Avynne Trembly: Candidate for VP Liberation, International & Postgraduates

By Julie Capkova

As the whole campus prepares to vote in the upcoming student elections, The Print has interviewed a number of candidates standing for representative and executive positions. All candidates were invited to participate. Those who did not respond are not included. Other candidates are available and students can see all of them on qmsu.org/elections. Anything mentioned in the text reflects the candidates’ opinions, not The Print’s. The length of the interviews does not imply preferences for a candidate, but instead ensures that we are factually reporting on their interviews. 

Avynne Trembly, the candidate for VP Liberation, International, and Postgraduate, says she decided to run, because she has ‘benefited a lot from being a part of societies and the offerings of the SU.’ She says: ‘I am an international Postgrad myself, and so I've noticed that a lot of international postgrads don't usually take advantage of these opportunities. I want to encourage more people to be a part of it, because I think it is really important.’ 

When asked what makes her the option for this role, Avynne replied: ‘There are some great candidates in the running.’ She then continues: ‘I have worked in leadership positions and student organisations before. When I was an undergrad, I was a leader in the Music Department that I was in, and I was a leader in the Computer Science Department that I was in. Even in high school I was a leader of several student organisations. And I think that puts me in an advantage to understand how academia leadership works, and how to best work between students and staff.’ 

As an international student, Avynne reflects on her own experience with settling in a new country, feeling confused and out of place, and trying to navigate a new culture. This is why the first thing she’ll do if elected will be focusing ‘on ways that we can lower the confusion for international students in terms of what the SU offers, what the university itself offers, and how we can take advantage of that.’ 

She would further like to focus on helping postgraduate students become more involved in societies and events held on campus. She would achieve this by appealing to societies to schedule their events at times that would enable the postgrads to participate as well. 

Another part of her campaign focuses on increasing inclusion and diversity on campus. ‘There’s a lot of different aspects that the QMSU can address, from getting people more involved in events, getting people more involved in campus in general, expanding the types of events, making sure we’re not having only alcohol-based nights, but also women’s-only events and others,’ Avynne says. She would also like to reach out to students from different backgrounds: ‘The SU already does a good work on that, but I think that more events centred around different cultures is one way that could happen.’ 

She believes that the biggest issue students face today is the cost of living. ‘Especially for internationals it is difficult to budget. And I think that if more people are involved with the SU, then more people have a voice, and then there’s definitely more solutions to be presented.’ 

When it comes to representing the whole student body, Avynne says: ‘I love hearing other opinions and other voices. I think that my approach would be to talk to as many people from different backgrounds, different departments, and different degrees as possible, and consolidate all of that [...] I think that having open discussions is one of the most important things.’ 

While Avynne believes that the current office holder does ‘a lot of good things,’ she would like to focus on increasing the visibility of this position. She would specifically like to be there for international students at the start of the year. 

Avynne concludes by saying that a success at the end of her term would be: ‘more involvement in the SU for postgraduates and internationals and them having a deep understanding of what the SU does and how it can help them. And then for all students to be more aware of the liberation campaigns and have better cultural understandings of their fellow students.’

Voting runs from 23 to 26 March 2026.