Sultana Razia is running for UBC’s Board of Governors to advocate for affordability, inclusion and student engagement.
Razia is a second-year science student in the Faculty of Science. She is involved in student government as the Science Undergraduate Society First Year Representative, the Bangladeshi Students’ Association VP academic and a member of the UBC Global Lounge Anti-Racism Committee.
Affordability is a major point in Razia’s platform. She said she thinks the Board should take more action on food security and, if elected, she would push for the creation of a food security committee or task force to allocate funding toward the issue.
“[Food security] is a huge barrier to success, and overall wellbeing, mentally or physically,” she said.
Razia also said UBC should increase its support toward AMS Food Bank and look at partnering with local businesses to acquire food to sell at more affordable rates.
To address broader affordability needs, Razia said she believes UBC could do more to find alternative means of funding rather than annually raising tuition.
“Why aren’t we freezing tuition? … I think it’s possible to maintain the stability of the university, financially speaking,” she said.
Razia mentioned lobbying for increased government funding and finding ways to decrease internal costs as two methods UBC could pursue instead of raising tuition.
She added that the much higher tuition fees international students pay could contribute to them feeling less welcome on campus.
“I feel like we [international students] are pushed around more with the increasing high cost of tuition,” she said.
If elected, Razia said she would push for more inclusion initiatives, though she did not specify how these might be similar or different from the current Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force recommendations. Razia could not name a specific Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence Task Force in debate.
Razia highlighted improving student engagement as a priority if elected, noting most students aren’t aware of the various governance meetings where decisions are made.
“I feel like as students, we are often disconnected from the decision making processes at UBC … we could expand opportunities for student input on policy issues.”
To push the Board’s decision-making processes to be “more student centric,” Razia said she would request the Board implement informal student polling to get a sense of student opinion and advocate for more student representation in Board consultation wherever possible.
She said if elected, she would try and sit on the Governance Committee, which sets Board procedures.
Razia described herself as someone who “cannot just talk about” issues and instead tries to take practical steps towards improvement when she can.
“There are things that could be done that could literally improve and make people's lives better. We just need someone to … advocate for those improvements,” she said.
Razia is running against Kareem Hassib, Onyekachukwu Odenigbo, Leonard Wang and current AMS President Eshana Bhangu.
Follow us at @UbysseyNews on Twitter and follow our election coverage starting February 27. This article is part of our 2023 AMS Elections coverage.
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