RACHEL CABALTEJA

Rachel Cabalteja is an eager fourth-year political science and philosophy student hoping to get elected as vice-president student life. With experience in the SU as a previous Faculty of Arts representative, along with outside experience, Cabalteja has had the opportunity to represent students and knows how to stay realistic.

Her platform consists of four main points: fighting for better mental health services, addressing food insecurity, improving the campus community, and highlighting campus diversity.

Regarding mental health services, Cabalteja wants to advocate for more available walk-in appointments and ensure that there is more than just one psychiatrist available for students who need support, saying it’s not fair for that one professional to handle the burden of helping the whole campus community.

Food insecurity is a big issue students are facing right now, so Cabalteja also wants to implement community fridges in the volunteer services where the Campus Food Bank is also accessible, along with working with the Office of Sustainability to help create this initiative. For the long term, she wants to create an institutional strategy that addresses food insecurity after being inspired by the Indigenous Strategy, ii’ taa’poh’to’p.

Cabalteja believes more can be done aside from Clubs Week to engage clubs with the campus community. She’s noticed a lot of very different clubs sometimes have a similar objective, so bringing those clubs together for events could open potentially draw in more students.

In terms of highlighting campus diversity, Cabalteja wants to work towards empowering Indigenous students through the ii’ taa’poh’to’p and work with the Vice Provost of Indigenous Engagement, Michael Hart, to learn about how to find ways to walk together, not assimilate. Alongside this comes her plans to continue EDI advocacy, in addition to bringing awareness and creating accommodations and supports for all students.

A general theme on her platform is to support all students on campus. Overall, Cabalteja has a strong focus on internal issues that need addressing and is very passionate about improving the lives of students, making her a strong candidate for the vice-president student life role.