The Student Executive’s Year Ahead

Te Urukeiha Tuhua 

Last year’s student elections for Victoria University of Wellington’s Student Association (VUWSA) saw a huge leap in candidates, with significantly more people running than in recent years. 

Importantly, it was the first contested race for presidency since 2018, when current Wellington Central Member of Parliament Tamatha Paul was elected. 

Now that the buzz has settled down and executive members have moved into their new roles, Salient reached out to hear about what they have planned for 2026. 

The main priority for President Aidan Donoghue this year is to focus students’ attention to the 2026 general elections, and to campaign for students to make their voices heard by politicians. He said that VUWSA will soon be launching their new campaign, Show Up or Shut Up. 

“We've modeled this off the successes of other fantastic campaigns, like the living wage movement,” he said. He wants to engage students across all three campuses by increasing VUWSA’s presence at both Te Aro and Pipitea campuses. 

Donoghue said that the Student Action Hui is a way for VUWSA to directly engage and work with students on campaigns, and find out what issues are at the forefront for students heading into the election. The hui will take place on Wednesday 18 March at 5:30pm in the Hunter Lounge. 

Previously established VUWSA-led campaigns including Where’s the Work?, Winter Energy Payment, and Study Wage for All will continue in the background, and will also be brought to the hui to see if there’s still demand for them. 

Donoghue remains set on establishing a non-profit op-shop on campus, however no timeline has been set as of yet. 

“I’m hoping it’ll be within my term, but it is happening.” 

Donogue’s ideas are currently in the planning stages, so students won’t yet see the direct impact of his presidency. 

Meanwhile, Welfare Vice President Aspen Jackman is passionate about the return of a dedicated women’s space on campus. She said that she gathered data last year after putting out a survey to find out whether this was important to students. 

“We got a resounding yes,” she said. 

“There’s still misogyny and prejudice against women and gender diverse students.” She said that results from the survey suggested some people are afraid to be on campus, and that after attending classes many women and gender minorities would like a safe space they can go to study. 

She intends to create this space at Kelburn Campus initially and then expand it to both Te Aro and Pipitea campuses, but was unable to give Salient a timeline. She said she is waiting to hear back from Property Services about available rooms, and that while they seemed “pretty on board”, added that they also “could be a little more eager.” 

Jackman also said that she is organising a drugs week in week 7, which will be centered around drugs education and involve “fun events, a quiz, a political debate.” 

She said that the need for drugs education has increased as there’s been a shift in student drug use. “Previously it’s been more alcohol and more marijuana… but it’s shifted to more ketamine and MDMA.” 

Jackman said that people need to be aware that MDMA and ketamine are often not MDMA and ketamine. “Get drugs tested,” she said. “That’s really important.” 

Know Your Stuff NZ tested over 1000 samples in February and March 2025, and found that 7% of samples had results inconsistent with the drug it was presumed to be. Further data on drug testing can be found on their website. 

During drugs week, Jackman wants students to be able to have “good faith discussions with politicians” and “ask politicians questions in these debates”. She said that drug policies can be introduced as election promises. 

“It’s important that people are educated on party stances going in, especially with a wave of new voters.” 

Jackman will be getting a consensus on what students need through regular welfare drop-in sessions which will happen three times per trimester at each campus. She said that this will help the welfare team to “make changes within the uni that are actually important to the students.” 

She mentioned that there will be changes to the Student Equity and Diversity Committee to make it  robust and to include other equity groups across the university. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Academic Vice President Ethan Rogacion told Salient that this year the university is undergoing the Curriculum Transformation Project, a multi-year project that places academic policy under review. He said that one of the focuses of this will be considering whether 15-point or 20-point courses should be the baseline for undergraduate courses. 

“Both of them have different workload implications,” he said. 

He has received feedback from students who are finding that their 15-point courses often have a higher workload than their 20-point courses. “The New Zealand Qualifications Framework actually says that one point is meant to be equivalent to around 10 hours of work,” Rogacion said. 

“These students signed up for theoretically 150 hours, but they’re there day in, day out, weekend, mid-tri breaks, and that is fundamentally unfair.” 

He said that he views student workload holistically, and that a large part of student workload comes from external factors. 

“Students more and more are becoming increasingly time poor because they have to balance increasing workloads here at the university with the rising cost of living.” 

“For a lot of students, it’s becoming more of a sacrifice to come to university because that’s time that you could be making money on shifts.” 

Rogacion said that the elections will be at the front of mind for VUWSA this year. “Students are the only class of people who have to borrow money to survive.” 

“Students are struggling all across the board. I do what I can within the university, but a lot needs to happen down the road at The Beehive as well.” 

Rogacion said that he wants students to be at the core of all decision making within the university, and that there are mechanisms for students to make their voices heard. One way he will help ensure this is by bringing back the Student Academic Committee, which he said is a forum for faculty clubs and groups to discuss changes happening in academic policy with VUWSA and university leadership. 

“There are very few instances where students are able to directly engage with university leadership.” 

“The more that students can feed into decisions, the better they’ll be for students.” 

With election campaigning, welfare initiatives, and academic reform all on the agenda, the executive has set an ambitious course for 2026. Whether these plans gain traction (and student buy-in) will become clearer as the year progresses. 

Engagement Vice President Charlotte Lawrence was unavailable for an interview when contacted by Salient.