OCUFA Executive Director Jenny Ahn receives 2026 YWCA Toronto Distinction Award 

YWCA Toronto has named OCUFA Executive Director Jenny Ahn as a recipient of the 2026 Distinction Awards, recognizing her many years of activism and advocacy for women’s rights and workers’ rights.  

YWCA Toronto recognized Jenny as a “force for women within the labour movement” and her ability “to unite diverse movements underscores her strength as a strategist and builder of collective power, leveraging community action to challenge inequity and drive systemic change.” 

As Executive Director of OCUFA, Jenny has worked tirelessly to improve working conditions for university faculty, academic librarians, and academic staff members across Ontario with a particular focus on equity.  

With OCUFA, Jenny has advocated for more funding for public universities in Ontario. A university degree can change a woman’s economic future for the better; so too can a permanent faculty or academic librarian position. Jenny’s advocacy for stable, long-term funding for Ontario’s public universities reflects this dedication to women’s educational access and women’s rights and protections at work.  

Her advocacy at OCUFA has resulted in major wins for public universities and the people who teach and research there. In 2024, she was instrumental to the passage of a critical federal amendment preventing corporate restructuring of public universities, which has preserved hundreds of university jobs—many of which are held by women, racialized people, and Indigenous people.  

Her work as OCUFA Executive Director also supports faculty collective bargaining wins on campuses that directly improve women’s working lives, including improvements to compensation, benefits, working conditions, and commitments from universities to support equity and social justice on campuses. 

Jenny will be formally recognized alongside the other Distinction Awards recipients at a celebration and fundraising event at The Carlu in Toronto on May 28, 2026.