issues like tuition rates, student fees, on-campus mental health funding, and deferred maintenance for classrooms and infrastructure.
Recent wins:
- Resisted severe tuition increases, leading the government to announce a 2% cap on increases starting in Fall 2024.
We engage with all levels of University administration about a wide spectrum of student needs, including the cost of education, student spaces, student groups, instructor evaluations, teaching excellence, residence, meal plans, safety, mental health support, accessibility, student rights, and fair treatment.
Recent wins:
- Shared our community's concerns about safety on campus with the City of Edmonton, contributing to a $13.5 million allocation towards transit safety.
We engage with all levels of University administration about a wide spectrum of student needs, including the cost of education, student spaces, student groups, instructor evaluations, teaching excellence, residence, meal plans, safety, mental health support, accessibility, student rights, and fair treatment.
Recent wins:
- Led the university to allocate $1.6 million to campus mental health resources to better support students.
- Implemented the Exploration Credits program, which students can start using in Fall 2023. (This lets you take up to four electives in your degree on a credit/no credit basis so you don't have to worry about your GPA.)
Our top Advocacy focuses
Get Out The Vote
Care about how much university costs? Affordability? Mental health? What about student financial aid that you don’t have to pay back?
Voting in the next election helps get student needs met.
Our campaign is focused on helping students get to the polls on election day. We’ll make the voting process easier for you if you pledge to vote.
Students’ Rights
Students' rights are spread across any number of University policies and documents, so they can be hard to find. That's why we worked for years to get the University to publish the Charter of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
The Charter points you to the official policy documents that explain your rights in any number of situations. It should help you understand procedural fairness and how to appeal unfair decisions. It should also help you to make complaints, navigate disciplinary processes, and avoid choices that can put you and others at risk.
Campus Sexual Violence
Sexual violence is one of the most intractable problems of university education. Statistics Canada estimates that among post-secondary students, one out of 10 women and one out of 25 men experience sexual assault each year. At UAlberta, that would equate to 2,500 undergraduates and 600 graduate students per year.
Learn about how your UASU is advocating against sexual violence for a safer campus community.
AARC Recommendations
In the 2018-2019 academic year, the Aboriginal Relations & Reconciliation Committee produced a comprehensive list of recommendations to the Students' Union. These recommendations, if followed, will contribute to reconciliation efforts by the Students' Union and on campus.