Student movements at UW has surged in recent years, with groups like OccupyUW, UW NDP, OrganizeUW, Climate Justice Ecosystem (CJE), and UW Voices for Palestine (UWVFP) driving social change and shaping campus history. Yet, the job has not been easy — student organizers report facing increasing roadblocks and barriers to organizing on campus.  

“Students have always been at the forefront of change, whether it be students protesting the Vietnam War or South African Apartheid, there’s so many examples in history that we can look at where students were at the forefront of these really important and influential social justice movements […] yet we are constantly faced with challenges,” said an executive member with UWVFP, who asked not be named.

Challenges working with UW administration and WUSA 

Student organizers noted that they are no strangers to facing roadblocks and barriers from UW’s administration. One of these challenges is feeling safe as students and organizers on campus. Michelle Angkasa, a UW graduate and co-founder of CJE, shared how UW’s response to the 2023 campus stabbing impacted her sense of safety as a student and organizer.

“That horrible tragedy and the aftermath made it very clear to me that the university did not meaningfully care about the safety of students, especially its most vulnerable students. Aside from hollow statements, the administration did not step up to address the root causes of the issue: homophobia, transphobia, and hate,” Angkasa said.

UWVFP shares similar concerns in regards to safety. Over the spring 2024 term, OccupyUW led a student encampment on the Grad House green in response to the genocide in Gaza. Several weeks later, UW launched a 1.5-million dollar lawsuit against the encampment. While UW dropped the lawsuit on June 25 in response to student organizers agreeing to dismantle the encampment, UWVFP discussed how the lawsuit negatively impacted their sense of safety.

“After seeing the university’s response to student organizing on that scale, I don’t think it’s possible for organizers to feel safe or heard in the university anymore, or for there to be any kind of trust. Setting up cameras to watch the students and then suing them for $1.5 million, I guess it’s just definitive proof that the university does not have its students’ interests in mind,” the UWVFP executive said.

UWVFP noted several examples of surveillance and police presence at their events but one specific instance stood out. In 2024, UWVFP hosted an Iftar and embroidery event, and claimed that special constables made continuous visits. When organizers asked the special constables to leave, the constables refused. 

“I questioned, why do police need to be in all of these spaces where we’re just trying to come together as a community during an extremely difficult time, where our families and people of Palestine are ongoing in genocide, and we are being surveilled as we are just, you know, doing embroidery and having Iftar together,” a UWVFP executive said.

According to UWVFP, the student group formed to advocate for peace, justice, and freedom for Palestine. Following the onslaught of the genocide in Gaza, the student group saw a substantial increase in student engagement. Later that year, UWVFP hosted the largest student rally in UW’s history with over 1,000 participants. 

For CJE, working with WUSA posed similar challenges. While some staff and elected students sympathized with CJE’s demands, Angkasa said the governance and jurisdiction capabilities of WUSA were limited in enacting the change CJE wanted. Maintaining constant communication with WUSA posed additional challenges.

“We wanted to see dedicated space in SLC for climate and sustainability work and a sustainability commitment included in the long range plan. Unfortunately, our efforts led nowhere. Our emails were consistently ignored by elected representatives and staff, we were unable to get clear answers to our questions, and generally felt we were hitting dead ends,” Angkasa said.

Maintaining momentum in organizing

Since the pandemic, organizing at UW has seen a massive uptake. OrganizeUW organized graduate TAs and RAs, eventually voting to join the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). UWNDP successfully advocated for the night bus loop at Waterloo Regional Council. Change Course UW’s campaign Banks off Campus looks to target banks at UW, pushing them to divest from fossil fuels. Climate Justice Ecosystem (CJE) and UW Voices for Palestine (UWVFP) organized major rallies during this period as well. 

“I think that students were hungry for change and in person community. After years of online/hybrid learning and pandemic protocols, I felt that people were eager to gather again. I also think the unprecedented reporting and visibility of the genocide in Gaza spurred students to action on campus,” Angkasa said. 

After witnessing the decline of student organizing during the pandemic, Angkasa and a fellow UW graduate Celine Isimbi formed CJE in 2023 — a grassroots coalition of students organizing on climate-based issues. 

“We spent winter 2023 doing a thorough environmental scan and building relationships to assess the need and viability of a climate justice student coalition. We took the summer to do collective visioning and develop our theory of change, demands, and group structure. We finally launched in September 2023 with a rally,” Angkasa said. 

CJE’s 2023 climate rally involved several student groups including OrganizeUW, UW NDP, and the UWSolidarity Network. The rally reflected the zeal of the monumental 2019 Waterloo climate rally in support of the Global Climate Strike, which saw over 4,500 protestors in attendance. 

CJE and UWVFP noticed a dip in that momentum over the past few months. Major actions targeting student organizing on campus such as the university’s lawsuit against the student encampment were significant contributing factors, but UWVFP noticed an additional trend. 

“There’s been a lot of surges of momentum, when huge things begin to happen, and then unfortunately, as people become disengaged or experience forms of burnout, you might see a decline in that level of involvement and engagement. I think this is probably not something that just pertains to the Palestinian liberation struggle. I think that this is something that all social movements have to contend with and deal with,” the UWVFP executive said. 

Student organizing at UW faces a unique challenge in the form of alternating co-op and study cycles that co-op students experience. Organizers shared turnover resulting from alternating cycles poses significant challenges for pursuing long-term projects of any scope at the university.

“One of the main questions that I’m always asking our team is, are you on campus next term? Are you on campus? Did you get a co-op yet? Where’s your co-op? But I do think that this is a common struggle that all UW clubs have to contend with, just because of the nature of how terms are organized,” the UWVFP executive said.

Aside from being organizers, these students have another responsibility — just being a student. Coursework and other academic duties already take up space on student organizers’ plates. 

“Capacity was the number one issue we faced at CJE. Waterloo students have so much on their plate with classes, work, co-op, and many other commitments and responsibilities. Organizing, unfortunately, is very often unpaid labour, and not everyone has the privilege of having the time and energy to engage in it,” Angkasa said.

A hopeful outlook

This term, several student groups and organizations are active on campus at once. UWVFP sees an opportunity here — channeling the organizing momentum through better communication and coordination and working on finding solutions to common challenges together. 

“You would not believe how many clubs I have talked to and asked, so what are the main challenges that you’re going through right now, trying to organize events on campus? And it’s always the same version of events. So, knowing that we all face the same challenges, I’m really excited to see how we’re able to overcome this,” the executive from UWVFP said. 

While students are faced with a higher cost of living, the climate crisis, and general political and economic uncertainty across the globe, Angkasa sees hope in the power of student organizing in this specific period: “I am hopeful that this generation of student organizers — radicalized by the 2019 climate strikes and 2024 Palestine encampments — will continue to build up their bases and power for the long term. We can’t afford to give up.”