SU President Blog

First I want to say a huge congratulations to the incoming Officer team, which was officially elected last week. I also want to note the position of Activities Officer is vacant, and the by-election for this very exciting role will happen later this month and in April. More information can be found on the SU website.

The elections just gone mean that there are around four months before the end of my term as your Students’ Union President. I’ve had some time to reflect on this last week, as elections were happening. I looked at everything that I set myself out to achieve in my manifesto, what we’ve been able to do together, but also the things that unfortunately will have to wait. Four months do go really quickly and I want to make sure I can be as effective as possible in my last months as your President. I’ve looked at my manifesto, at our priority campaigns, and at everything that has been going on with our response to Covid. These are the key activities I will focus on for the remainder of my time in office.

Gender Identity Policy: I have been working with some incredible students and staff members to enact a comprehensive and inclusive Gender Identity Policy. There are already so many areas where we’ve made so much progress and I will focus my work to make sure that the policy can be enacted by the time I leave.

Transparency of Additional Costs: Tom and I have been leading on a project with the University to make the additional costs of the University experience more transparent, and figuring out ways that those costs can be reduced to ensure equity of experience. Students should know the real cost of the University experience, and I want to make sure those figures are published and accessible for current students and applicants.

Support for Student Staff: One of the key reason I run for office was to improve the experience of those students that struggle financially and that have to work part-time to make ends meet. I have not been able to work on that as much as I wish, and I will make it my mission to dedicate time to support students in part-time work.

Sustainable Investments: My key environmental proposal this year is to significantly re-shape the University’s investment portfolio and divest from companies that fund the fossil fuel industry, such as Barclays. The University is resisting this change, but we are working together on a new investment policy that will start greening the University’s investments so that it can meet its net zero targets.

SU Democracy: Since coming into this role, I have so badly wanted to work on re-shaping our SU democracy. This is your Union, and it shouldn’t be the case that you only participate in its working just during elections. I will be working with staff and students to re-build the SU policy mechanism and create a solid structure so that your voice is always heard.

Harm Reduction Drugs Policy Last but not least, last semester I started working with student services to implement a policy enabling the University and The SU to educate students about safe drug use, an approach called ‘harm reduction’. Whilst this was stalled at the time, we are back on the road now and I am excited to get this done by the end of my term.

So, that’s it. These are my priorities before I leave office at the end of June and the next Officer team takes over. It’s really quite an ambitious list… so I better crack on!