Credit: Hungju Lu
Reporter & News Editor
The SRC held the hustings for the autumn election in the McIntyre Building on October 9. During the event, the candidates had the chance to present their manifestos and to answer questions from the audience as well as from a twitter live stream. The elections will take place on Thursday between 9am and 5pm.
There were candidates present for 20 positions in the field of general representation, academic representation of the different schools in the university, welfare officers, and postgraduate conveners. Being a representative for the SRC gives students the opportunity to actively shape and influence university life.
However, many of the candidates criticized that there is not enough awareness among the student body about the opportunities the SRC has to offer. Many candidates for the elections run unopposed and just used the opportunity to remind the students they will represent about their manifestos.
A lot of the candidates also vowed to work together closely with societies, such as for example the candidates for Race Equality Officers, Mayank Goenka, and Desmond Okumbor. Both said they wanted international students to feel more included and at home in Glasgow by working with the international societies and promote an exchange between different nationalities.
Once again the mental health and disability services at the University was a key issue. Disability Equality Officer candidate Jen Reid spoke about how she had to wait two months for an appointment with disability services and stressed that this issue was a priority for her. The other candidate Shaun Green agreed that accessibility and awareness have to be improved. On how they would increase awareness of disability services Reid suggested a leafleting stand in the library while Green thought increasing cross communication between course and services staff was key. The other candidate for Disability Equality Officer Yu Sun did not participate in the hustings.
Running for first year representatives are Seven Jacobs and Temisan Atsegoh. However, only Jacobs was present. Jacob has based his campaign on “opportunity” proposing mentoring schemes for first years with meetings once a week/month. When asked further about how he plans to implement this Jacobs seemed to evade questions.
For General Representatives, there are nine people running for the four open positions. All nominees had a wide range of ideas that they said they would bring to the role. Tom McFerran highlighted transparency from the University as a key issue and part of his manifesto is to implement 24hr library access across the entire year. Marco She wants to make a chat for the advice centre to make it more available to those who may not be able to access it otherwise. Morgan Daniel aims to improve relations post-graduate and undergraduate students and increase awareness of CAPS, especially for first year students. Rosie Reid wanted more cohesion between src and student bodies and to get rid of library revolving door. Matej Ballaty wants to implement a go to point in the library for information on the SRC.
When asked if it was important that students support their striking lecturers, in reference to the UCU strikes that took place earlier this year the consensus was that it is important to support but strikes should not disrupt students too much. Tom McFerran said students should not feel “abandoned” by their lecturers.
Voting closes at 5pm October 11.
