In the ever-changing social climate that situates Canadian students in a pool of knowledge and unlimited resources, there are many opportunities for young adults to further their skills and credentials by getting involved in extracurricular activities on their campus.
In March 2020, these opportunities came to a halt with the outbreak of COVID-19, forcing students to adapt to a virtual format of learning. Now more than ever, we need students on campus who embody the qualities of leadership needed to build a strong community that is resilient against challenges and crises.
I believe the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) should provide more virtual opportunities for students to develop their leadership potential and to grow into the young professionals they aspire to be. Most importantly, we need our student association to support these student leaders and help make their work more effective.
CUSA has largely fallen short on fostering leadership on campus, especially during this challenging year. One could argue the creation of CUSA brand ambassador positions have allowed a select number of students to elevate their status on campus, but these positions have yet to truly develop any meaningful leadership skills.
These are superficial, social media-based roles, suggesting CUSA only views student leadership on campus as equivalent to the significance of a brand affiliate or Instagram influencer, rather than an essential part of the student experience.
With many clubs and societies going inactive or moving operations online, there has been a decrease in membership and opportunities to access leadership positions and roles. Ultimately, this hinders the creation and development of student leaders on campus.
Not only is it the responsibility of the student association to create leadership opportunities themselves, but it is also their responsibility to bridge the gap between students and leadership opportunities among campus clubs and organizations. CUSA has yet to show initiative to support these organizations.
CUSA’s current strategy of posting events and opportunities from various clubs on their social media is not effective enough. It definitely does not equate to the magnitude of promotion that clubs would have in a normal year to nurture their operational functions if campus were open, such as having the ability to advertise events through posters and tabling for fundraisers in the campus tunnels.
While the CUSA Hub emphasizes their platform as the ‘main portal’ student groups use to oversee their programming initiatives, it certainly has not been implemented that way to the eyes of club and society executives—particularly as it seems to be down more often than it is up. Students simply need more diverse and interactive platforms to connect with campus groups and other students.
A newly organized CUSA Hub would be the first step towards tangible CUSA support for clubs and societies. Club executives need to be notified and empowered to make use of the platform, as it needs to reflect the changing needs of club operations in order to be effective. This could include granting clubs access to the website for booking tabling spaces or having more collaborative virtual spaces for interested students to join as club members.
With the reductions in opportunities, students are seeing on campus due to COVID-19, it is crucial that current leaders adapt and take initiative to expand the number of opportunities available to students for leadership development. This is especially important as students lose more and more opportunities to gain work experience. Volunteering and extracurricular experience (often obtained through campus leadership positions) are among the most important resume components employers look for in recent graduates.
This pandemic poses an incredible opportunity for our student association to forward better leadership roles, both as a matter of necessity as well as opportunity. It is leaders who will get us through this pandemic, and easing students into online leadership positions rather than in-person ones might open the doors to people who may have felt too uncomfortable to pursue the latter.
Together, with the support of an effective CUSA administration, our student population can become the leaders that the world so desperately needs right now.
Featured graphic by Pascale Malenfant.
