The Students’ Union, University of Calgary (commonly abbreviated to UCSU) is the undergraduate students’ association of the University of Calgary. With origins in the students’ council of the Calgary Normal School, the UCSU was established in its current incarnation by the Universities Act of 1966, which incorporated the University of Calgary as a separate entity from the University of Alberta.
A non-profit organization with an annual budget of $12 million CAD, the UCSU is led by students who are elected democratically by the undergraduate student body to serve one-year terms. The UCSU provides student services, manages on-campus businesses, and conducts student-focused advocacy before various tiers of government and external bodies.
History
1905-1944: Calgary Normal School
Once Alberta became a province in 1905, its Legislative Assembly decided that Calgary would house Alberta’s first teacher training institute, the Calgary Normal School. Early student government at the school consisted of two committees, the Literary and Athletic Executives, composed of students elected to represent their peers in academic and extracurricular matters. By the 1920s, student representation was performed by one consolidated student council. Students elected representatives for their individual classes, as well as a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and an official school pianist. Elections occurred twice each academic year, one in fall and one in spring, owing to the duration of courses at the school. The Calgary school became formally known as its Faculty of Education in Calgary, and informally known as the Calgary Branch. Although the Students’ Union of the University of Alberta (UASU) initially assumed it would take on the duty of providing student representation at the Calgary Branch, students in Calgary protested against surrendering their own student council and paying the UASU's association fees. Such was the Branch’s desire to retain control over its activities and yearbook that the UASU sent one of its Vice-Presidents, Catherine Pierce, from Edmonton to Calgary in November 1945.
A compromise was struck between UASU and Black’s administration. UASU refunded half of the fees paid by the Calgary students
The practice of electing a council twice a year persisted from Normal School tradition until 1947. Afterwards, students elected to the CSU’s council served one-year terms. The CSU’s council also changed its structure to align with UASU’s constitution. The top four positions of its governing council were now President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. The rest of the council consisted of the yearbook’s editor, a social convener, representatives for the Industrial Arts programs offered by the branch, and Literary and Athletic representatives. The Calgary Branch also imported the controversial Wauneita Society from the UASU, a quasi-sorority women’s interest group. This society selected its own president, who received a de facto seat on the Calgary Students’ Council.
The council’s role evolved into chiefly overseeing the financial side of planning and maintaining student events or amenities. It therefore established subcommittees in 1948 to execute plans and policies. One such subcommittee was the University Athletic Board, which provided practical support such as equipment repairs to sports teams. The council delegated professional development activities to the Educational Undergraduate Society. The CSU also oversaw the introduction of a campus newspaper.
1948-1957: Initial steps towards autonomy
Dr. Andrew Doucette became the Calgary Branch's director in 1947. An engineering graduate from Nova Scotia, he had entered teaching and worked at the Calgary Normal School before enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1940. Having attained the rank of Major, he had recently returned from serving in Europe at the time of his appointment as director. That year also saw Frederick Cartwright elected president of the students' council. Cartwright, the son of two deaf parents, would go on to become Superintendent of the Alberta School for the Deaf. Doucette and Cartwright would work towards securing greater autonomy for the branch.
In the summer of 1948, Cartwright’s administration requested that changes be made to the UASU’s constitution, so that the Calgary branch could have its own Committee on Student Affairs. This Edmonton-based committee, made of delegates from the UASU and University of Alberta leadership, supervised matters of student discipline and welfare across all of the university's campuses. Despite the rocky start in 1945, relations between the CSU and UASU were good enough that the UASU supported the proposal, and the university's board of governors ratified the changes in 1949. Doucette encouraged them by sharing what he believed the branch would need in order to introduce university-level Arts and Science programs, which would expand the Branch from being a single Faculty of Education.
Following these developments, Doucette and Cartwright travelled to the University of Alberta's main campus together in early 1949 to report on the Branch’s progress. Indeed, between 1952 and 1957, the Calgary Branch expanded to offer undergraduate programs in Arts, Science, Engineering, and Physical Education. Having become a university branch rather than a single faculty of education, the school was renamed to the University of Alberta in Calgary (UAC) in 1957. UAC moved to this campus, the present-day site of the University of Calgary, in 1960. Forced to scale back his duties, he was disappointed that he could not serve as the branch’s first president at its new location, though he remained with the institution until 1961 to acclimate incoming president Malcolm Taylor.
A Committee on Student Affairs was also established for the Calgary campus that year. Walter Johns, President of the University of Alberta, described the student body as “increasingly competent and responsible” at managing their own affairs. Indeed, the composition of the Calgary Students’ Union’s governing council evolved to represent the various faculties now on campus. Students continued to elect a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, though they now voted for Faculty Representatives for Engineering, Commerce, and Education; Arts and Science students were represented by one Faculty Representative. Other positions included coordinators responsible for overseeing cultural matters, athletics, women’s affairs, and public relations. This made the front page of the Calgary Herald, as Johns' statement attracted the ire of students and staff alike at the Calgary campus. Johns, in turn, blamed the conduct of Calgarians for causing “bitterness and bad feeling on both sides which should not have occurred.”
Rising tension between Calgary and Edmonton spooked some student councillors, who feared the University of Alberta would retaliate by withholding their degrees. The CSU nonetheless continued supporting independence efforts in 1964, selling stickers and badges emblazoned with slogans in favour of autonomy to fund its work. By one account, these made their way on to Johns’ car in Edmonton. This was still insufficient to pacify the Calgary University Committee, which petitioned the province to revisit the idea of granting the Calgary campus independence.
The University of Alberta subsequently recommended a full separation between both institutions, prompting the Government of Alberta to introduce a bill to that end in 1966. On April 15, 1966, royal assent was given to the Universities Act. The University of Calgary became an independent institution, and the Students’ Union, University of Calgary was incorporated as its official undergraduate representative. This allows UCSU to charge one of the lowest students’ association fees in Canada as of 2019, at $65 per academic year for an average full-time undergraduate. The UCSU has traditionally put any and all fee increases to a vote, even when continuing to offer services without an increase would mean operating at a loss, such as the referendum on increasing its Health and Dental Plan in 2022. As such, the UCSU’s core operating student fee has not increased since 1995. and the MacEwan Student Centre, an extension that opened in 1988. Colloquially, the building is known on campus and in Calgary as 'Mac Hall.' Two UCSU subsidiaries manage concert bookings and events using spaces within the Hall: the MacEwan Conference and Event Centre, and Mac Hall Concerts.
History of MacEwan Hall: 1951-1967
Until 1960, the Calgary Branch shared a campus with the Provincial Institute of Technology and Arts (PITA), precursor to the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) and Alberta University of the Arts. The building PITA shared with the Calgary Branch remains in use today as SAIT's Heritage Hall. Initially, the CSU operated out of one room and shared this space with student clubs, whose members often left furniture owned by the CSU strewn across campus. Andrew Doucette sympathized with the shortage of space for student activities, so in 1951, once the Branch received its own Committee on Student Affairs, began working with the CSU to find a more appropriate space for its operations. During the building’s lifetime, students continued to conduct its maintenance. Student contributions paid for 55% of the costs; the University of Calgary's Board of Governors paid the remaining 45%. The Hall was named after Grant MacEwan, then-Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta, who attended its 1967 opening. With services ranging from office space to dining facilities, it was managed by a committee of five university delegates and six UCSU delegates. The Government of Alberta, which at the time was part-funding several other developments on the university's campus in anticipation of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, contributed funding to the Centre's development.
Successive UCSU Presidents oversaw construction of the expansion, MacEwan Student Centre, including Myles McDougall. McDougall, who later became Alberta's Minister for Advanced Education in 2025, participated in the groundbreaking ceremony when construction began in 1985. Rock band The Tragically Hip performed at the MacEwan Ballroom in 1989 and used footage from the show in the music video for their single, New Orleans Is Sinking. In October 1995, Edmontonian punk band Jr. Gone Wild played their final show at the Ballroom before disbanding for over a decade.
Services and programming
Student financial assistance
Awards and bursaries
The UCSU’s first scholarship was established in 1969, after incoming university president Alfred Carrothers declined a monetary welcome gift from the UCSU and instead asked that the money be put to good use. The UCSU established the A.W.R. Carrothers Scholarship, which it continues to offer annually. The UCSU’s second ongoing financial award, the Ray Alward Memorial Bursary, began a decade later, in honour of MacEwan Hall's long-serving caretaker who was popular among students.
As of 2025, the UCSU offers a range of merit-based and needs-based scholarships and bursaries for the University of Calgary’s undergraduates. Students can also apply for funding to support their academic and professional development. These funds include conference and research funding, as well as employment subsidies and funding to support student-led sustainability efforts.
Volunteer tax clinic
The SU oversees an annual tax filing clinic, staff by student volunteers who are trained to Canada Revenue Agency standards. Low-income members of the campus' community, including students, staff and faculty, may take advantage of free tax filing services. The clinic, first established in 2000, generally files over 1,000 returns annually. Health insurance was first introduced in the 1988-89 academic year by the 46th Students’ Legislative Council, and dental coverage was added in 1991. The cost of these plans combined did not increase between 1993 and 2021. Students were asked to vote on whether they would accept an increase to the cost of their health plan in 2022 in order to increase coverage; the majority voted no. The hotline was primarily staffed by volunteers, and fielded inquiries from students seeking help on various issues, ranging from loneliness to academic stress. Located within the UCSU’s building, this Centre is staffed by medical and mental health professionals who provide care to the university’s community. In 2016, provincial funding facilitated the hiring of more social workers and psychologists at the Centre to meet growing demand for mental health support.
Quality Money
In 2003, the UCSU proposed that the university should reinvest a percentage of tuition revenue into projects designed to improve campus amenities and academic offerings. The university agreed, and, since 2004, the UCSU has received a funding allocation of between $1.4 and $1.6 million for disbursement under the Quality Money initiative. Projects may span multiple years, such as the introduction of free menstrual products to MacEwan Hall that began in 2021 to run for at least three years.
SU Campus Food Bank
The UCSU can trace its history of participating in charitable efforts to combat food insecurity to its early incarnation under the Calgary Normal School. The Students’ Council organized winter fundraising galas for the benefit of the Sunshine Society, a philanthropic arm of the Calgary Herald that provided necessities to low-income families in the city.
In 1993, a student club, the Students’ Food Action Committee, began raising awareness of the issue of food insecurity on campus. The UCSU coordinated a partnership with the Calgary Interfaith Food Bank, thus maintaining its own food bank for the first time. In its first year, the bank was utilized by 170 students and their relatives, including 60 children. In 1996, the UCSU began managing the food bank independently, which it continues to operate as of May 2025.
Between 2021 and 2024, the SU Campus Food Bank entered a period of rising demand. The UCSU completed 227 requests for food hampers in the academic year of 2021-22, and 526 for the academic year of 2022-23. In August 2024, the UCSU reported that usage for the 2024-25 academic year was on track to surpass previous records. Also in late 2024, the UCSU began offering an affordable meal program through its on-campus restaurant, The Den, in a bid to address food insecurity on campus.
Every October, the SU Campus Food Bank runs an annual food drive in partnership with the university. Students and faculty alike are encouraged to form teams and compete to collect the most donations. These events are generally themed, such as the 2022 drive entitled ‘Stack the Mac.’ Participants were tasked with collecting enough non-perishable pasta that the UCSU could build a tower taller than the university's mascot, Rex. The SU Campus Food Bank’s operations are also supported by year-round donations. This was four months before same-sex sexual activity was decriminalized in Canada. Call’s talk focused on the negative experiences of the LGBT community during interactions with North American police. Three plainclothes undercover officers from the Calgary Police were in attendance at the talk; they left when Call identified them as police officers from the podium. Primarily staffed by volunteers, the Q Centre opened on November 3, 2010. Within a decade of its opening, the Centre had expanded from 10 volunteers to 40. In 2021, the Q Centre and wider UCSU campaigned to simplify the process for students who legally change their names to update their records with the University of Calgary. Students also received the option to submit a preferred name.
Academic and campus services
The UCSU has connected students in need of academic assistance with tutors since 2012 via the SU Tutor Registry. The UCSU also manages over 6,000 lockers throughout the institution, and operates the only Lost and Found on campus.
Philanthropic ventures
Refugee Student Program
In March 1986, students voted in favour of establishing a small levy to support the enrollment of at least one refugee student every year at the university. students supported by the program include survivors of the Second Sudanese Civil War and students from refugee camps in Malawi and Kenya. 97% of students supported by the program go on to graduate. This committee, composed of student volunteers, accepts applications from charitable causes in Calgary and Alberta, and decides which should receive the funds raised from the student body. The UCSU’s primary permanent off-campus charitable effort, it was founded in honour of Olga Valda, who had been both a student and benefactor of the University of Calgary.
Valda, a ballerina by profession, arrived in Canada in 1919 and moved with her second husband to Calgary in 1950, where she established the Calgary Ballet School. In 1961, aged 69, Valda enrolled at the University of Calgary to pursue a bachelor’s degree in archeology. She quickly established a warm relationship with the UCSU, founding a Ballet Club that also conducted showcases of Russian folk dancing during her first year on campus. The UCSU presented Valda with an award in 1963 for her contributions to campus life and deemed her to be one of the campus’s “most celebrated” students in 1966. In a profile of Valda’s academic life for the Calgary Herald, Grant MacEwan wrote that she was the oldest graduate in Canada at the time of her graduation in 1969. She bequeathed a portion of her estate to the University of Calgary to provide bursaries for students who needed it. This bursary, which the university named after her, ran until 2005. The UCSU decided to honour Valda as well by establishing the “Committee of 10,000,” so named due to the number of students enrolled at the time of its 1973 founding. As of 2024, there are more than 300 SU Registered Clubs active at the university. In the 21st century, organizations that have registered with the SU include clubs for aquaponics and improvisational comedy.
Notable clubs that have been registered with the UCSU include the Conservative Party of Canada club, of which Pierre Poilievre was a member during his time as a student at the University of Calgary. Otafest, an annual anime convention that has taken place in Calgary since 1999, began as a student club.
Early student clubs: 1911-1945
The student government of the Calgary Normal School, the respective predecessors to the UCSU and University of Calgary, initially consisted of two committees that were responsible for arranging extracurricular activities. This initiative was introduced by Patricia Ruby, the first woman to be elected president of the post-1945 UCSU.
Every fall, the UCSU invites students to nominate instructors and teaching assistants at the University of Calgary that have positively impacted their education and experience. and electrochemical scientist Viola Birss.
left|thumb|254x254px|Clubs Week in MacEwan Hall, 2013.
Clubs Week (1993-)
Once every semester, student clubs are invited to set up displays in MacEwan Hall to showcase their club's activities and recruit new members. Students who have participated in research while enrolled at the institution showcase their work and receive awards.
Sex Week (2012-)
In 2012, the UCSU and its Q Centre first partnered with the Women’s Resource Centre and campus Wellness Centre to host Sex Week, which has been held every year since. The occasion features workshops and events intended to further sexual education, and make students aware of resources available to them for matters such as sexual assault or sexual identity.
StressLess Week (2013-)
In the final week of November, the UCSU hosts a series of activities designed to help students alleviate stress ahead of exams in December.
Discontinued events
Bermuda Shorts Day (1961-2023)
thumb|266x266px|A statue outside the University's Energy Environment and Experiential Learning Building is vandalized with a pair of Bermuda shorts (April 2015).
In 1961, a student named Alan Arthur, who had recently purchased his first pair of Bermuda shorts, wrote on a blackboard ahead of the last day of classes: "Tomorrow is Bermuda Shorts Day. Everyone wear Bermuda Shorts." 250 students participated, assembling to play marbles. The event attracted recognition by Canadian media as a local tradition, and criticism for unsafe or disorderly activities. Events that took place outside the UCSU's control were occasionally disbursed by the police, with one notable example occurring in 2010, when students celebrated by racing modified couches that they pushed down a hill.
An off-campus Bermuda Shorts Day party was the location of the 2014 Calgary stabbings. One of the attack's victims, Lawrence Hong, was an urban studies undergraduate who had volunteered at the SU's Q Centre for three years, where he was a popular mentor to other students. The Q Centre held a vigil in Hong's memory.
In its final few years of operation as an SU event, Bermuda Shorts Day ran at a deficit. By 2019, the UCSU reported that it had incurred a loss of over $98,000. In 2018 and 2019, the UCSU attributed the expense to falling attendance numbers, exacerbated by the university's expectation that the UCSU would bear rising security costs for the event. By 2024, the UCSU was no longer able to pay the university's rising costs, and events were reported as having been driven off-campus.
The council consists of four executives, who work in their positions full-time, and at least twelve faculty representatives from the University of Calgary's various academic Faculties. Previously, the organization belonged to provincial advocacy organization Council of Alberta University Students.