January 2025 saw the launch of UW’s Ombuds Office following several years of advocacy led by the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) and the Graduate Student Association (GSA). Led by ombudsperson Whitney Barrett and assistant ombudsperson Sam Vandekerckhove, the office provides students with confidential, impartial, and independent assistance in navigating a wide range of student concerns.

The Ombuds Office helps students with academic and non-academic issues, housing, and even interpersonal challenges at times. It also deals with both individual cases concerning student grievances and overall systemic issues at the university. “Complexity is not something that we shy away from,” Barrett said. 

The process for approaching individual cases looks different based on the student and their unique situation. Generally, students will first meet with Vandekerckhove as the first point of contact and work on early resolution work. 

“So it looks like talking through different policies and procedures, listening to the student and helping to identify what the different pieces are. Sometimes, I call it peeling apart the onion. It’s peeling apart the challenges that a student may come in for because they may come in for a Policy 71 related issue, but maybe there’s some other things in there,” Barrett said. 

The office may help demystify policy, procedure, and regulations for students, explore options on how to proceed through specific issue areas, make referrals where required, provide guidance, and empower students to directly address  their concerns. However, the office will maintain neutrality and therefore will not provide legal advice or counselling, or advocate for an individual case. Instead, the Office can help students identify what services they need and where to find them.

Ombudsperson Whitney Barrett

Barrett joined UW as the ombudsperson in January 2025 after 17 years at Western University. There, she took on various roles including associate and acting ombudsperson and other roles related to finance, administration, and alumni working with both undergraduate and graduate students. 

“So I moved around a bit, and it gave me a really great, I think, in-depth understanding of how universities function in many different ways. I also experienced students going through the life cycle of just being a student, so coming to the university, growing, changing their lives, shifting… and really like falling in love with what they’re studying is just exciting, and I love doing it,” Barrett said.  

Barrett noted that her diverse experiences working with students directly supports her role as an ombudsperson in recognizing the complex realities student issues take. 

“People are people. They’re multifaceted. They bring lots of life experience to their space. So we openly talk about things as much as the person is comfortable doing so. So again, within that confidential space, and I like to reinforce that with that informalness, we operate outside of formal structure,” Barrett said.

Current initiatives and approaches 

According to Barrett, student cases received by the office so far fall into a few key issue areas. In the academic domain, students have come to the office regarding grievances and petitions appeals, including those related to Policy 71. At the graduate level, some students have come in regarding issues with supervisors or interpersonal conflicts. In the non-academic domain, the office sees student cases mostly around housing contracts and fees. Depending on the complexity of the issue and its relevance to the office’s role, Barrett and Vandekerckhove may develop early resolution strategies, launch a further investigation, or refer students to the appropriate services. Depending on the needs of the student, the Ombuds Office can refer students to spaces that do advocacy or provide additional support, especially through challenging policy procedures such as Policy 33 on ethical behavior and Policy 42 regarding the prevention of and response to sexual violence.

“Sometimes coming to my space and to the office is to figure out, are [students] looking for advocacy? Are they looking for a support person? Do they need someone that’s going to walk with them through a process? Or are they looking just to really find out what to do next, or where to start,” Barrett said. 

The office approaches cases using the transparency triangle framework, which is used widely by Ombuds Offices across Canada. The framework helps identify what type of unfairness a student is experiencing in their case and looks at three forms of fairness — substantive, relational, and procedural. 

Depending on the needs of the student, the Ombuds Office can refer students to spaces that do advocacy or provide additional support, especially through challenging policy procedures such as Policy 33 on ethical behavior and Policy 42 regarding the prevention of and response to sexual violence.

The Ombuds Office is governed by the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by UW, WUSA, and GSA. As per the agreement, the office is co-funded 50-50 by the university and student fees, reflecting the impartial nature of the office. 

“The agreement between students and the institution was solidified after I started in the office to make sure we had a guide post to function from. That was one of the biggest initiatives that the office assisted with,” Barrett said.

In addition to helping students on a case-by-case scale, the office supports institutional change at UW. Through annual reporting, policy reviews, and trend analysis, the office identifies systemic issues at UW and recommends changes to the UW administration to enhance fairness and transparency.

Challenges and moving forward

In 2010, UW closed its former Ombuds Office, the Student Resource Office. Over a decade later, Barrett says a big challenge faced by the new Ombuds Office is understanding where it fits within the current university structure.

“With things like The Conflict Management Office and the Student Success Office, academic advising, and the Office of Academic Integrity, where does the office sit and operate? … [We are] working with those spaces collaboratively to understand where they support students and where we support students,” she said.

Barrett further explained, “We’re an option for students to come to but we’re not required at any point, whereas some of those other offices, like maybe they are required within certain steps or processes for a student to engage in one of the policies or procedures we’re not. I find that’s been a challenge for people to understand what an ombudsperson is.”

Due to these challenges, the office has spent most of the past 10 months setting up and making students aware of its existence.

“The biggest challenge that we have is just getting our name out so that we can connect with folks across campus. Just getting the visibility of the office and an understanding of what we do and why we can why and how we can help folks navigating different things on campus is kind of the biggest challenge,” Barrett said.

To navigate this challenge, aside from meetings with students in the SLC, Barrett makes visits to UW’s satellite campuses in Cambridge and Stratford to meet and hear from students. 

Another challenge is the lack of data amidst a growing number of cases the office has to work with due to its short history. Barrett says as more cases come through, the office will be able to identify key structural themes and produce recommendations for the university administration to address them. 

While the university faces operating budget constraints, Barrett notes that the office has not faced any notable budget-related challenges since it only consists of two people and student tuition funding can help balance out any funding threats related to the university. 

As the team-of-two begin to chart a new path forward for the Ombuds Office, Barrett is hopeful for what is to come in the following year.

“I’ll be able to have a better scope of what systemic concerns exist within the student population and have data behind it that I can then start to have a deeper dive into those systemic concerns and inspire change at the institution. Because that’s really the purpose, right? [To] improve fairness at the institution within those bigger systemic concerns,” she said.

Over time, the office hopes their work contributes to a more equitable campus culture and strengthens trust between students and the university.  

The Ombuds Office is located on the third floor of the SLC. For more information, the ombuds office can be contacted at uwombuds@uwaterloo.ca or visit https://uwaterloo.ca/ombudsperson/.