Moghadam believes his previous experience as the graduate caucus chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario — a union representing domestic and international students at the college, undergraduate, and graduate levels — and his role in the Biomedical Engineering Students’ Association has equipped him with student governance knowledge.

If re-elected, Moghadam hopes to focus on four pillars: funding equity, transit and housing, food security, and community support.

He plans to continue his work in reducing living costs for students. His campaign prioritizes securing funding packages for all graduate students, building on the $40,000 funding package his campaign previously secured for PhD and Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) students.

Moghadam will also work toward providing students with a subsidized transit pass, better access to affordable housing and food, accessible mental health support, as well as emergency funds for students facing an unforeseen crisis. 

To ensure that students’ voices are heard, Moghadam promises that his campaign will hold regular town halls, regular office hours, and frequent visits to all three campuses. .

Shillingford also credits his work as vice chair of the UTGSU’s Base Funding Committee — a subcommittee that works toward increasing base funding for graduate students. 

If elected, Shillingford hopes to continue the work the union has done so far, particularly looking over the union’s policies and base funding. He noted that the base funding committee’s recent “win” — referring to the $40,000 funding package secured for PhD and SJD students — still left out a few students. “I will continue to work to try to increase base funding for students in other categories,” he added. 

Shillingford hopes to implement a program for graduate students to learn about housing rights and introduce a club system for student organizations to “become affiliated with [the UTGSU] and benefit from [its] institutional knowledge” and resources. 

A tenet of Shillingford’s campaign is to “mak[e] sure that every graduate student can feel like they’re getting value out of the UTGSU.” 

With over 12 years of advocacy experience in the nonprofit sector, such as with the Women’s Support Network, Allahdini brings extensive experience in “supporting folks who are experiencing multiple registers of harm and exclusion,” and connecting them to vital services. She is now committed to leveraging that knowledge to improve the lives of graduate students.

Currently working at the UTGSU as a campaigns and research assistant, Allahdini is leading the analysis of the 2024 Cost of Living Survey which has given her “a clear understanding of what exactly students’ challenges are around housing, food, transport, and funding.” 

Her campaign pushes for affordable, health-conscious housing options, including for families; raising awareness for tenant rights; and building support networks for students seeking roommates or assistance with housing. 

She also hopes to strengthen partnerships with local organizations to provide free or low-cost meals, develop grocery gift card programs, and introduce holiday food baskets to combat food insecurity. On transit, she supports a GTA-wide U-Pass, a subsidized transit pass, to ease commuting costs for grad students.

Allahdini emphasized, “It’s not just about… what I can accomplish in the year — we [want to] ensure that the work can continue beyond just ourselves.”

At the UTGSU, Silver has served on the now-defunct Council, the Elections and Referendum Committee, and, currently, as the Outreach Officer for the Base Funding Committee and interim board director for Division Four. He also sits on the Advisory Committee for U of T Library Systems as the UTGSU representative. In addition, he was the social media coordinator and later chair of the Biochemistry Graduate Students’ Union. 

His campaign focuses on three pillars: increasing funding for master’s and professional students excluded from the funding increase through a targeted letter-writing campaign; expanding mental health support like the biweekly pet therapies — which he helped implement — as well as peer support programs to UTSC and UTM and increasing their frequency at UTSG; and advocating for a U-Pass by negotiating collectively with other student unions.

Silver also highlighted the disparities between the funding humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences students receive. Furthermore, he also noted that guidelines for supervisors — last updated in 2017 after a failed 2023 revision attempt — need reform, particularly regarding feedback timelines and professional behaviour.  

Murtada has four campaign focuses. Citing his previous work of increasing the student conference bursary from $250 to $400 per recipient, introducing the international graduate student bursary, and limiting the cost-of-living increase in the health and dental plan fees to 10 per cent or below while keeping the same benefits, this year, he plans to increase bursaries further and to ensure the health and dental plan fees doesn’t increase for the year.  

He also wishes to start a budgeting, investing, and finance series of workshops and to have a club-focused fund for events, as opposed to solely funding course unions and departmental groups for academic events and conferences. 

In his interview, he emphasized the union’s need for a central, digital platform — currently in the works — that will allow people to correspond with the executives, book rooms, apply for grants or bursaries, and receive funds electronically rather than through cheques. He also looked forward to publicizing and using the union’s cost-of-living survey data to better advocate for graduate students. 

Shimshek is also familiar with the isolation that UTSC and UTM students feel compared to UTSG, so she hopes to bring the opportunities, events, and initiatives that UTSG has to UTSC and UTM. 

To support UTSC and UTM student organizations, she plans to provide financial contributions, volunteer assistance, and participate in the campuses’ events. She also intends to collaborate and facilitate joint events with major student organizations, such as the Graduate Students’ Association at Scarborough, to expand their influence.

Shimshek also wishes to establish a mentorship program for first and second-year graduate students, where they would be paired with students in higher years who they can turn to for academic and professional guidance while settling into graduate studies. 

If elected, Shimshek hopes to provide graduate students with adequate mental health programs. To do this, she’d arrange a “Wellness Week” dedicated to mental health initiatives in collaboration with other groups, such as the Multifaith Centre, Student Life, and Hart House.