Lily Polenchuk Each year, The Gateway publishes an evaluation of the Students’ Union Executive and the Board of Governors representative. It’s impossible to discuss every aspect of their tenures, so these reports are largely based on the major components of the platform each executive campaigned on, and the most significant responsibilities of their respective positions. The grading rubric can be found at the bottom of the article.
And if you’re short for time, check out our TL;DR for a bite-sized breakdown towards the end of the article.
Renson Alva: B+
The University of Alberta Students’ Union (UASU) vice-president (student life) (VPSL) is sort of a catch-all for non-academic issues. That makes it a big portfolio, including mental health, residence, events, and student services. And Renson Alva had a big platform to match. He managed to make impressive progress on his platform in tangible ways, though there was a considerable delay in addressing safety concerns.
Tangible results on transit, for both North Campus and Augustana
A defining moment across a couple UASU executives’ portfolios has been the renegotiation of the U-Pass agreement. Alva worked alongside the Vice-president (external), Abdul Abbasi, and Vice-president (operations and finance), Levi Flaman.
The biggest achievement was keeping the cost of the U-Pass as close to the current cost as possible. While the City of Edmonton initially proposed raising it to $200 a semester, student associations were able to keep it at $180 for 2025. It will go up to $182.50 in 2026, and $185 in 2027 if the referendum passes during the 2025 UASU elections.
Alva also mentioned some progress on transit safety that came out of the U-Pass negotiations. He told me that he advocated for the City of Edmonton to expand cell service to LRT tunnels and stations. In late January, the City of Edmonton recently announced that LRT stations will have 5G service by 2026. Right now, if someone needs to call for help in an LRT station, they have to use a help phone. Changing this is a big step towards safer transit. Alva also said he’s asking that university stations be prioritized, though how effective that argument has been remains to be seen.
Not only keeping the cost of the U-Pass low, but simultaneously getting real movement on transit safety is no small feat. But Alva didn’t stop there with transit. With Abbasi, Alva was able to kick off a pilot-project with FlixBus for a route to and from Augustana.
Although there wasn’t enough ridership to make the FlixBus pilot a permanent route, Alva and Abbasi pursued other options. Instead a university van and driver will offer transportation to and from Augustana twice a week. The details are still being ironed out, but Alva expects the service will be in place soon.
After years of UASU candidates promising better transportation between Augustana and North Campus, Alva can take credit for actually doing it. He not only followed through on his promise, but persisted when the first option didn’t work out.
Strong involvement with student services
Alva also demonstrated a high level of involvement with the Campus Food Bank (CFB). The importance of this cannot be overstated, as CFB has seen a 600 per cent increase in use over the past five years. As a result of high demand, CFB has been struggling to keep up with costs of meeting such demand. Currently, it’s undergoing consultation for a strategic plan to ensure the service is sustainable moving forward.
Alva has been involved with this as a member of CFB’s board. He’s also been asking the university to invest in CFB, as it currently doesn’t provide the CFB with any funding. This means the CFB is highly dependent on fundraising and donations, which isn’t necessarily a reliable source of funding. Pushing for university investment in CFB not only helps the CFB itself, but also holds the U of A to account for its obligation to students’ well-being. Especially as tuition is likely to rise again.
Additionally, the UASU executive team adopted the Rutherford Library Food Pantry for a week over the summer. I’m also aware that Alva did some work reaching out to groups that could potentially adopt the pantry.
When Alva spoke with me in August, he expressed an interest in establishing a food program at the university to address the root cause of high CFB use. Unfortunately, Alva has not started any sort of formal program or plan at this point.
However, Alva did tell me other ways the UASU has been trying to address the need for affordable food. He mentioned that SUBmart has been offering affordable “grab-and-go” type meals. He said the DailyGrind also provides a “Too Good To Go” program, which essentially gives away free food. While these are good initiatives, I would have liked to see more advertisements around it. Though the grab-and-go meals are placed next to the SUBmart lineup, before talking to Alva, I had never even heard of the “Too Good to Go” program. Students can’t benefit from these efforts if they don’t know about them.
Additionally, he said the UASU has tried to offer free food at its events this year. This is a great way to provide students with food options, but it also simply attracts students to events. Engagement can be especially important for events like tuition townhalls.
Alva said he also was able to secure a student seat on the Sustainable Food Working Group (SFWG). SFWG focuses on examining ways to address the environmental, economic, and social elements of food around campus. He said this group has largely been defunct since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is definitely a step in the right direction to making sure student voices are heard on this issue.
Another effort Alva mentioned was the Change Health Community Program (CHCP), which the Office of the Dean of Students (DoS) is responsible for. While he didn’t specify what his involvement with CHCP was, it still doesn’t necessarily address the real issue of food insecurity. CHCP focuses on teaching students healthy living skills, including food preparation. This is an important program, but it doesn’t solve food insecurity. Students aren’t going to be able to eat healthy meals or generally have a healthy lifestyle if they can’t afford groceries.
So even though Alva didn’t achieve a formal food program, he’s managed to create some tangible outcomes. Though, students could have benefited from more promotion of these things by the UASU.
Attention paid to equity issues, results to show for it
Alva also assisted Club Periodically in applying to run a dedicated fee unit (DFU) in the 2025 UASU elections. The UASU currently supports Club Periodically as it provides free period products across five locations on campus. In running for a DFU, the group is hoping to expand free products to even more locations on campus. Initially, Alva requested that Students’ Council waive the requirement for student groups to gather 5,000 signatures to be able to run a referendum during an election. Unfortunately, council denied his request.
However, Alva and Club Periodically went to work to circulate a petition and gather signatures. Three days before the deadline, Club Periodically had gathered 5,900 signatures. Of course, for Club Periodically to actually get funding, it still has to pass its referendum. But Alva’s efforts with the club have paid off thus far.
He has also been working to get a lactation pod in the Students’ Union Building (SUB). While this has yet to come to fruition, the effort is commendable. Creating a safe, private place for parents to breast feed in SUB is long overdue.
On top of those efforts, Alva has also been working to get more multi-faith prayer spaces across campus. He said he’s helped open two spaces — one in the Donadeo Innovation Centre For Engineering (DICE) and one in Mechanical Engineering (MEC). Ensuring students have access to prayer spaces in all corners of campus is important. To see real results of Alva’s efforts speaks to his commitment to this issue.
Major delay in addressing significant safety concerns
While Alva’s work largely impressed me, one aspect fell short: addressing safety concerns in a timely manner. The Indigenous Students’ Union (ISU) presented to Students’ Council in December 2024, following a non-student assaulting a student in the ISU lounge. Leading up to this incident, there’d been various concerns, ranging from thefts to death threats to the ISU for about a year.
Alva’s predecessor, Michael Griffiths, began the groundwork to get the ISU lounge a ONEcard reader. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen until late 2024, and the reader didn’t initially work. At council, the ISU expressed frustration with the lack of support from the UASU on its safety concerns.
Alva told me he helped connect the victim to supports and resources in the aftermath of the assault. Since then, the ONEcard reader has been working and Alva said he’s trying to get a second reader at the lounge’s other door. While he said he agreed with “everything the ISU said,” he wasn’t able to tell me what work he had been doing before the assault occurred.
It’s important to make clear that this isn’t entirely on Alva. The U of A’s seeming reluctance to engage with the ISU on its safety concerns was the root issue. However, it should not have taken a student being assaulted for the UASU to meaningfully address the safety concerns. Whether it was a lack of attention or simply ineffective advocacy, Alva’s efforts unfortunately fell short.
Ultimately, Alva has made progress on important issues, like transit and period equity. He has also been a strong advocate for CFB, even if his idea of a formal food program didn’t actually happen. However, he took far too long to address safety concerns on campus.
TL;DR: Alva was able to make an impressive amount of progress on his large platform. He’s been able to achieve tangible outcomes for transit and period equity on campus. Unfortunately, the delay in addressing significant safety concerns kept him from reaching the A-range.
