THE CAPILANO STUDENTS’ UNION TURNS 50 SERIES #3

Past members of the executive reflect upon their time at the CSU, how it’s changed, and what they hope for its future

Safari served as the President and Vice-President of Finance and Services from 2017 to 2018. A large part of his portfolio included overseeing the finances of the organization and ensuring responsible spending. “It was a very supportive environment because we're all students at the end of the day and we all need help sometimes,” he said, referring to help with the audit and creating the next year’s budget.

Some tough decisions regarding the health and dental plan were made that year, and Safari ensured that student perspectives and expectations were brought forward to the Services Committee. “Premiums were going up like crazy the following year, and we had to give students the option of whether to pay a little more to get the same coverage or — if I recall correctly — pay the same but get less coverage,” he said.

The services aspect of the position included oversight as well, but Safari was able to be a part of the creation of new services as well, such as the electronic repair service, Device Doctor, which he considers to be the most memorable thing he helped accomplish. “It exists today as a result of what some people did back then — they set their minds to it and worked together to accomplish it,” he said, mentioning how Kate Jarman — who was a staff member, but also a student at the time — and Chris Girodat, were very supportive of Device Doctor.

“It was a very unique executive setup, and being able to work on projects that clearly mattered to us all despite our different backgrounds and different ways of thinking was very rewarding for me,”said Safari, noting that diverse representation is something he hopes will continue to grow and progress at the CSU. Safari made time during his presidency to meet with board members to try to understand their perspectives, especially since he didn’t come from a background of advocacy and nonprofit work.

While he found it rewarding, working with differentminded people was a double edged sword. “One of the challenging things that I had to overcome — and

I'm not even sure if I overcame it, but I just had to work with it — was keeping some level of unison among members of my executive team, and in many cases on the board as well.” He found engagement from the board quite difficult, likely due to a multitude of factors, but challenging nonetheless.

One of the lessons that Safari tries to pass onto others is that “what you put into it, is what you get out of it.” He finds it a simple, but sometimes overlooked concept. “When you have a seat on the Board of Directors, you're representing students, your peers, a constituency, a faculty, and that's that's a big deal.” Thankfully, he feels as if board engagement has improved — at least from his outside perspective. He noted that the subsequent board was smaller but very passionate about what they were doing.

Safari also feels that the sky's the limit in how cohesively a student union and their university can work together, even though during his year he felt that it couldn’t get much better. “As the university is growing, so is the CSU,” he says, excited to see what joint initiatives can be done between the CSU and CapU in the future. “They both have very common goals and initiatives that they strive towards, which creates grounds for great opportunities to work together and to cater to each other’s strengths to service students better.”

In the future, Safari hopes for more awareness about the CSU positions and more people who step up to try out for the positions. “Even if a lot of people feel that they're underqualified, I feel like those are the ones that are often very valuable to these kinds of organizations,” he says, noting that he sees a lot of modest people who don’t realize the strengths they have to offer organizations like the CSU. “You don't need a resume of having done ten years of advocacy — the foundation and the basis of it is caring about your peers and your community.”

This year, the CSU is working especially hard to advocate for mental health, including running activities for Mental Health Awareness Week to combat the stigma against seeking help. “Everyone [looks for help],” states Yamagishi, “and we just want to make it okay for people to reach out and for people to understand that it’s perfectly healthy and acceptable to seek mental health services.”

On the services side of Yamagishi’s portfolio, he makes sure that all services are tailored to students and that they continue in a cost-effective manner that delivers to students what they need in any current time. Examples include the U-Pass hardship fund — which the CSU brought back to help students during the pandemic — the book market, and the housing and volunteer registries.

On the financial side, the VP Finance and Services helps create the budget for the following year, monitoring the current budget, and approving expenses and other budget-related items. The final aspect of Yamagishi’s portfolio includes the student spaces perspective, which he says is “mostly focused on the student union building and trying to finally bring this seven-year project to tangible results we can see and use.”

As part of the push for mental health, Empower Me is the newest addition to the services offered to students 24/7 as of Sept. 2021, through a partnership with Capilano University (CapU). CapU offers counselling services, and the provincial service Here2Talk was implemented last year, but Empower Me is meant to alleviate the strain on the other counselling services and recognize the diversity of the student population and ensure that there aren’t lengthy wait times for students seeking help.

“Here2Talk is a good program, but is very limited in certain factors — especially the cultural and diversity aspect,” said Yamagishi. While Here2Talk only offers services in English and French, Empower Me offers help in over 180 languages. This was a major factor in the decision to use the service, said Yamagishi, as features that include matching students and counsellors by gender and culture on first contact “make [Empower Me] as far reaching as possible.”

Empower Me also allows for multiple sessions with the same counsellor over web chat, phone calls, video counselling or in person — the latter two of which aren’t offered through Here2Talk.

“If [an] the issue is larger than just that one phone call, they can get down to the root and address the issues to the best of their ability,” said Yamagishi. Empower Me is also able to refer students to specialists if necessary.

The current agreement is until the end of the school year, with unofficial plans to extend it. “We want to see how much buy in there is, how many students have been using it, and really what the impact is,” says Yamagishi. “Are they finding it helpful? Are they finding it better than Here2Talk? We want to collect data on this.”

The psychological benefit within the extended health and dental plan was the most used aspect of the plan last year, according to Yamagishi. While Empower Me is a standalone service that was purchased, the need is there. As of right now, the CSU has no increased fees for students and are covering half the cost of the new service. CapU is paying the other half since they find that it’s a benefit to students and will help alleviate their counselling department.

“The CSU is always going to be there to help you,” states Yamagishi. “We’re happy to answer any questions and help you in any direction, as that's our big goal this year — mental health awareness and combating the stigma.”