Every year, the Sheridan Student Union welcomes a team of student leaders who are passionate about enhancing your Sheridan Life. Your Student Life Coordinators plan and execute SSU events, Clubs Coordinators help students start and join Sheridan clubs, and Customer Service Representative look to answer student questions about SSU services. Our Vice Presidents have always been in charge of managing a variety of tasks and student concerns at their respective campuses.
Initially, this seemed like the best way to help students succeed: each campus has a uniquely different culture, with specific needs and concerns, and the Vice Presidents would advocate for student body throughout their specific campus experience.Since the pandemic, the executive team started to notice that this structure needed to change.
“ Over the last few years, there has been some difficulty with the role of the Vice-Presidents within the SSU,” SSU President Kyle Budge shared. “We took the last couple months to really dive in and review the position to see how we could best utilize the roles. It was determined that revising the roles to be more specialized will help focus them and provide a better experience to each campus. Instead of having one person trying to balance multiple, varied aspects of their role, we now have each VP specializing on one topic and giving it equal attention for all campuses.”
Your new Executive team will consists of four student leaders who focus on different areas within your student experience. This restructuring model will benefit Sheridan students and staff, by providing equity across all campuses. It will also ensure that the wellness of Sheridan students and staff remain top of mind.
Get To Know Your Executive Team
Get to know your Vice Presidents and Executive Coordinator and find out how they can help you throughout your Sheridan Life.
Meet Your VP of Academics and Equity, Tristan
The Academics & Equity role will support all students with academic appeals, rights and responsibility concerns, and will be advocating for the fair and equitable treatment on campus.
“Hey Bruins! My name is Tristan Pinnock and this year I’ll be representing us as Vice President of Academics and Equity. I’m a third-year student in the Honours Bachelor of Community Safety program and this will be my first year working with the SSU. It’s a joy to be able to share in this transitional moment with the Sheridan community, as we go from having campus Vice Presidents to designated roles for our VPs that will assist all three campuses. My role of Academics & Equity will support all students with academic appeals, rights, and responsibility concerns, and will be advocating for the fair and equitable treatment of all students. My goals for this year include making sure the student body feels consistent support from the SSU on the academic issues that matter most to them and providing a platform so that all students need to ensure equity is recognized.”
“ I wanted this role because I felt that my goals as Vice President of Davis align well with the responsibilities that this new position requires. Getting to advocate for equitable treatment across all campuses and helping to educate other students on how to go through academic appeal processes were areas I felt I would make the most impact. This specific role emerged as a great avenue to pursue those goals.”
Sheridan students should know that this role is not limited to academic appeals. Tristan’s mission to provide more education on academic integrity, more equitable events, and more inclusive spaces across all campuses.
“This isn’t just limited to academic appeals, but also more education on what academic integrity at Sheridan looks like and giving our community a greater understanding on supports so they can better thrive during their time as a Bruin. Much the same, equity will not be limited to only events. The goal is to help lay the foundation for more safe and inclusive spaces so that the next person in this position can continue to serve our community to the fullest.
The pandemic showed us just how connected we really are as a community despite spanning three campuses. Much like the transition we have made to a virtual environment, these role changes feel like a natural adaptation of a system we felt was valuable but in need of overhaul to produce the fullest experience for us as students. I’m excited for the coming year and the many different projects we will be able collaborate on across the college to better serve our Bruins community!”
Meet Your VP of Community Development, Julia
The role of Community Development is focused on raising awareness of social issues, creating initiatives to support a variety of causes, and ensuring that students have all the support they need at Sheridan.
As VP of Community Development, my role is to collaborate with Sheridan students and staff to develop an ideal Student Life that supports overall wellness; I’m focused on raising awareness of social issues faced by students, creating initiatives, providing opportunities to support a variety of causes, and ensuring that students have all the support they need during their time at Sheridan. Ultimately, it is my responsibility to facilitate an inclusive and interconnected environment within the Sheridan community. I want us to feel proud to be Sheridan students.
The reason I chose to take up this role is because of my passion for student wellness. I understand firsthand how difficult balancing post-secondary life can be, and the toll a competitive program can take on you – that's why I want all Sheridan students to always have access to high-quality services and resources.
While studying at Sheridan and engaging with the Student Union has given me the chance to grow as a person, and I want to offer those same opportunities and more to my peers. I am studying social service worker and am a passionate advocate for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in my personal life, so this position was a natural fit for me!
Though I am a first-year student, this is not my first year at Sheridan! Previously, I was in the Bachelors of Film and Television program and I’ve worked with the SSU for many years through various jobs, so I’ve seen how things have changed over time. I believe that updating the Vice-President position is a crucial next step as we adapt to new challenges. As most students continue their studies in virtual spaces, we no longer have the norms of being on campus and most students are no longer separated by physical locations. We, as your student union, see this as an opportunity to reevaluate and improve our services and to provide equal engagement at all 3 campuses.”
Meet Your VP of Staff and College Engagement, Gaby
We have now developed the Staff & College Engagement position, which focuses on ensuring our internal staff are properly represented and are given the training they need. This also includes partnering with the college for various collaborative works such as the First-Year Orientation.
“Within the role of Vice President Staff and College Engagements, there are two sides I am responsible for. I coordinate partnerships opportunities with both college departments and any external companies potential perk peeps or events. As well, I am responsible for creating professional development training opportunities for the internal part time SSU staff, mediate conflicts between staff members and create fun engagements for the internal staff including an End of the School Year Party.
Some of my goals within this position is to strengthen relationships with certain college departments that have not typically interacted with the SSU in the past and to find training opportunities for the staff for topics that can be viewed as important for them to be knowledgeable about being front-facing staff including crisis and inclusivity training.”
“I believe I was assigned to be Vice President of Staff and College Engagements because from working at the SSU for 4 years, I have had the opportunity to see many part-time staff groups come through the organization. I have been able to get to know the staff and find opportunities for added training on top of everything already in place. As well, in the last year that I have already held the Vice President position, I have had the opportunity to work with many different departments through coordinating events such as Fall/Winter/Spring New Student Orientation. I look forward to seeing how these changes will create positive changes to the organization and the external Sheridan community.”
Meet Your Executive Coordinator, Saz
Tying the whole team together, is the newly created Executive Coordinator position, who supports the entire executive team. This new role is involved with many different projects within the SSU and the college, which includes acting as a link between the SSU Board of Directors and the student leaders within the SSU.
“I act as a secondary representative alongside the Vice-Presidents, someone people can contact if unable to get in touch with others and can help. I collaborate with other SSU departments and the college, supporting projects by performing various tasks and duties as directed. This position is new to the SSU, created to aid in not only the support of the executive team and other departments, but also the SSU Board of Directors.
My role as Executive Coordinator is to help organize and coordinate with the rest of the executive team to support and facilitate initiatives, projects, events, and opportunities for Sheridan students.
Part of my role is to sit on the SSU Board of Directors as an ex-officio member as Board Secretary. This includes creating the Board Meeting Agendas, taking minutes during Board Meetings, being a main point of contact with the Board Directors, and overall making sure that the information in Board Meetings is accurate for both Sheridan students and internal SSU to ensure action items can go smoothly. As Board Secretary, I help bridge the gap between the SSU Board and student leaders within the SSU.
I was originally just the Board Secretary but have grown into the role of Executive Coordinator. I’m a third-year student in the Creative Writing and Publishing program, which has aided in my abilities of copyediting documents, making sure everything is well-written, and overall organizing documents but also schedules. I am in this position because of a multitude of reasons, including being able to coordinate with different types of people, conduct myself in a professional manner when needed, having strong written communication skills, and of course, having good time-management and organizational skills.
Through organizing, facilitating, and supporting many projects and initiatives at Sheridan, I plan to have my influence help shape Sheridan students experience.”
Together, the Executive team will work together to advocate and support all students across all campuses. SSU President Kyle Budge believes that “this will hopefully lead to wider engagement, providing equal engagement and services at each campus, and more focus on what matters most to students.” The new restructuring aligns with our Strategic Plan and our overall mission to enhance student experience.