As President, Madden leads the OUSA Steering Committee and acts as chief advocate for the organization. Madden is also the Vice President University Affairs at the Wilfrid Laurier University Students' Union.

"Madden, Cockburn and Searle are accomplished student leaders who have demonstrated a strong commitment to improving post-secondary education in Ontario," said Sam Andrey, OUSA Executive Director. "I am confident they will lead OUSA to new heights."

OUSA would also like to thank outgoing President Meaghan Coker, Vice President Finance Saad Aslam, and Vice President Administration Joe Finkle, for their exceptional work and commitment to the organization over the past year.

Last month, OUSA welcomed two new members: the Trent in Oshawa Student Association (TOSA), who join OUSA as associate members, and the McMaster Association of Part-Time Students (MAPS), who have become full members.

"We are thrilled to welcome McMaster's part-time students and the students of Trent in Oshawa to the OUSA family," said Sean Madden. "Their diverse perspectives will provide new energy to our alliance."

"With OUSA's proven record of solid research, well written policies, and excellent representation of post-secondary education students, we are excited to be joining such a credible and influential organization that can effectively represent our interests," said Sam Minniti, Executive Director of MAPS. "We are particularly looking forward to raising awareness about the experience of part-time students and mature learners."

"Membership in OUSA provides our students with effective representation at the provincial level," said Kelly Vanleyden, President of TOSA. "By joining our voices with those of students across Ontario, we all benefit."

The strategy proposes changes to the way colleges and universities are funded, such that institutions have incentives to focus on teaching quality and institutional strengths, not just on enrolment growth. The plan also highlights continued support for underrepresented students and a new initiative to develop programming in primary and secondary schools that will encourage and inform students through the transition to post-secondary education.

"Students have always believed that improving access to post-secondary education needs to begin early, and today's announcement signals that we will begin to directly address these challenges," said Sean Madden, President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA). "Undergraduate students also have had concerns with the balance between teaching and research in our universities, and welcome the plan's emphasis on recognizing teaching excellence alongside research excellence."

"It is reassuring to see that the Ontario government's vision emphasizes putting students first. We are hopeful that this commitment will include student involvement in the upcoming negotiations of new institutional agreements to help ensure that our priorities are included," said Sam Andrey, Executive Director of OUSA.

While students await some of the plan's details, particularly concerning changes to the funding formula, the continued regulation of tuition fees, and investments in student assistance, OUSA looks forward to working on the next steps of this broad new plan for post-secondary education.

This marks my first communiqué as Executive Director, and what a month it has been! The Steering Committee and Home Office team members have now settled into their new roles and begun in on our many summer projects. On the docket is preparation for a provincial election campaign, government submissions, three new policies, a province-wide student survey, and (hopefully) progress on many student priorities.

Alongside the transition of our new staff and interns was our annual Transition Conference, in which the outgoing and incoming Steering Committees meet for a few days of intensive training, sharing and planning. At the end of it, our new Executive team was elected. I've already enjoyed working with Sean, Natalie and Pat over the past few weeks, and I have no doubt they will make a great team to guide OUSA in this exciting year ahead.

Speaking of which, the Ontario election is now in full swing. Over the last two weeks, the Ontario PC Party and the Green Party of Ontario both announced their election platforms, while the Liberal government announced their new five-year plan for the post-secondary sector. OUSA is busy in preparations for the September election campaign to make sure that students know both how to vote and what the various parties are running on.

I also had the pleasure of representing students at several events throughout the month, including a conference on measuring learning outcomes, an administrative forum on best practices for reducing university costs, a reference group from Aboriginal student support centres, and an election workshop with university faculty.

I want to offer special thanks this month to Alexi White for a very helpful transition throughout May. I have big shoes to fill after your tenure here at OUSA and I hope to be able to build on your many past accomplishments.

In my experience, May has traditionally been a month for transition and getting adjusted to new roles and responsibilities. While that has occurred, it has been accompanied by a veritable frenzy of activity for OUSA's research team. We attended HEQCO's conference on measuring learning outcomes, where we got a broad sense of the tools used to assess educational outcomes across the globe. We met with stakeholders and government to discuss OUSA's tuition and university cost inflation projects. With the tuition framework up for negotiation next year, starting a discussion on these issues well in advance of the election is of the utmost importance. The end of the month was tremendously exciting, as the ministry announced Putting Students First, their new five-year plan for higher education. As elements of the funding formula, differentiation, multi-year accountability agreements and credit transfer issues are all now on the table for discussion, it is important that long-standing student concerns surrounding all of these systems be addressed. I'm hoping that elements of our research on accountability and system growth will help in these on-going discussions.

Kristen, Chris and Laura have begun work on our forthcoming policy papers on tuition, accountability and system growth. Their initial research will be brought to Steering Committee at the beginning of July for consideration as the group selects authors for the policy papers. Additionally, I've been working on our forthcoming submission on ancillary fees, as well as planning OUSA's next Ontario student survey project. As the summer continues, we'll be approaching partners to assist in this undertaking. Our hope is to refine our understanding of the data collected in the What Students Want report, as well as develop new awareness of student needs surrounding support services, affordability of education, ancillary fees and transfer pathway mobility.

As our research develops throughout June, I'm becoming increasingly excited about the policy recommendations we will be able to bring forward to fall General Assembly.