Solidarity and Advocacy News
OCSU Statement of Settler Colonialism in Palestine
30 days cannot begin to encapsulate the profound agony endured during 75+ years of occupation. This month marks a devastating milestone, with over 10,000 lives lost in Gaza, and thousands more missing, unmarked, and unidentifiable.
The OCSU has always been a champion for student voices, but our silence has been a deafening contradiction of our principles. We would like to make it clear that genocide should never be a subject of neutrality.
30 days cannot begin to encapsulate the profound agony endured during 75+ years of occupation. This month marks a devastating milestone, with over 10,000 lives lost in Gaza, and thousands more missing, unmarked, and unidentifiable.
The OCSU has always been a champion for student voices, but our silence has been a deafening contradiction of our principles. We would like to make it clear that genocide should never be a subject of neutrality.
We grieve for the loss of homes, dreams, aspirations, and lives affecting men, women, and children. We mourn for the loss of safety. We ache for those left orphaned and widowed, for the martyrs and survivors. We mourn the dispossession of Indigenous Palestinian land and civilians.
We stand in solidarity with our Indigenous and Racialized peers who bear intergenerational traumas stemming from settler colonialism, land seizures, apartheid, and genocides.
We have the responsibility to educate ourselves on the history and context of this dire reality. We extend our compassion to the Palestinian, Arab, and Jewish communities who have shouldered the unfair burden of tirelessly educating us whilst continuously fighting for their own humanity. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people who risk their lives daily to document and communicate to the western world. They speak to us in a language foreign to them, pleading with us to witness their struggle and to see their humanity. We stand by the Jewish community, whose grief and fear have been exploited by corrupt, greedy, and oppressive systems to enact a cycle of continuous violence.
To our peers, community, and members, we implore you to:
Take the time to learn with us and review these resources
No amount of words or expressions of compassion and solidarity can ever fully capture the overwhelming grief, tragedy, suffering, and trauma brought about by this genocide. Above all, let us hold each other with more compassion and create space for learning, understanding, and collective grief.
We maintain hope that through united efforts, we can persistently call on our representatives, sign petitions, rally, amplify Palestinian voices, and educate ourselves to demand a ceasefire.
Collectively and individually, the OCSU acknowledges our ongoing need for learning and unlearning. We must stay united to champion the liberation of Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Hawaii, the Uyghurs, and Indigenous People of Turtle Island, just to name a few.
Liberation for one means liberation for all.
From the river to the sea,
OCSU
OCSU Letter of Support for First-Year BSN Students
The Okanagan College Students’ Union is writing to Minister Selina Robinson, the Okanagan College Board of Governors, Okanagan College Education Council, Carly Hall, Dean of Health and Social Development, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan Senate, the Kelowna MLA’s, and our OC Community in solidarity and support of our Bachelor of Nursing students and faculty.
April 11, 2023
The Okanagan College Students’ Union is writing to Minister Selina Robinson, the Okanagan College Board of Governors, Okanagan College Education Council, Carly Hall, Dean of Health and Social Development, the University of British Columbia-Okanagan Senate, the Kelowna MLA’s, and our OC Community in solidarity and support of our Bachelor of Nursing students and faculty.
We are deeply concerned and disheartened about the recent announcement of the intended consolidation of OC’s 1st and 2nd year BSN program with UBC Okanagan. Our first year BSN students are being put in an unfair and nonconsensual situation and they have yet to hear of how they will be supported through this transition, aside from their seats in the program. A final decision may not be rendered until mid-summer by the OC Board of Governors and Education Council, plus the UBC-O Senate. The timing of the decision-making bodies will have serious financial, transitory, and housing planning impacts for these students as they have outlined in their letter to you.
It is deeply unsettling to see that, once again, Okanagan College students are not being considered or consulted on decisions which directly affect them, and that Okanagan College leadership is once again declining to communicate with the community and public.
We are furthermore shocked that the dedicated long-term faculty will be without employment and their instructional skills are not being utilized in continuing to help address the province’s nursing shortages.
We are questioning how all of our community members who donated to the new Health and Science building in support of the BSN program, including ourselves, will be informed that their generous contributions are no longer going where they intended. Their funds are vital to this institution.
OCSU is calling on the stakeholders of this consolidation to take into consideration the asks and concerns of the year one BSN students of Okanagan College, and to recognize the unfair predicament they are being forced into. We also ask you to support the nursing faculty who will be without secure employment this fall in a time when the province has committed to supporting nurses in BC in the face of our healthcare system crisis. Okanagan College leadership must address the concerns and predicaments these students are now in and guide them in how they are to proceed from here as soon as possible. It is unacceptable for OC’s leadership to once again leave students in the dark over a decision that directly affects them.
In Solidarity,
Okanagan College Students’ Union Board of Directors
OCSU Letter of Support for Emily Carr University Walkout
To: Emily Carr Students’ Union, Premier David Eby, Minister Anne Kang and Honourable Selina Robinson
Cc: Emily Carr University Board of Governors & Administration
The OCSU is writing this letter of support for the student walk out by the Emily Carr Students’ Union on December 1st in opposition to the proposed increases to international Student fees for Emily Carr international students and members of the ECSU. The Okanagan College Students’ Union strongly opposes the proposed increases to international students including 30% for new students and 10% for returning students. International students are already paying four times more in fees than their domestic counterparts. In 2017, international students contributed $4.15billion in spending, created 31,400 jobs, and contributed $2.37 billion to the provincial GDP.
They are already contributing their fair share to the BC economy. This continual pillaging ofinternational students is discriminatory, predatory and inexcusable.We are calling on Premier David Eby, Minister Anne Kang, and Honourable Selina Robinson tosupport the BC Federation of Students, and all post-secondary students of British Columbia byimplementing legislation to regulate international student fee increases in an equitable mannerto domestic students.We also call on our elected officials to reinvest in post-secondary education through additionalgovernment funding which has dwindled to just 43.6% in total operating revenue, down frommore than 80% in the 1980s, and more than 90% in the 1970s. With a reported $5 Billionsurplus, this is the opportune time to support our future work force and policy makers.The students of British Columbia have had enough of our post-secondary institutions andgovernment treating international students like cash cows. We stand in solidarity with the ECSU,and all international students in BC, and across Canada. We demand better for our peers.
In solidarity,
Okanagan College Students’ Union
Local 1 BC Federation of Students
Note of Acknowledgement, Appreciation, and Support from OC Counselling
The Counselling Services department would like to formally acknowledge the ongoing challenges that OCSU continues to face as well as the hard work and advocacy you tirelessly do on behalf of your members. On the Kelowna campus, members of our department had the privilege of attending the November 2nd Student Solidarity Walk Out, to support and stand with OCSU in challenging OC leadership to address the important concerns that you raised. Though our department has a specific campus role in supporting students, our sense is that you have identified both pragmatic and systemic concerns which negatively impact students’ personal and academic success and wellbeing.
November 04/22
The Counselling Services department would like to formally acknowledge the ongoing challenges that OCSU continues to face as well as the hard work and advocacy you tirelessly do on behalf of your members. On the Kelowna campus, members of our department had the privilege of attending the November 2nd Student Solidarity Walk Out, to support and stand with OCSU in challenging OC leadership to address the important concerns that you raised. Though our department has a specific campus role in supporting students, our sense is that you have identified both pragmatic and systemic concerns which negatively impact students’ personal and academic success and wellbeing.
Over the years, we have valued the collaboration with and connection to OCSU. Though OCSU and Counselling Services have different venues in which to advocate for our respective priorities, we hope it’s fair to say that we share some of the same values and goals. OCSU generously shares information that assists us with improving our services and though more could certainly be done on our end, there have been several occasions in which OCSU has collaborated with us to launch projects that support student mental health and wellness.
Our department takes some pride in the fact that OCSU asks our department challenging questions and highlights both the importance of counselling as well as some of our limitations when advocating for your members’ needs. We like to think of ourselves as a department that invites and appreciates potentially confronting perspectives and constructive criticism. We are often frustrated with the ways that students are excluded from important institutional conversations and, as (non-instructional) faculty members, we share many of the perspectives and experiences recently outlined in OCFA’s letter of support. Though our department has also been guilty, at times, of not inviting other stakeholder perspectives, it is always very exciting and resonant when OCSU membership feedback informs our departmental discussions, pilot projects, and budget proposal documents.
In the spirit of continued collaboration and transparency, we wanted to provide a note of clarification on the Counselling Services’ information presented to OC leadership council (on October 28/22). The 10 session limit, for example, was initiated at the department level, largely motivated by the value of ensuring that any OC student could access services in a timely and equitable manner and, secondly, as a way to maintain our ability to offer clinical supports in an individual appointment format (as many other PSIs have adopted service models that don’t necessarily align with our values and students’ preferences). This departmental policy was then reviewed and approved by Student Services’ administration.We also wanted to acknowledge the timeliness and appropriateness of highlighting the need for cultural competency in our ability to support OC students and align with directions and goals of OC’s guiding documents. This issue is one that our department has certainly discussed and begun to consider more earnestly in recent years. We look forward to continued conversations with and input from OCSU as to how culturally sensitive counselling supports should be delivered and the steps and training required to ensure that this is done well. As the intent of this this letter was to express our support in these challenging times, we trust that there will be future opportunities and formats in which to discuss these and other (e.g., wait times, community referrals) operational dynamics as well as some collaborative next steps and opportunities.
With much respect and support,
-OC Counselling Services
Letter of Support from OC Faculty Association
The Okanagan College Faculty Association supports our students in every way that we can, and even though faculty roles are diverse, we all know that our students are the heart of Okanagan College. Because of this, faculty hone and develop their teaching and support skills with student needs in mind. Today, the students protest, and their actions and concerns are front and center as they speak their needs. Faculty are here in their support, as always.
The Okanagan College Faculty Association supports our students in every way that we can, and even though faculty roles are diverse, we all know that our students are the heart of Okanagan College. Because of this, faculty hone and develop their teaching and support skills with student needs in mind. Today, the students protest, and their actions and concerns are front and center as they speak their needs. Faculty are here in their support, as always.
Students and faculty struggled together through the pandemic, inventing new ways to connect and learn, without much fanfare. It was hard. We did it together. The college helped give us a venue for success, with unprecedented collegial teamwork of all stakeholders working together. Participation and opportunities for key information access are being eroded beyond pre-pandemic levels when the return to in-person teaching and learning would have predicted the opposite. As Faculty Association President, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Faculty Association sees some commonalities between the concerns voiced by students, and our own experiences in the new direction the College is moving. So, when our students are declaring that they are being marginalized from key discussions on tuition increases, budget, and representation, we stand with them to support their right to be fully consulted in decisions that impact them. The role and importance of faculty and student voices forming the direction of the organization is not simply aspirational. It is legally defined in the BC College and Institutes Act and is reflected in our Board of Governors and Education Council composition.
Note: This letter was received as a show of support to OCSU members for the Walkout in 2022.