Dear staff,
I can’t even begin to describe the amazing gift I have been given to be the 2023-2024 UWSA President. What an honor it’s been getting to know our campus community more intimately. I’m indebted to those who have supported me during my term, every kind word, every encouraging note. Thank you.
This month, I complete my term as the first visible minority (Latina, Mestiza) woman president of the Association. The importance of this milestone lies in the concept of representation. I hope to inspire others to go after their dreams and to be unapologetically themselves, even within systems or structures that don’t always embrace us.
This year has passed with many successes and I’m proud of the accomplishments that we have made. I wish to share some of them with you.
Stakeholder relations
This year we have strengthened our partnerships with allies on campus. During my term I connected the UWSA with more offices, departments, and leaders on campus. I felt it was crucial for UWSA to work in tandem with our partners and to understand our relationship to them. Today, I’m happy to look at the campus makeup and confidently say that our association works genuinely and in harmony with: FAUW, CUPE, the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism Office (EDIRO), the Office of Indigenous Relations (OIR), HR, Parking Services, Conflict Management and Human Rights, and many more.
Since starting my term I have actively looked for ways to support our partners on campus and we’ve been honored to provide sponsorship to support them.
Governance
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Tracelyn Cornelius who pioneered EDI-R practices into our association. When she left the UWSA it signaled to me that there was a great deal of work to be done. This work is not one that ever has a set completion date, it is one that evolves over time because it grows with us.
We are an association that has historically been based in western ideologies, but we are situated on Indigenous land that is also home to settlers from many nations. When we come to work and participate on campus, the systems that we use oftentimes exclude these perspectives instead of empowering us all to participate in meaningful ways.
During this year, wherever possible, I encouraged the Board of Directors to engage in practices that would open the doors to a diversity of voices. I challenged the use of old systemic protocols like Robert’s Rules of Order, and specific eligibility requirements that prevent people from being included and fully participating. With this change of attitude, we are slowly but surely transforming the culture of the board and the association.
As we look to the future, we hope to work more closely with our partners on campus who provide us with different lenses to apply on our governance policies. We reached out to EDIRO and to the OIR, who kindly met with us to provide initial tools to begin this work. We hope to revamp our policies completely to embrace our membership and to respond to their current needs.
Development of training
In order to set up the association for future success, I focused part of my term to developing training both for the president-elect and for the board.
The role of president-elect (PE) comes with one year of training; however, historically no formal training documentation had ever been prepared. Typically, the PE would simply observe and ask questions during their year of training. While some may find merely observing to be their way ideal way of learning, I acknowledge that we all have different ways of absorbing information. For this reason, I documented my experience as a president-elect and used the knowledge to create a training manual for future presidents-elect. Aside from this, I implemented one-on-one dedicated training sessions to ensure preparedness. Implementing all those resources and pairing it with observations (PE going to meetings, etc.), rendered a fulsome PE experience. Presidents will now be that much more ready to take on their term.
As for the board, there has been training given to directors in the past (namely through Capacity Canada). I continued to administer two training sessions (one in December 2023 and one in January 2024) so that directors had a good understanding of their duties and responsibilities. There was also training given on how the association works and of what it is comprised (e.g., the board vs. Operations Team) as well as training on the functions of the Provost's Advisory Committee on Staff Compensation (PACSC) and Staff Relations Committee (SRC). I also encouraged the board to investigate other ways of operating that would embrace diversity. This work will take many years and requires a willingness to change. Despite many obstacles, I took it upon myself to do one-on-one recruiting and reach out to people from all over the campus, of various backgrounds and abilities, and encouraged them to run in elections and participate on campus. As I leave the presidency, I’m happy to see many new faces on our board of directors.
Membership benefits
We’re giving more money back to members through grants and sponsorship opportunities in this year’s budget, and we’re out meeting and talking to members more than ever at campus events and our own outreach events. We handed out cookies and jokes in the Hagey Hall Hub in January, served up hot chocolate at the craft sale, hosted a Salary Town Hall Meeting last fall, and visited a number of departments.
My team has been very responsive to member feedback this year. We review your comments in our new Suggestion Box regularly and have acted on many of your ideas. We have procured new discounts based on suggestions from staff, and pivoted to host more on-campus lunch time events and professional development workshops based on responses to our monthly newsletter polls and other surveys. Your feedback also led us to advocate for the Pay Cycles Working Group at PACSC. And we’re working to expand our capacity for providing one-on-one member support as demand for this continues to grow.
Final words
I’d like to think that under my term I helped to make UWSA more accessible to staff and our partners on campus. At the very least, I worked to bring awareness to our association, and at the very best, I’m happy to see so many staff actively involved and working together to create a better workplace.
Our slogan is your voice starts here, and this year someone dialed up the volume, because we really heard you like never before! I need and am counting on you to continue to be vocal, don’t be afraid to ask questions, and take hold of your position here on campus—be empowered, know your rights, and shine.
We can do this together.
Sincerely,
Yessenia Guerrero, 2023-2024 UWSA President
