Should they be elected next year’s AMS executive, Team TIA has plans to improve accessibility at Queen’s.

Presidential candidate Isaac Sahota, ArtSci ’22, Vice-Presidential (Operations) candidate Tabassum Pasha, Comm ’21, and Vice-Presidential (University Affairs) candidate Amelia Cockerham, ArtSci ’22, secured their candidacy as Team TIA last week. 

In an interview with The Journal, Sahota said he’s running for the Presidential position to improve accessibility at Queen’s. He said he’s faced struggles with accessibility at the University in the past—particularly during orientation week.

“That was my experience that made me even think about, maybe this is not for me,” he said. “I might have to go back and drop the idea of studying at a university because I’m in a wheelchair now and it’s not accessible enough.”

“And that’s exactly when I was like ‘nope, I’ll take this opportunity and I’d do something for it.’”

Due to his experiences, Sahota joined lots of accessibility-related clubs and became the co-chair of Accessibility Queen’s. He’s currently working on a project called Mobile Mats, which makes surfaces accessible to students with crutches, students in wheelchairs, and injured students.

Working toward financial accessibility at Queen’s, he has also established a need-based bursary and increased the frequency of an Accessibility Queen’s grant.

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When asked why she’s running for Vice-President (Operations), Pasha spoke to her desire to improve financial accessibility at Queen’s. She’s struggled to finance her degree this year because Walkhome, an AMS service she usually works for, is not currently running.

She told The Journal that, when she reached out to Student Awards and the Commerce Office for help, she was “brutally turned down.”

“It’s just made me realize this is something I want to work on: making it easier for students to participate in student life, and making it easier so you don’t have to work to afford the basic necessities for courses,” Pasha said. “That shouldn’t be something that people are worried about.” 

Pasha also said she wants to address Islamophobia on campus and partner with equity groups to create real change.

“There’s Islamophobia, there’s anti-Semitism, there’s all of these issues that Queen’s is very reactive to,” she said. “I don’t see any preventative measures happening yet, and I’m hoping that as a team we can do something about that.”

Pasha is a part of the Levana Gender Advocacy Centre, which confronts discrimination and equity issues on campus. She was also in charge of the Student Refugee Program, through which she worked to support refugee students who came to Queen’s.

“You could also find me at every single protest last year,” Pasha said. “Work doesn’t come in the form of leadership sometimes. Work comes in the form of you getting involved.”

Cockerham also spoke to the various equity problems at Queen’s. She’s discussed these problems with students through her work on the Education on Queer Issues Project (EQuIP) Committee. 

“For me, I just wanted to be a part of the change,” she said. “I felt like this position would be a very good way to start that.”

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When asked how they’re feeling about the upcoming campaign, the team said they were “excited,” especially because the election is contested. 

“Because it’s contested now, we’re going to try harder,” Pasha said. “There has to be more effort for change now, because the better team, and the team that seems like they’re going to bring the most change, is going to win.” 

Team TIA said they’re working to create forms through which students can submit their concerns to inform their platform. They plan to inform students of the work they’ve done on campus.

“This is not the team that held the big position, this is the team that did work,” Sahota said. “This is not a position we want to hold for the institute. This is the position we will hold for the students.”

In their platform, Team TIA will include a COVID-19 back-to-campus plan. Should delivery remain remote, they’ll work to improve accessibility of online courses and manage students’ work loads—they’ve found that professors are giving students more work to keep them engaged in the remote environment.

The team is also hoping to decrease international tuition fees—Sahota said that international students are being “neglected”—and make bursaries more accessible to international students.

“It will be transparent, it will be action, it will be work related,” Sahota said of their platform.