Editor’s Note: As the school year draws to a close, we at Her Campus UWindsor are honouring a dedicated student and leader on campus, Mohammad Akbar, by re-releasing a revised version of an interview that was completed in January. Akbar will soon be leaving the University of Windsor to continue his journey as the Administration and Development Coordinator of the Laurier Students Public Interest Research Group. We wish him all of the best and encourage you to send him your best wishes, as well!
The University of Windsor Students’ Alliance (UWSA) elected several students in late November, including Mohammad Akbar as the Board of Governors’ student representative. Throughout his four years at the University of Windsor, Akbar has persevered as a major influence on campus, notably in the vote for a fall term reading week, and in hosting the BCW Campus Combat, the first on-campus pro-wrestling event in over ten years.
We had the opportunity to meet with Akbar to discuss his role on the UWSA, his passions on campus, and his goals for the future of both the university and in his own life:
Her Campus: What’s your position on the board?
Mohammad Akbar: I’m the Board of Governors’ Representative, and I’m also the CFS Ontario treasurer. But that’s like a separate position.
HC: What exactly does that entitle?
MA: So we’re a part of the Canadian Federation of Students, it’s a provincial and national thing, and I’m the treasurer of Ontario. I look over the finances of the Ontario organization. It’s an organization of about 300,000 members. It doesn’t hopk huge budget, but it’s a lot of work.
HC: Why did you choose the position?
MA: I ran for Board of Governors because they deal with tuition locally. So for context…well do you want me to go into detail? I love talking about this stuff.
HC: Yes!
MA: I always have felt a passion about tuition costs because for a lot of students, it’s a huge barrier. And for me personally, it’s also a huge barrier. I have friends who left school because they couldn’t afford it, so I have always tried to do something about tuition fees.
I ran for Board of Governors because other than president, Board of Governors is the only position that sits on the board. I feel like [with] this position, I’m a little more open to pursue tuition fees the way that I would like to – to try and do something about them. I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen to them, but I’m going to try.
HC: What do you aim to accomplish with that, then?
MA: I want to see more support for low income. Like a lot of us, we get OSAP, and that’s helpful. But there are some students with OSAP that just can’t cover the costs for education. One of the things is that every year, I see lots of students leave because of financial issues. Not because they couldn’t handle it or because university wasn’t for them, which are great reasons for leaving, but you’re forced out by your situation. That is something I really don’t want to see.
I also want to do stuff with all the extra fees we pay. I want to make sure that students know that they don’t have to pay certain fees and things like that and I want to make sure students aren’t charged fees they don’t have to pay.
HC: So you were saying about your friends [having to leave school due to financial barriers], would you say that motivated you to get started on campus?
MA: I wouldn’t say that, because that was a big deal for me but there were a lot of [other] issues that motivated me to get involved on campus. When I was in first year, I was not involved at all. And when students who I knew started facing these kinds of issues, I kind of realized and that’s what got me involved and wanting to do something about it.
But what really got me involved in UWSA and governance and everything like that was there used to be a newspaper on campus called the Student Movement. And that paper had so much information on things about the university. It talked a lot about where the money that the university had went. And that tied into the fact that I knew students who were paying so much.
When you’re in your first year of university, you think, I’m paying so much; I wonder where it’s going? And once you understand, you want to know more about it. And it motivated me more because I’ve always thought we could run this university for a lot less. I do think that we could run this university with less tuition fees at least, whether that’s through the government putting in more or whether that’s through donation – to help lower the cost.
And I don’t have much time, which sucks, but the other thing that started me getting involved was that if the UWSA was already doing the stuff I’m talking about, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. Like if they’re already doing a great job, I’m not going to touch that. Why would I? They’re doing a great job — but UWSA wasn’t at the time. And they had a different perspective on tuition fees and stuff like that. So that also motivated me to get involved directly like that.
“I really want to leave here with a sense that the university students know what’s going on and they’re paying attention.”
HC: So in your last year, what do you hope to get done?
MA: I have a lot of ideas on scholarships and grants and I really want to start a lot of things — I want to look at UWSA attendance structure and see what we can do. Really, the thing is, I don’t want to get a lot of personal goals accomplished.
I really want to work with everyone and help them all accomplish their goals, because there’s a lot of cool people doing cool things., like [Farah El-Hajj] taking on the sexual assault policy — she’s just doing so much stuff on campus. And the executive has good ideas from little events to things they want to run, and all of that is super important work. I think my work is better spent doing the tuition fee stuff and helping people accomplish their own goals.
I do have a bunch [of goals] though. I want to see stuff done about health and dental — I want to see health and dental get better in general, from opt-outs to coverage to things like that. I think there are a few different scholarships we could start, and creative ones. Ideally, you’d want scholarships, but I have ideas for other kinds of things that I hope to accomplish.
I really want to leave here with a sense that the university students know what’s going on and they’re paying attention. So that’s kind of what I hope to accomplish this year. And I know that’s kind of vague.
HC: How do you want to keep students informed on a regular basis?
MA: Well first of all, having contact with these cool groups. Having more than one media, even more than two. Having lots of media outlets is important. I wanted to start a podcast, just kind of something fun like that. I was going to do it independently, but I was thinking I could talk to someone about putting it somewhere. I really just want to start it and see where it goes. I’m not even sure what else, but I really want to see those two things happen.
HC: What are your goals after university?
MA: I want to do charity work. I want to work on not-for-profit kinds of things. I also do design, so I want to keep those — those are the kind of things, my top three. One of the things I’ve realized recently: [for] a lot of people, once you graduate, you lose touch with all those goals and ideas you had in university and high school and such. For example, this weekend when I went to Toronto, we talked with the Minister of Training Colleges and Universities about these different issues, and he said something really interesting. And I’ve heard that from a lot of people, people who have serious jobs and things like that. When they were younger they were involved in social justice campaigns and anti-racism campaigns and anti-sexist campaigns. But they were involved in their different associations. But somewhere down the line, I’m not saying this specifically about the minister, I’m saying in general. A lot of people lose that kind of connection with all the values they had. They lose their idealism and for me, I don’t want that to happen. I want to stay in the fight for things, like lower tuition fees in different ways. I like to help motivate students; I also like to help work in another capacity towards helping students.
HC: Do you think anyone has influenced you over your past years?
MA: I don’t really want to aspire to be anybody, but I’ve always been inspired by people. It’s not like inspired by famous people — I’m inspired by everyday people; I’m inspired by everyday things. Dr. Betty Barrett was inspiring. She’s in social work. She’s incredible; she does amazing in women’s studies. When I was in first year, she was the kind of person I looked up to.
HC: Why was that?
MA: Because she was easy to get along with. And also, she knew a lot about issues I cared about, and was willing to talk about them and I think whenever I talked to her, there was no pressure. She would try and help any way she could. And I think that really motivated me to do the same, so engage people actively. Cause I was always like this sucks, this sucks, here is why this sucks, but then I got involved.
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