The Truth about VUWSA
I didn’t really mean to start a post. This was supposed to be a private notes thing, like something I’d write once and forget about, but apparently I have opinions and they don’t really stay contained if I don’t put them somewhere. So now this exists.
Also I should probably say this is not a formal breakdown or anything. It’s just me reacting to things I’ve seen, been in the room for, overheard, read, or had people repeatedly complain about in group chats that somehow always end up being more accurate than they should be. I’m not claiming perfect knowledge of anything. I’m just noticing patterns and then getting annoyed that the patterns keep repeating.
Anyway.
Aidan Donoghue’s article in Salient (2026) is probably what pushed me into writing this properly, because it’s one of the first times I’ve seen something written in an official-ish student publication that directly points at the gap between campaign promises and what actually happens after elections.
And I know that sounds obvious. Students have been saying this for ages. It’s not new information. But there’s something about seeing it written down in a structured, published way that makes it feel less like “people complaining” and more like “okay, this is now documented reality.”
What I keep coming back to though is that even when it’s documented, it doesn’t seem to change much. It just becomes part of the background noise of student governance. Like, yes, that’s happening, yes, that’s been noted, and then everything continues anyway.
It’s weird how quickly critique becomes something that just exists alongside the system instead of something that actually interrupts it.
There was also the situation in 2025 involving Aspen Jackman and a post that circulated on Instagram and was later deleted. I wasn’t directly involved in anything that happened around it, but I remember it clearly because it was one of those things that moved through student spaces very quickly.
Another student posted allegations at the time that the content included racist language and slurs, and that post was widely discussed in group chats, conversations, and general campus talk. It wasn’t one of those niche rumours that disappears after a day. It stuck around long enough that most people at least knew of it, even if they didn’t engage with it directly.
What’s interesting, or maybe frustrating, is how it turned into one of those things that is technically “not active” anymore because the original post is gone, but still very much present in memory and discussion.
And I think that gap between “no longer visible” and “not actually resolved” is something I keep noticing in general, not just in that situation.
Things don’t really disappear. They just change format. And this format, for this executive results in something quietly impossible to manage—how can we bestow the responsibility of welfare on a student who doesn't treat all humans equally?
On a completely different note, Pypes Alex Addams is someone I’ve had enough interaction with to notice a pattern, but not enough to pretend I understand the entire system around them.
From my personal experience, raising issues tends to result in responses that acknowledge what’s been said, but don’t always lead to anything that feels like a concrete resolution. It’s not like there’s no reply or engagement. There usually is. It just often doesn’t connect back to a visible outcome in a way that changes the situation.
And I think that’s what makes it frustrating in a very slow way rather than an immediate one. Because it’s not obvious dismissal. It’s more like things getting stuck in a middle stage where they are neither ignored nor resolved.
After a while, people adjust to that. You start expecting acknowledgment instead of change, and then eventually you stop expecting either unless you really push for it.
Which is probably not a great equilibrium for anything that’s supposed to represent student concerns. I would call everything they have done a complete failure, including being close friends with a known racist.
Ethan Rogacion is someone I’ve seen described quite consistently in student discussions as being closely aligned with Aidan Donoghue’s positions in exec spaces, and has stated he is a close person friend of the president. Their views barely ever diverge, and when they do, Ethan will take Aidan's side over standing up for anyone else on the executive.
I don’t have access to internal conversations, so I can’t say what level of disagreement or discussion actually happens behind closed doors. What I can observe is that publicly visible positions tend to appear very consistent, and there isn’t much visible divergence in how decisions are presented once they’re made.
That might just be how governance works. Or it might be that the parts where disagreement happens are not visible to students at all, which makes it hard to tell whether decisions are being actively challenged or just moving forward with minimal friction.
And I think that distinction matters more than it looks like it does on the surface. Because from the outside, a lack of visible disagreement doesn’t read as “efficient decision-making.” It often reads as “no one is really questioning anything.”
Casmine Dickson and Charlotte Lawrence are both people I’ve seen referenced in relation to campaign promises and club support discussions, particularly around Save Our Clubs and general student-facing updates.
What I can see from the outside is that communication continues regularly. Updates are posted, messaging is maintained, and there is a steady stream of information about progress and ongoing work.
What students often struggle with is connecting those updates to specific, visible changes in day-to-day club experiences. And I think that gap is where most of the frustration sits. Not in the absence of communication, but in the difficulty of translating communication into outcomes that can be clearly identified without interpretation.
It creates this strange situation where everything sounds like progress, but it’s hard to point at what has actually changed.
Charlotte has done a terrible job of SAH just like Casmine has done a terrible job with transparency, consistency, and fulfilling his requirements about the clubs proposal. It seems that despite their promises, neither want student feedback in any way that is meaningful.
George Baker is someone I’ve had enough direct interaction with to feel confident saying that straightforward processes often become more complicated than expected.
It’s not one specific incident I can point to. It’s more the accumulation of small interactions where something simple takes more steps than it feels like it should, or where follow-up is required more than once to get to a clear answer.
Sophie Guerin is someone I’ve heard described in a range of collaborative contexts, particularly around communication and group coordination. I don’t have a complete picture of all the environments she operates in, so I don’t want to overstate anything here.
What I can say is that in student-facing collaborative spaces, communication consistency matters a lot more than people think. It affects whether projects feel coordinated or fragmented, whether people feel informed or slightly out of sync with what’s going on.
And I’ve noticed enough situations where that alignment feels uneven that it stands out over time, even when individual interactions seem fine in isolation. I've also noticed that VUWSA has stopped doing much climate action since she came into the role. Where are her focuses if not on sustainability and climate? Why is VUWSA no longer a political and climate conscious organisation?
There’s also been ongoing discussion around Lewis Collins in relation to SAH hui participation and the distinction between internal involvement and public-facing event roles.
What I’ve noticed being talked about repeatedly is that visibility during events doesn’t always match visibility during the planning or decision-making stages. And alongside that, there are broader conversations about representation in those visible roles, particularly around who ends up being placed in front-facing positions versus who is doing more behind-the-scenes organisational work, with Aria Lal and Sanjukta Day often mentioned in those conversations. It seems as though VUWSA only wants to highlight the white voices and prevent the behind-the-scenes SAH organisers from getting any recognition. As someone that has heard about and attended many SAH meetings, both Lewis and Sophie are absent in those, and are still somehow the people taking charge of the conversations in front-facing roles. This isn't a structural issue, it is a political one.
I don’t think it’s always a simple intentional imbalance. A lot of it probably comes down to how roles naturally get divided. But the effect is still something people notice, because visibility tends to shape perception of contribution whether or not that perception is fully accurate.
Aria Lal is in the education officer representative role, which obviously has a defined scope, but it makes no sense that all of her work would be focused there.
What I’ve seen discussed is less about that defined scope and more about whether impact is visible outside of it. Some students feel that despite her promises to make improvements for international students, those promises only have impacts that only exist in the educational space and absolutely no where else. It is disappointing to see she's still working with a known racist like Aspen Jackman, who is consistently working against international and migrant students.
I don’t have a strong conclusion on that, because it’s the kind of thing that depends heavily on what you’re looking at and what you consider “impact” in the first place. It’s more something I’ve seen repeatedly mentioned than something I feel confident fully judging yet.
I think the reason I ended up writing all of this in the first place is because none of these things feel like isolated issues when you’re actually watching them happen week to week.
They feel like a pattern that keeps reappearing in slightly different forms.
And I don’t know yet if that means anything bigger, or if I’m just at the stage where I’ve started noticing structure in things that are actually just messy and unconnected.
But either way, it’s hard to un-notice once you’ve seen it.
Anyway, this was supposed to be a throwaway first post.
It definitely isn’t anymore.
I’ll probably regret posting this later.