Parenting provides perspective for new GSA president
As a parent, Sunny Bui has developed a new appreciation for everything his mother and father did when they made the monumental decision to leave Vietnam as refugees 40 years ago.
By James Shewaga“My parents fled Vietnam on a boat and were refugees in Hong Kong and were sponsored to go to Canada,” said Bui, the new president of the Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). “I am honestly just very thankful. I have thought about it often that I could be in Vietnam right now and have a totally different life. So to think of the different opportunities that I have here in Canada because of the decision that my parents made, I am very, very thankful.”
Born in Vancouver, Bui completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Ottawa where he met his wife Hayley Pelletier, with the couple moving on to the University of Toronto to complete their master’s degrees before choosing USask to earn their PhDs.
“USask struck us as the most affordable, and we also looked at where academics were going, where scholars were going, and they were coming to the University of Saskatchewan,” he said. “There was lots of opportunity here to grow and develop and it was the right place for us.”
Along the way, their family of two became a family of four with the birth of their sons Vinh and Tai, and Bui and Pelletier have spent the past few years juggling the demands of parenting and pursuing PhD programs at the same time. It has provided new perspective on the sacrifices their own parents made, as well as the challenges many USask graduate students face as parents in demanding doctoral programs on campus.
“It’s very challenging, but we embrace it and sometimes we just go day-by-day and other times we try to plan as much as possible,” said Bui, who is working on his doctorate in the College of Kinesiology while Pelletier’s PhD work is based out of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at USask. “We always seem to be playing catchup, but as grad students we want to do our best, and as parents we also want to do our best, so it is a real balance between the two priorities at any given time.”
As one of many parents pursuing PhDs on campus, Bui campaigned for creating more childcare spots and exploring expanding family housing at USask.
“We want to advocate for some new space on campus, a designated area on campus to house a new child care centre,” said Bui. “So our goal this term is to solidify a spot for the new daycare, so that we can apply for additional municipal funding, provincial funding, and federal funding to contribute to this project.”
Going hand-in-hand with expanding daycare spots for students, staff and faculty, Bui would like to see more family-focused campus residences geared for the many parents who are studying at USask.
“We do have housing for families on campus, but the demand is very high, so there definitely needs to be more affordable housing in the area of the university,” he said. “I believe that something as a university that we really want to bring forward in the 2035 University Plan is to take advantage of the land available and also build additional residences for students coming here and making it more affordable.”
Another priority program for Bui in his campaign to be GSA president was to provide more preparation and networking opportunities for the more than 4,000 graduate students at USask as they prepare to enter the workforce in private industry or in the post-secondary sector, by reviving the GSA Research Conference.
“Graduate students are very focused on their programs, their work, their labs, and their thesis and I think it’s important that they also experience what it is like to promote themselves and speak in a lay language to communicate their projects in a way that everyone can understand,” he said. “So those kind of different nuances and skills and abilities are important for graduate students to have and should have when they enter the job market. Presentation skills, how you answer a question on the spot, strategies to answer hard questions. Those are the kinds of strategies and skills graduate students should have in their tool kit before they enter the job market.”
Previously serving as the GSA’s vice-president external, Bui has filled in a variety of student leadership roles throughout his university studies across the country, and is confident that USask is on the right track, with senior leadership, faculty and staff all working together to prioritize student success and support.
“Everyone that I have interacted with at this university is very well-intentioned and forward-thinking and they really want the best for the institution and for the students here,” said Bui. “Everyone is working here in the students’ best interest at all levels, so it’s been a really positive experience for me so far.”