A rundown of the services and programs on the KSA’s referendum

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The Kwantlen Student Association will be holding a referendum from 9:00 am on April 9 until 5:00 pm on April 11 online through Simply Voting.  

A referendum is a vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. In the KSA’s case, the electorate is all current Kwantlen Polytechnic University students and the voting pertains to the ongoing operations of certain programs and services. The referendum was put forward and approved by the 2023-24 KSA council during a meeting on March 6. 

Students will have the opportunity to vote for either “yes, retain the program,” or “no, eliminate the program,” for KSA Peer Support, Active KSA, REBOOT Computer Repair, Advocacy, Sustainable KSA, and KSA Volunteer Program. 

KSA Peer Support and Advocacy both currently cost KPU students $0.31 cents per credit, Active KSA costs $0.38 cents per credit, REBOOT Computer Repair costs $0.41 cents per credit, and KSA Volunteer program costs $0.49 cents per credit. If a student were to take three classes at KPU, they would pay $17.10 per semester to fund these programs. The current fee for Sustainable KSA is not listed on the association’s website. 

“We just want [the] membership to be having their point of view on the thing as they’re paying for our services,” former KSA President Abdullah Randhawa said during the March 6 council meeting. “It should be good to have those questions for them, if they want the service, are they using services or not? What is their perspective?” 

The KSA Peer Support Resource Centre is a student-run initiative that aims to foster mental health and well-being for those in the KPU community, according to the KSA’s website. The program is currently in Birch 230 and run by Peer Support Coordinators Lovlina Prasad and Selina Maedel, and volunteers. 

They offer help and educate students about mental health through social and wellness activities as part of their Chatterbox program, offer one-on-one support, and mental health awareness events on campus. 

“I [turn] all of [my] experiences into passion for wanting to help uplift students on campus,” Prasad says. “It can be a struggle to be a student, there’s a lot that goes with it, and it can be really stressful at times. That’s the main reason why I’m here, and I really want to keep showing up for students.” 

KSA Peer Support was introduced in 2015 as students had concerns about having more mental health support on campus. Two students brought it to a referendum earlier that year to launch the program, and it was voted in. 

Prasad says while the number of students who use their program vary every semester, many use the programs they offer and volunteer. For the Chatterbox program, about 10 students use it semesterly, and for their workshop centres, roughly 25 to 30 students attend, both Maedel and Prasad say. 

When Peer Support hosts events on campus, they usually see a turnout of anywhere between 100 to 250 students. Some of the events Peer Support has hosted over the years are a pizza party sharing what services they offer, SEXPO, and movie nights in collaboration with Art With Impact. Peer Support also participates in Welcome Week every semester to let students know what they offer. 

“[What] we really want to do is consistently show up for students doing these tabling events, so they build a trusting relationship with us,” Maedel says. “So they can go to [us], where if they’re having issues that they know us … where they trust us and they can come to us.” 

Students can apply to become volunteers with Peer Support. Prasad and Maedel say that they have seen almost 50 students apply to be volunteers. 

“They’re honestly the heart of the program,” Prasad says, adding that the volunteering often helps lead students towards other opportunities such as becoming a future counselor, grad school applications, and experience and skills relating to mental health. 

At the moment, they have 12 volunteers, with four being active, and they usually recruit 10 to 12 volunteers a year, Prasad and Maedel say. 

Prasad says she voiced her concerns to her management about the program being brought to a referendum. 

“I told them the importance of why we need something like this on campus, especially with the presence of stigma that already exists,” Prasad says. “I came up with the idea of a pizza party to get more students engaged and have them know the space.” 

When students attended the pizza party, Prasad says students were asking what the KSA will replace the space with if the program doesn’t continue, to which coordinators replied with “I don’t know.” 

If the program is eliminated, Maedel says a problem could arise where students have already paid for the program and it does not exist in the fall. 

“Overall, I feel there’s been a lack of understanding of why this is happening because a lot of us don’t know [what is happening],” Prasad says. 

Active KSA was established in 2010 after a referendum was held to create intramural programs, wrote Connor McCann, Active KSA coordinator, in an email statement to The Runner. 

“The core purpose of the program is to provide students with fun physical and social activities in a way that is a bit different from KPU Sports and Rec,” McCann wrote. 

The program gives students access to off-campus activities like ice skating, hiking, biking, laser tag, and bowling. They also partner with local organizations to offer students discounted tickets to events like Vancouver Whitecaps soccer games.   

McCann wrote he’s also in charge of the Blossoming Lotus Studio at KPU’s Richmond campus, in which five classes are running this semester including yoga, pilates, zen meditation, and kung fu. The classes can contain two to 15 students, McCann wrote.

“I would like to believe that Active KSA has done a lot of good for students, we’ve helped facilitate friendships that have continued for years, given out letters of recommendations for student awards, helped create a number of programs within KPU,” McCann wrote.  

“Unfortunately, it’s been a rough year for Active KSA, we’ve been understaffed for quite a while now, which limits the number of events as well as the number of people we can take out on events.” 

REBOOT Computer Repair is KSA’s computer service that aims to help students with technical support needs. The service is free to students enrolled at KPU and helps them with inquiries such as answering computer related questions, offering advice regarding a purchase, and troubleshooting computers and laptops.

 The service can also help with backing up personal data, removing viruses and spyware, installing operating systems, diagnosing hardware problems, and more. Providing estimates on hardware repairs and getting deals on replacement parts are only some of the services provided at the REBOOT Computer Centre located on KPU’s Surrey and Richmond campuses.

Students paying KSA fees are able to access the services offered by REBOOT.

“We have a lot of student inquiries at REBOOT,” wrote REBOOT Technician Dillon Balandy in an email statement to The Runner. 

While the number of inquiries vary per semester, Balandy wrote they have received 42 inquiries in the new year. This number went down during the COVID-19 pandemic but has since ramped up.

The service has helped save students money, Balandy wrote. While the KPU IT department can be contacted by students requiring IT support, it doesn’t help with personal inquiries, he wrote.

 “What we believe is even if we’re helping one student, that’s one student that doesn’t have to spend $200 on a repair outside of the KSA,” he wrote. 

The program aims to provide “reliable and accessible” technical support to supplement students’ academic experience. They offer device maintenance tips and practices with students to keep their devices in ideal conditions along with online resources and guides. 

REBOOT also offers remote technical support to students not able to commute to their centres. 

The KSA Student Rights Centre is where KPU students can seek help and advice for protecting their rights during their time at the university. The centre helps students involved in conflicts with faculty and administration, ranging from complaints and academic conflicts to misconduct accusations about KPU staff, according to the KSA’s website. 

The Student Rights Centre also explains procedures and regulations of the university, students’ rights and responsibilities, provides resources that help students defend their rights, aids with student loan application forms and appeals, and more. 

The centre is located in Birch 236 on the Surrey campus, and the service has been around since 2009. John O’Brian is currently the KSA advocacy coordinator. 

Sustainable KSA aims to reduce the association’s environmental impact, engage students in sustainability, and advocate for increased environmental and social sustainability efforts at KPU, reads the KSA’s website. 

In addition to managing waste programs like clothing donations and battery and cell phone recycling, the program manages the garden spaces on KPU’s campuses, runs a sustainability ambassadors program to increase sustainability awareness on campus, and helped create the Kwantlen Street Farmers Market in Richmond, which sells produce grown by KPU students, among other achievements. 

The KSA Volunteer Program offers a variety of volunteering opportunities to students that help with skill development, connecting with peers, faculty, professionals, gaining certifications, and engaging in roles across multiple sectors. 

The program allows students to volunteer with START, Street Team, Peer Support, and campaigns. 

Students enrolled in the program get the opportunity to collaborate with external organizations, gain exposure to various industries, and valuable skills. 

“Joining the KSA Volunteer Program means more than just volunteering; it’s about being part of a community that values service, learning, and mutual support,” reads their website. 

The Runner reached out to Advocacy, Sustainable KSA, and the KSA Volunteer Program for a comment about the referendum but they declined. 

The referendum also includes questions regarding KSA fees. Students will be able to vote “yes” or “no” to increase the clubs and events fee by $0.55 per credit, indexing all KSA fees to the Consumer Price Index, and paying a new bursary fee of $1.99 per credit to increase the funds available for student bursaries. Currently, students pay $1.22 per semester for the bursary fund. 

If the increase for bursary and clubs and events fees is passed, a KPU student taking three classes would pay $22.86 per semester in these fees. 

To learn more about the referendum, visit kusa.ca/2024referendum/.