If elected, she wants to expand the monthly free breakfast into free lunch and dinner programming by leveraging the union’s community partnerships, without increasing student fees. “I don’t want students to feel like they have to pay more SCSU fees or pay more money for this. Forget that. Give back, give back, give back,” Sealy told The Varsity in an interview.

Sealy emphasized that the previous SCSU executives’ shortcomings shouldn’t overshadow the union’s accomplishments, pointing to “a lack of proper communication between our exec team right now and the membership. A lot of students just don’t know what is happening. Negatives tend to spread and gain more traction than positives.” 

As president, she plans to streamline communication between the executives and the student body by implementing bi-weekly forums and an anonymous student feedback system.

On financial support, she aims to expand campus job opportunities above minimum wage and increase funding for new and existing SCSU bursaries. Working as VP Equity “really opened my eyes to student disparities, especially when it comes to funding and just being able to work with the exec team.”

Sealy also believes the SCSU should hire for roles earlier and implement formal training during transitions to ensure sustainable continuity of the union and smoother programming.

“A little quote that I like is this: prior preparation prevents a piss poor performance,” Sealy said. “We know what usually falls between the cracks. We know what processing usually takes longer. If we can streamline that and optimize that, from now to April, everybody should be hired, ready to go training.”

Since 2021, Knowles has been a motivational speaker, giving talks in elementary schools, high schools, and universities about overcoming adversity. He has also worked with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) since 2023, specifically with its Circle of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Students. As an Indigenous student with CFS, Knowles participated in passing a decolonization audit of CFS, which allowed him to “identify ways of colonial practice and breaking down the power hierarchies,” something he hopes to repeat with the SCSU. 

“This whole collective of experiences has allowed me to see that real change can be started just by having a passion for doing something and a motivation to make a change,” Knowles said, adding that “these experiences have given me the tools required to thrive in the position as president.” 

As president, Knowles intends to maintain updated financial documents on the SCSU website and to make the organization’s initiatives more transparent for students who are less familiar with how the union works. Knowles hopes to arrange direct meetings with students and university administrators, “getting students at the table that aren’t solely SCSU execs.”

Knowles discussed engaging with students regularly throughout the year in more informal ways, like coffee chats or walks with SCSU execs around campus. “How cool would it be if you’re a first-year student coming to UTSC and you see the SCSU president, of all people, walking up to you right outside Tim Hortons and giving you a fist bump?” 

“If I’m able to engage with the students [in a way] that allows them to feel empowered and embrace their emotions, I feel like that’s the best way that we can serve the student body.”

Having worked with Frosh for the past two years, Hegde feels confident in his skill as a “logistics leader,” focusing on the back-end of operations. 

As VP Operations, he plans to streamline the money management of the SCSU. His goals include reducing costs for students on activities and, potentially, transportation around the city. Additionally, he wants to increase visibility of resources such as the Student Centre’s health and dental plans, and expand menu options at Coffee House — a free breakfast program — to accommodate more dietary restrictions.

Hegde also highlighted financial transparency, citing the need to make financial reports easier for students to access, adding that he would “make sure that all the middlemen are visible in the forms, just so everybody knows where the money is passing through before it either goes to students or goes to events.”

“Students can feel that one bad grade or one overwhelming period in their academic career might affect their future… This grace period [puts] more focus on their studies and gives their mental health a break so they’re able to output work that’ll better reflect their true capabilities,” Gallagher told The Varsity.

Gallagher wants to improve the union’s visibility and accessibility of academic policies, ensuring students are aware of SCSU’s services before the end of their degree. On that note, Gallagher aims to increase transparency with Departmental Student Associations.

“This year specifically, there was an uproar with students about not having transparent policies with SCSU, and not understanding where the funding is going with when it comes to reimbursement policies,” Gallagher said. “Something I would really want to bring into this role from that frustration myself is creating more clear forums… to open that invitation to everyone equally and regularly.”

For her re-election campaign, Khan is focusing on initiatives to facilitate alumni-student mentorship, to allow students to make more than one Program Declaration per term, and to implement experiential hands-on learning and research opportunities into each undergraduate program. 

“Research is actually not something that the government wants to fund,” said Khan. “But when you think about it, U of T is so heavily based in research… why is that not being recognized and accredited to students in academic programs?”  

In addition to the SCSU, Khan has worked with the UTSC Academic Advising & Career Centre, where she helped students with networking and professional development. She has also served as co-president of the Tamil Students’ Union. 

“I really did enjoy the work that I did this year,” said Khan, “So I’m hoping to bring my skillset that I have developed [in this role] into next year’s work.” 

In her current term, Elhag notes involvement in a handful of SCSU initiatives, such as creating a World University Services Canada (WUSC) Committee, running a referendum to increase the budget for WUSC students, and creating the role of Voice Coordinator to support WUSC students. 

Elhag has also worked on creating a TTC ticketed system set to launch in the next few weeks, a first-come, first-served service providing each student up to three TTC daily passes per week. Awareness initiatives around global issues have also been a focus for Elhag, with a focus on Sudan and Somalia. 

This time around, Elhag is focused on creating a student union collective with other local Ontario students’ unions to directly mobilize students, enrich relationships with other students’ unions, and organize more frequent meetings between unions. 

If elected, Elhag will also expand upon the SCSU’s TTC initiatives, such as transit bursaries already available for UTSC students, and expand experiential learning opportunities through external partnerships with organizations.

Khan’s campaign focuses are to implement the UTSC U-Pass, though, acknowledging that this would increase student fees “by… $200,” she would like to “find a way to make transit more affordable and accessible, if that’s through grants, or allowing the students who don’t want to have the U-Pass to opt out of it instead.”

She also plans to improve bus stop infrastructure, “especially during the cold weather,” and increase bus frequency at UTSC’s crowded stops during peak hours. “I feel like increasing how many buses are there just takes care of it. I just feel like it’s a safety concern as well,” she said. 

A major part of her platform is addressing food insecurity on campus. She would like to “bring more attention to the food center we have at SCSU,” adding that, “a lot of students are just not aware of it.”

She also spoke about implementing a permanent prayer space and a women-only section of the Pan Am Sports Centre: “right now we just have a curtain that they’ll kind of divide the gym from. I feel like we could do better than that.”

To explain how she will make these initiatives affordable for students, Khan said: “I think I’m trying to find out… more about funding and trying to get it from external places, maybe from the community, from businesses or from alumni, instead of charging students and increasing student fees.”

Elcharbini’s campaign emphasizes three main objectives: fostering a campus environment for safe and free expression, making campus support systems visible and accessible to students, and facilitating meaningful relationships with Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and other Indigenous-oriented groups on campus. 

Elcharbini believes that her platform’s focus will “really address the gap between what equity is supposed to look like on paper, and also what students actually experience on campus.” 

Elcharbini is currently president of the U of T Palestinian Culture Club. “As part of the SCSU, especially in the position of VP Equity, you have… a wider reach,” she said. “I definitely know how important it is [for clubs] to be connected with the SCSU in a way that… opens [them] up to more resources that… clubs maybe wouldn’t have otherwise.”

In an interview with The Varsity, Abbas stated their belief that “equity shouldn’t feel optional, [or] performative. It should be built into our campus, how the campus operates.” 

As VP Equity, Abbas will advocate for more adequate funding for housing projects, programming, and student support, crediting their own intersectional identities as a factor pushing their campaign forward. Abbas, who identifies as a Shia Muslim, a lesbian, and non-binary, said their identity pushes them “to create these spaces that feel welcoming and safe for every single student on campus.” 

Abbas’s campaign is centred on equity-driven programming, financial support, and emergency risk spaces for marginalized students. As part of that, they want to implement grants for queer international students and the international student community as a whole. Abbas also plans to establish a direct relationship with all equity-based clubs and initiatives on campus, creating collaborative partnerships. 

Dennaoui previously worked for SCSU as their Senior Leader in Marketing for 2024 Frosh week, where he made meaningful connections with first-year students. Dennaoui has also been involved in UTSC Homecoming as a photographer since 2023. 

Dennaoui’s campaign focuses on three main points: providing safe spaces for students on campus, collecting feedback from students, and rectifying the SCSU’s past club reimbursement concerns. Dennaoui noted that these reimbursement issues have hindered club programming. In addressing them, Dennaoui hopes to support clubs and their events, giving students the opportunity to empower their voices. 

Dennaoui stressed that he wants to maintain safe spaces for students to share their own experiences and be in an environment where they “feel accepted, feel comfortable, and they feel relaxed.” Dennaoui plans to create a space where “we can all come together as a collective to… make everyone feel appreciative and that their voice is being heard.”

Editor’s note: This profile was updated on March 7 to reflect that Dennaoui is part of Team Impact, running for VP Campus Life.

Okolo — a fifth year pursuing a double major in neuroscience and human biology — is re-running for the position in the upcoming election. He feels confident that he delivered on his last campaign, citing the implementation of the events calendar on the SCSU website and an increase in transparency between executives and students. 

This year, Okolo aims to be a platform for clubs to promote themselves and connect students to clubs that interest them through the SCSU4U program. Additionally, Okolo wants to increase collaborations with clubs and cement the union as a known and usable resource for them. 

“It’s really about having these first years become part of SCSU from the jump, so that they can really know that their voice means something here with us, that we can be able to reflect what they tell us back into our program,” said Okolo on the topic of student orientation. 

He emphasized the importance of maintaining a continuous stream of events for students to engage with the SCSU. “I just really want students to understand that there’s more to this campus than just academia.”