SU President Blog

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been a while! Last Friday and this Monday I took some annual leave, so my update has not gone out as I normally would. I hope you can forgive me x

It’s been another manic week over here, I look back at my calendar and SO MUCH has happened, and so much is going to happen over the next few weeks, too!

Remember that nominations for officer elections close on Monday at 12.00 PM, so if you’re interested in running, make sure you have your nomination in by then. We can’t wait to get chatting about elections and how the following week is going to unfold.

Here are some of the things I’ve been up to lately and just stuff I wanna mention really:

• Budgets: As explained last week, the SU faces financial difficulties in the future, and our financial situation will heavily depend on the coronavirus restrictions and how the easing out of lockdown progresses. This week, departments have submitted their budgets, and we have been working together to make sure we can meet our financial needs and obligations whilst funding student and SU activity at its best.
• Gender Identity Policy/Toilet Consultation: I have been working on communications around the policy as the consultations continue. I have also been working with students from the LGBT+ group to prepare a response to the Government’s consultation on public toilet provision, an issue that deeply affects our trans/Non-Binary/gender diverse community.
• Race Equality: I have met with the Chair of the Race Equality Taskforce, Rajani, and had a very productive conversation on how the race equality agenda can effectively be moved forward at this University.
• SU Awards: Recognising and awarding the amazing work of our volunteers this year is going to be different than in the past. We have started meeting and talking about how we can make this celebration amazing no matter what the circumstances will be.
• Graduations Venue Project: Similarly, I have been meeting with University staff to discuss graduations. Conversations are still happening around the planned graduations for this summer, and whilst we all hope to be able to celebrate our graduates the old-fashioned way, we are planning for a range of scenarios to make sure this celebration can happen in some form, whatever the circumstances.
• Student Hardship: The Government has announced additional funding for hardship for students. Ahead of receiving some of that money as a University, I’ve met with key University staff to discuss how this can be best allocated, and will be working with Student Services to improve the accessibility of the Hardship Fund.
• Semester 2 Exams: Exams in this scenario present a lot of possibility, and there are a lot of things that have gone well in the exam season just passed. However, a significant number of you has spoken to us voicing your concerns about the things that have not gone so well. In our formal response to the University, we have voiced those concerns exactly, demanding changes to the procedures for the summer assessment season. This includes length of exams, undertaking your exams from different time-zones, extra time if necessary, and the issues with having a number of exams back to back.

I want to say a huge congratulations again to the students that participated this week in an event hosted by the Debating Society on our affiliation to the NUS. This is student democracy at its finest and we are so proud of our students for taking part and debating the future of our SU. It was incredible to watch and we hope that all the attendees enjoyed it, too.

Monday is a big day, of course. Not only because officer nominations close, but also because we will know more, by the end of the day, about the roadmap to leave lockdown hopefully once and for all. We are all eager and hopeful that this is the last time we’ll be in this situation, and I am really grateful to each and every one of you who has been respecting the rules and contributed to this national effort to put this pandemic behind us. Be kind to yourselves and to one another, and hang in there, we’re getting closer to the end of this by the day.

Have a lovely weekend.

Stay awesome,
Franci

Your SU President