Student Affairs
Queen's UniversityAbout us
One tartan, many threads - the fabric of student life
University education is made up of more than classes and assignments. Queen's Student Affairs is dedicated to making each student's educational experience truly complete. Simply put, a mind needs more than facts and figures to keep it healthy. Equally important are the experiences and friendships students gain through social, athletic and community activities. These many threads make up the fabric of life at Queen's.
Quality education, quality of life
Our departments offer support, resources, assistance and opportunities to help students pull the threads of life together. They offer places to go when classes are over. They provide places to turn when the mind needs a rest and the soul needs attention. They help keep life grounded so that the imagination can soar.
Though each is distinct, the varied programs of Student Affairs share a common goal: helping students maximize every opportunity for learning and living, on campus and in the community. Together, these services foster seven qualities of life that help make a university education richer, fuller, and more rewarding.
- Student Life: quality of independence
- Health and Wellness: quality of health
- Living and Accommodation: quality of home
- Diversity and Culture: quality of belonging
- Faith: quality of spirit
- Leadership and Service: quality of confidence
- Sustainability
Student Life: quality of independence
For many students, the university experience offers a long-awaited opportunity to strike out on their own. With nine out of ten first year students living in Residence, and the majority of upper-year and graduate students living in the neighbourhoods surrounding the campus, this quality of independence is fundamental to life at Queen's.
Health and Wellness: quality of health
Queen's defines itself through excellence. And achieving excellence requires students to push themselves physically, emotionally, and mentally - perhaps further than they've ever gone before. However, excellence need not come at the expense of health and well-being. Student Affairs provides students with support and resources that promote the well-being of the whole person. Students facing health issues - from a case of the flu to problems with stress management - can visit Health, Counselling & Disability Services. The varied professional staff of these services offer medical care, crisis counselling, access to adaptive technologies, and support for learning strategies and health education. Across campus at the Physical Education Centre, Athletics & Recreation invites students to compete in varsity and intramural athletics, work out in the fitness centre, learn salsa dancing, or take up yoga. After a work out, students can also feed their mind at a Brown Bag lunch discussion at the Ban Righ Centre. At Queen's, we know that students are more able to realize their potential if they are healthy, inside and out. The resources of Student Affairs can help them get there.
Quick link: Support services for students in distress
Living and Accommodation: quality of home
Whether it's in a room in residence, a two-bedroom apartment, or a nine-person house, students need to make a home for themselves. For many, university marks the first opportunity students have to create a space that is theirs alone. Others must find space not only for themselves, but for a partner and children. Whatever the situation, Student Affairs offers resources to help students find, maintain, and make a home in the community. Residences offers accommodations not only for first-year undergraduates, but for upper-year, graduate, and mature students as well. Students can find off-campus accommodation through Community Housing, which posts accommodation listings for the campus neighbourhoods and acts as a landlord for the nearly 1000 students living in Queen's owned properties. Town-Gown Relations provides resources on everything from signing a lease to dealing with housemates. At the Queen's Day Care Centre, student parents can access high-quality, affordable day care designed to support the needs of members of the Queen's community. Academic responsibilities aren't the only thing students come home to. Student Affairs is there to assist students in finding the accommodations they need to be successful in class and to feel right at home.
Queen's academic reputation attracts students from around the world. That's why we offer a wide range of services and support programs dedicated to making international students feel at home here from the moment they arrive. The Queen's University International Centre is dedicated to serving the unique needs of our international students - we want them to succeed and feel at home here.
Adjusting to life on campus in a new country can present some challenges from time to time and the international Centre's cross-cultural counsellors provide professional advice and counselling when needed.
Diversity and Culture: quality of belonging
Queen's University welcomes students from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, and Student Affairs can help all students find a place - or places - to belong. Belonging takes shape in many different ways. In Residences, students find their place amidst and among diverse peers, learning community in the day-to-day experience of life on the floor. At the Ban Righ Centre, women students gather formally and informally for discussions, meals, advocacy, and support.
The Queen's University International Centre helps international students find peers to support and reflect their journey in Canada. It also helps internationally-minded students find friendship and resources that open them to new and sometimes ancient ways of living. The Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre offers Aboriginal students "a place to share and communicate," enhancing the well-being of the Aboriginal community at Queen's and inviting all students into a deeper appreciation of the experiences of Aboriginal people in Canada. In all, the resources of Student Affairs help students find their place in the world, affirming the distinctiveness of their own experience and opening them to the diversity of others.
Faith: quality of spirit
Research of university students in North America over the last decade shows a steady rise in their desire for spiritual reflection and engagement. For some, religious beliefs form the core of their spirituality; for others, such beliefs play little or no part. Student Affairs creates opportunities for students to explore connections between spirituality, meaning, sense of purpose, wisdom, and personal values. These opportunities can come in many forms: a discussion in Residences, a lunch-hour presentation at the Ban Righ Centre, an inter-faith dialogue with the University Chaplain, or a feast night at the Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre. People need to engage profound questions of meaning in order to learn, grow, develop, and test their notions of life's purpose and of their sense of place in the world. Student Affairs is dedicated to creating a campus environment and community that not only engages the mind, but also facilitates students' search for meaning, purpose, authenticity, and ultimately wisdom. Life poses big questions. We help students discover ways of exploring them.
Leadership and Service: quality of confidence
Students enact leadership in many ways. Queen's Student Affairs provides diverse opportunities for students to build on their leadership interests, to reflect on their engagement with student organizations, and to kindle excitement for new commitments. Some choose to volunteer in the community. Other students take on leadership roles on campus, perhaps as a student leader in Residences, in Athletics & Recreation as a member of an intramural team or a fitness instructor, or as a Peer Health Educator with Health, Counselling & Disability Services. Students can also consult Career Services for resources about life after Queen's and get advice on what kinds of leadership experiences might best support their future aspirations. Giving students opportunities to lead helps them grow in skill and confidence. The leadership skills they develop at Queen's will enable students to build strong communities in the future - in their workplace, in their families, and in whatever neighbourhood or nation they call home.
Student-Community Relations: quality of citizenship
By strengthening the ties between students and the local community, Student Affairs encourages students to invest themselves in the world beyond the campus. Town-Gown Relations helps students understand their responsibilities as tenants and citizens. Students are encouraged to engage their neighbours through service, volunteering, and community events. Our goal is to offer a model of civic engagement that strengthens the social capital of Kingston for all its residents. The City of Kingston has welcomed Queen's students into its midst for over 150 years, and Student Affairs is committed to helping students become responsible and responsive citizens, engaging their community with enthusiasm and respect. Aside from outreach initiatives, the division also supports local interests through Queen's Event Services, opening campus facilities up to the community for conferences, celebrations, and events.
Together, the programs and services of Queen's Student Affairs stretch to support all elements of well-being, from the physical to the social, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and environmental. This approach reflects a holistic view of education - that students learn and develop as a result of deliberate, coordinated experiences that engage the whole person. While a single program or service in Student Affairs may play a significant role in achieving certain objectives or lead to certain strategies, the student experience depends on a tapestry of harmonized and focused support across the community.
The role of Student Affairs is to create this web of connections, fostering the best possible conditions for student engagement. In addition, the division builds community by acting as a conduit between and among all facets of the university, weaving a network of support and leadership all focused on a distinct educational experience.
Sustainability
The Queen's Division of Student Affairs is committed to developing and enacting sustainable policies, practices and educational efforts. These commitments are considered to include environmental, political, social, and economic dimensions. For more information on what Queen's University as an institution is doing in this regard, refer to the Sustainability Office at Physical Plant Services.