Making a difference on campus and beyond

Recent University of Saskatchewan (USask) graduate Tasnim Jaisee (BA’24, CQGS’24) is a changemaker.

Throughout her time as a USask student—and now as a USask employee—Jaisee has advocated for equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. Her dedication and hard work has been recognized and celebrated with numerous awards, including the CBC Saskatchewan Future 40 honour in 2024. Just days before graduating from USask last spring with a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honours, she also attended the 2024 Graham YWCA Women of Distinction Awards Gala, where she was bestowed with the Young Trailblazer Award.

“I care deeply about supporting communities of Black, Indigenous (and) People of Colour, queer people, disabled people, and much more,” she said in a CBC video highlighting her Future 40 nomination.

Much of Jaisee’s advocacy has been rooted in her own lived experiences as a Bangladeshi immigrant woman of colour and a wheelchair user with disabilities. While a student in USask’s College of Arts and Science, she became even more passionate about equity, diversity, and inclusion while taking on student government roles and while working toward a double honours degree in political studies and women’s and gender studies and a certificate in queer theory, gender diversity, and sexualities studies.

Now, as a new member of USask’s alumni community, Jaisee continues to bring her passion, skills, and educational background to her job as the equity, diversity, inclusion project specialist in USask’s Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic.

“Having a background in political studies and women’s and gender studies has equipped me well to work in this role, to focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives,” she said in an interview with the Green&White. “With this role, I get to work on issues such as gender inequity, anti-racism, accessibility, and so much more—issues that matter to many of us on campus.”

Jaisee first came to USask as an undergraduate student at the age of 17 after graduating from Saskatoon’s Evan Hardy Collegiate. At the time, she assumed she would study science at the university—both of her parents have graduate degrees in the sciences—but she soon found her passion in her political studies and women’s and gender studies classes.

One of the things Jaisee appreciated about studying in the College of Arts and Science was the wide variety of classes that were on offer, enabling her and her peers to explore many interests. She also felt well supported by her professors and fellow students.

“I felt really connected to my professors,” she said. “I always felt like there was many professors that really took their time to encourage students to go to office hours and to ask questions. I had opportunities to make a lot of friends that come from a lot of different types of study backgrounds. It was really cool to be able to learn from one another.”

During her undergraduate studies, Jaisee was involved in many activities at USask. For example, she wrote articles for the student-run newspaper The Sheaf, she served as vice-president culture and communications for the Bangladesh Undergraduate Student Federation, and she took part in various cultural events within the local Saskatoon community as part of the Bangladeshi Community Association of Saskatchewan. She also worked as a student ambassador for USask’s student recruitment office and was employed as a communications assistant summer student at Saskatoon Sexual Health, where she worked on projects emphasizing sexual and reproductive health rights. As well, Jaisee was an award-winning competitor in the Thinkathon Online Challenge in 2021, when she and her team members presented their ideas for BIPOC Capital, a non-profit start-up based on providing interest-free loans to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) small- and medium-sized enterprises through microfinancing.

As a student, and now as an alumna, Jaisee has advocated for greater accessibility by sharing her own lived experiences. In 2019, she gave a TEDxUniversityofSaskatchewan talk titled “Overcoming Adversities of an Incurable Disorder,” during which she spoke to a crowd on campus about living with osteogenesis imperfecta. As a result of the condition, which is often called “brittle bone disease,” Jaisee has experienced more than 100 fractures. She has also endured numerous surgeries and lives with chronic pain. Even a slight amount of pressure on her body can result in a fracture.

“Within the first few seconds of my life, during the delivery process, both of my femurs—the body’s strongest bones—broke,” she told the crowd during her 2019 TEDxUniversityofSaskatchewan talk. “My parents were warned by doctors that I would have a life expectancy of just six months.”

Now, at 26 years old, Jaisee inspires others by speaking about her personal struggles and about how she has overcome adversity, as well as her vision for more accessible and inclusive community spaces for all. In November 2024, for example, she spoke to CBC about navigating public spaces in the winter as a wheelchair user living with osteogenesis imperfecta. Jaisee is known for her optimism and for her focus on collaboration in her efforts to make positive change.

“It took a long time for me to accept that I was never going to be cured of my condition—and that’s OK,” Jaisee said in her 2019 TEDxUniversityofSaskatchewan talk. “That’s OK, because I have a lot more to give to this world. I will live with this body for the rest of my life, and I am going to choose to live with it—every single day, no matter how hard it gets.”

Jaisee has brought this determination, and her vision for a more equitable society, to many aspects of her life on campus, including her role as the president of the Arts and Science Students Union (ASSU) during the 2019-2020 academic year, and as a past coordinator of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) Women’s Centre. Jaisee’s passion for leadership led to her election as the president of the USSU in 2021, when she made history as the first woman of colour to hold the role.

Serving as the USSU president provided Jaisee with an opportunity to put her USask undergraduate education into action.

“During my time in undergrad, I did a lot of paper writing and on top of that I also did a lot of student governance work. I oftentimes felt that my study background really coincided with my passion for student governance,” Jaisee said in the recent Green&White interview.

“I was very honoured to be elected as president of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union during the 2021-2022 academic year. I was able to work with the large number of undergraduate students on campus who gave me the honour of representing them for the year with my team of executives. We worked on a variety of initiatives that we were very passionate about. We focused a lot on affordability and accessibility to education, while always focusing on topics like anti-racism, social justice, feminism, and much more.”

One of Jaisee’s proudest moments as USSU president was raising the issue of menstrual equity with the Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic. In 2023, as a USask staff member, she helped launch the Period Equity Project, which resulted in the installation of dispensers stocked with free tampons and pads in more than 70 women’s, gender-neutral, and men’s washrooms in various USask buildings. Jaisee continues to work on the initiative through her current role as equity, diversity, inclusion project specialist.

“Menstrual inequity is something that we can all work together to dismantle and to create more equitable opportunities for all,” she said.

Through her ongoing work in the Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic, Jaisee lives the values of USask’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Framework for Action. She provides support to numerous initiatives on campus throughout the year, including the planning committees for Black History Month, Asian Heritage Month, Pride Month, and more.

Jaisee encourages others to come to USask, where she believes much good work is taking place. As an example, she points to Access and Equity Services, which provided valuable support to her when she was an undergraduate student. She is now studying in the Graduate Certificate in Leadership program in USask’s Edwards School of Business.

“I would recommend the University of Saskatchewan to prospective students because there is a campus here that is welcoming for all and a lot of great initiatives are happening continuously to make campus more inclusive and accessible,” she said.