On March 21, The Varsity sat down with the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) President Amir Moghadam to discuss the union’s accomplishments over the past year. This year, the UTGSU tackled food insecurity, transit, gaps in base funding, and informing students about a provincial election.
Moghadam is the uncontested UTGSU presidential candidate for the 2025–2026 academic year.
The Varsity: Coming into the role as UTGSU president, what were your expectations, and what limitations did you realize you had once you started the role?
Amir Moghadam: It’s a pretty serious job. As an executive, you cannot make all the decisions. You need to make sure that the staff are also on board with that decision, and you need to think about more long-term plans.
Your main focus is to make sure that in the next five years, the UTGSU is sustainable and you can operate and serve its membership in the best way that it can. That was something that I really enjoyed.
TV: Some of the most important actionables for your role have been related to food insecurity. Could you talk about the food coalition and ongoing work to sustain and support the coalition and food security?
AM: We always knew at the UTGSU that there is a food security issue among graduate students, and we didn’t have data. The only data that we had was from the University of Toronto Student Union (UTSU). They have a food bank, and they told us that the majority of people who go to their food bank are graduate students. So, that showed us that there is a need.
The first thing we did was collect survey data. We found that there is a diverse need, from needing the food bank to food boxes or just food security awareness. We found community partners that are already doing these food services very efficiently, and we try to support them to expand the services for graduate students. One of them was the U of T Food Coalition, led by graduate students who have professional work in the food industry.
We first had this plan of having a weekly free lunch program, which was a success. Now, we’re doing Lunch and Learn programs, so we have a community leader coming and giving speeches at those lunches. We are seeking more long-term collaboration with them.
To solve this food insecurity issue, you need to pay people better. You need to increase the funding. You need to have a more sustainable system; you need to have a levy fee for food security.
Our long-term plan is to have these initiatives show students that we are launching and running initiatives efficiently, and these services actually benefit them. We will also launch a food security levy fee, so we can have our own professional kitchen space.
We can also work with the UTSU Food Bank to create specific hours for graduate students to have access to the food bank.
TV: One of the major victories for graduate students this year was the base funding increase. Yet, there were concerns with international students and professional students not being included. Could you speak to the next steps for base funding for students coming?
AM: If you’re a master’s student — no matter if you’re international or domestic — you’re not gonna see an increase in funding, so that’s one of our main focuses for next year.
We will be focused on making sure that this $40,000 increase in funding applies to all students. For the master’s students who are not in the funding cohort, our focus should be on putting a cap on the tuition fee and not allowing the university to increase the tuition fee by much every year.
For Ontario students, there is a cap on tuition for the next year as well, but for international students, tuition can rise each year. So that’s one thing that we’re going to focus on for the unfunded cohort: control the tuition fee and monitor it.
TV: How has the UTGSU worked to develop and build trust external to the union? Specifically, how has the union worked through relations with students and the administration?
AM: The main step was opening up our physical spaces so students know there is a union for them. There are staff there, there are student executives who can answer questions, and we can talk about concerns.
We’re doing a lot of services, but prior to last year, our website was inaccessible. The next step was revising all of our communication strategies. We redid our website, and we hired a new Communications & Engagement Specialist. Since then, we’ve been seeing a significant increase in our social media engagement and our website. So, now students know about us, and that actually showed in increased participation in our events.
We hold a lot of town halls for students on many different topics. They can come there, ask a question, and see where we’re going.
TV: During the snap provincial elections, the UTGSU conducted interviews and sent out interview requests for candidates running in University-Rosedale. How did the UTGSU use this to build political awareness among graduate students?
AM: Our focuses here were base funding, transit, and food security. For these focuses, you have different tools. One of them is to lobby with the government and to let the members know what the government thinks about these needs. So if the members don’t know who their MP and MPP are, or how they think about their needs, then how can they go and advocate for themselves? How can they demand things from these people?
We are regularly in contact with MPP University-Rosedale Jessica Bell, especially, and they’re also pretty receptive to our feedback. We meet with them, we discuss the student’s needs, and we keep the members updated about this as well. That’s how we are building this political awareness for the members.
TV: How has the union prioritized safety for students, especially for those who are from or conducting research in Palestine? How have questions on freedom of speech and assembly been discussed in UTGSU meetings?
AM: Our focus is on our members’ right to assemble and protest, and to make sure that if they do so they don’t face any backlash from the administration.
We knew that some of our members were protesting, and they were actually worried that there might be a backlash for their studies. So we made a form, and we sent it to all of the members to tell them, “If you’re facing any backlash, if you’re even worried that you might face something, reach out to us. With our legal and advocacy teams, we can support you and also get data about what’s happening.”
We’ve been supporting our members’ security to make sure they don’t face any backlash. We supported the ones who are…organizing and also made sure that our members can express themselves and feel safe to express themselves, no matter what they believe in.
TV: What would you have done differently in your tenure? Do you have any regrets?
AM: I don’t have any regrets. I enjoyed every bit of this journey, and I learned a lot.
I started the year focused on many different things and assets of advocacy. I think what I would have done differently was that I would pick one or two main issues and put 100 per cent focus on those, instead of putting my focus on 10 different things.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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