Reporter
An online petition, entitled “We Need A Rector Now!”, is calling for immediate Rector elections, rather than waiting until the next academic year as suggested by a motion at the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) meeting on 2 February.
At the time of publication the petition has 166 signatures, with a goal of 500.
The petition states: “Why should the SRC choose to deny students a chance to have their view further recognised?”
It also claims that the lack of a rector is “severely harmful to expressing the views of students on University Court.”
The petitions states that students need an active Rector capable of holding the university to account and that “by delaying the elections, there is one less seat on court that is supposed to recognise the needs and views of students”.
More specifically, the petition cites proposed tuition fee increases as an example of an issue where a Rector would be necessary to voice the student opinion. It claims that an active Rector is needed also to assist the University of Glasgow in a post-Brexit UK.
It has been reported that if the elections were rescheduled for as soon as possible, they would take place towards the end of March. This comes after there were no successful nominations for Rector after the deadline on 24 January 2017.
The petition laments the fact that the current rector Edward Snowden, whose term ends in April 2017, was unable to be as active as previous rectors.
SRC President Ameer Ibrahim supports immediate Rectorial elections. The SRC is holding an emergency meeting at 5:30pm on Tuesday 14 February in the Williams room in the McIntyre building. The petition asks people to attend in person in order to ensure their voices are heard.
The petition can be found here.
