PRESIDENT Sooyeon Lee

Hi everyone,

It’s been a pleasure to have led and supported VUSAC throughout these last few months. I’d love to provide some insight into what I have been doing since the last semi-annual report.

To begin, Jackson, Anne, and I have worked to restructure some of our meeting procedures at the end of December. A section for first-year, upper-year, and international councillors has been added to our updates which provides spaces for councillors to speak about their work. Next, during VUSAC meetings, people are now seated randomly to allow for more council mingling. In addition, land acknowledgements are now being done by a different council member at every meeting; this allows for everyone to express gratitude to the land we work on and to honour Indigenous people who have been present on this land throughout history and today.

In January, I assisted Ninon with Semiformal, Amelia with Gardiner Gala, and Charlie with a Lunar New Year event. Ninon, Amelia, and Charlie all did a phenomenal job at spearheading and organizing these events, and seeing large-scale in-person events come back to life was incredible. Highball, which is organized by the Scarlet and Gold Commission, is happening in mid-March and I look forward to seeing how Ninon, Kate, Luca, and Carolyn’s visions will come to life.

In terms of other council initiatives, the VUSAC office is being reorganized and re-structured over reading week, so swing by and give it a look if you have not done so yet. I have also been contributing to the review of all of our governing documents, which will all be modified by the end of this term.

Lastly, I am working with Diana, Shane, Food Services, Emmanuel College, and the Muslim Students’ Association to support students who observe Ramadan. VUSAC and Vic do not have the facilities to offer students proper services, but we are in touch with groups who do so and are working to make sure that there are provisions in place for Ramadan.

As part of my role as President, I meet regularly with head administrative members at Victoria College, notably President McEwen and Dean Castle. Most recently, we have focused on food services at Vic and the police response to mental health. To begin, Burwash Dining Hall is in need of data collection. How much food do students eat? Which days and meals are the most popular among students? Determining these will help us understand how to eliminate food waste and to better serve students while being more costeffective. To add, I have been focusing on the campus response to mental health crises, especially when police become involved. There is currently little information on what circumstances the police become involved in during student mental health crises and no information at all on how often the police have been called this past academic year. There needs to be more transparency on what procedures are followed in order for police to be called for students’ safety and more data on how frequently these procedures are implemented.

With the Principal’s Office, a working group on EDIA within Vic College programs has been established. I