VICE-PRESIDENT EXTERNAL Shane Joy

I’ve been working on many things since writing my last report in November 2022. Over the winter break, I worked with the councillors under my portfolio to conduct research into the meal plan and residence policies of other colleges at the University of Toronto. This work was meant to inform our approach to opposing administrators’ attempts to raise fees, but despite the opposition of all its student representatives, the Board of Regents nevertheless voted to increase ancillary fees by 6.4% for Victoria College students on February 9th, 2023. Rather than limiting spending on unproductive and less useful projects, the Board made the decision to shift the rising costs of living onto students, making life at Victoria College increasingly unaffordable. It is imperative that our administrators find ways to ensure that affordable housing is available for students with financial need, as Victoria College cannot claim to be supportive of diversity and inclusion while it ensures that only the most privileged students can live on its campus.

Divestment at Victoria University and the University of Toronto is another issue I have been focusing on since my election to this position. Rather than reviewing reports from the Investment and Property committees and the President’s Office on the feasibility of divestment at the Board meeting on February 9th (in accordance with commitments made in June 2022), the Board will not see any reports nor make any decisions on divestment until April 2023 at the earliest. It has taken Victoria University far too long to do the right thing and commit to divesting from direct and indirect exposure to fossil fuels, but I remain optimistic that important results will be achieved by the end of 2023. On the other hand, I have called into question the University of Toronto’s commitment to divesting completely from indirect exposure to fossil fuels at meetings with top administrators, and rather than receiving an answer in the positive or negative, they have told me that they do not know and will follow up with more information. This, to me, suggests that students are being deceived by their administration. Over the next two months, I will continue pushing for answers about what the University has actually committed to.

Another initiative I’ve taken on along with several other members of VUSAC is advocating for better data collection and reporting on mental health responses at Victoria College. Currently, the Office of the Dean of Students has no policies or procedures in place to guide its actions and does not collect weekly, monthly, or yearly data on how many crisis calls they get or how many times they call Campus Safety or Toronto Police, yet collecting and publicizing this data is crucial for students to understand the climate of mental health at Victoria College. Furthermore, the use of police personnel rather than trained mental health professionals in response to crises is a questionable practice that must be called out. For the final months of my term, I will continue to advocate for better alternatives for and greater transparency surrounding mental health response at Victoria College.

In Fall 2022, following several years of demands from myself and other members of VUSAC and the wider Victoria College community, President McEwen and Principal Esterhammer agreed to establish a studentfocused working group seeking to better integrate EDIA principles into Victoria College’s academic offerings. This group, consisting of students currently enrolled in Victoria College programs and courses and former Vic One students, has been meeting over the course of the Winter semester, and will continue to meet in the coming months and hopefully years, as this work is never really finished. Some of the topics discussed include increasing BIPOC representation among course instructors, including course materials from a more