Two candidates with the most votes will be elected First Year Representatives.
Zainab Alshaber
Zainab lists many goals within her manifesto targeted at improving student life both on and off campus, many of which aim to provide social opportunities for students in the current pandemic. These goals include setting up both social and virtual spaces for clubs and societies to use while still adhering to social distancing guidelines, introducing workshops to teach students valuable life lessons such as cooking and budgeting, introducing an initiative to connect students from across the campus to help them start to build connections, and placing more emphasis on recognition of student’s achievements in clubs and societies. Zainab believes she will be good for the role as she feels she is someone who students will be comfortable in coming to with their issues. She also believes her varied experience of volunteering and work with non-profit organisations has given her useful skills in personal and local development, as well as highlighting her desire to help others.
Olly Bharucha
Olly’s manifesto places focus on the impact of the current pandemic on student wellbeing as the driving force behind his goals. These goals include having more transparency from the University regarding it’s communication with students, as well as accountability for encouraging students to move to halls in September when most classes were already slated to be online, and providing financial aid for those who need it in this current period. He also places particular emphasis on providing mental health support for students who may have been affected by isolating and academic stress during this time, and wants to ensure that these issues are acknowledged and addressed by the University.
Nina Coscia
In her manifesto, Nina has stated that one of her main goals as representative would be to streamline both the course selection process and the online moodle system, making both experiences more user-friendly and easy to navigate. She also hopes to push for more events to be held for freshers throughout the academic year, given how Freshers’ Week was held at a significantly reduced capacity and was inaccessible to many new students. Overall, Nina would like to stand as a representative for all students, and hopes to utilise her experience in management positions in various clubs to do this effectively.
Kirsty Craig
Kirsty already has prior experience working in a student council, having previously been a public relations officer, and feels it has given her useful skills in representing the voices of students. It is also with this experience that Kirsty hopes to effectively coordinate and manage the task and responsibilities of being a student representative, allowing her to be a voice for first year students and effectively communicate their issues and needs.
Andrea Curro
The goals of Andrea’s manifesto include ensuring that the voices of the University’s many students are heard, and improving communication with students and their lecturers and tutors. His goals are to listen to what other students have to say and to be someone people feel they can go to with their issues and suggestions. Andrea hopes that in this role he will be able to be reached by as wide an audience as possible, and that in the coming years he will be able to act as a student representative at a much greater capacity.
Ben Elliott
Ben believes that an SRC representative should help uplift the unheard voices of students that may get left by the wayside in the daily runnings of the University. As stated in his manifesto, his main goal is to help streamline the process for new students to voice their complaints, and ensure they reach the proper channels in which to be heard. Ben believes in strengthening the voices of first year students as he feels they have the power to enact proper change to the University landscape. Such an example comes from Ben himself who, through gathering collected support from other students, managed to put the request of rent reductions to his accommodation’s administrators, which individual action alone could not have done. It is this example that led to him deciding to run for this position.
Daniel Holland
Daniel’s manifesto focuses on the visibility of the SRC, wanting to be a reachable first-year rep. He aims to help students with queries about coursework, students who are facing difficulty due to coronavirus, and helping them through changes occurring over the next six months on campus and beyond. Specifically, Daniel discusses how he seeks to help people deal with issues that may arise within accommodation services and elsewhere, to make campus life enjoyable. He wants to do this by working with staff to ensure that all students are safe and are managing the shift to campus life.
Isabelle John
Isabelle has previous experience in leadership positions, including within MUN, which she believes has given her skills she feels will be helpful if elected first-year rep – collaboration, taking initiative, organisation and problem-solving. In her manifesto, Isabelle aims to address and raise issues that arise within the student body, especially during this difficult and unpredictable time. Isabelle also seeks to create social events to increase interactions and to generally support people when they face issues.
Jane Lin
Jane has had experiences with societies as she has previously been in clubs whilst in high school including Model UN, Duke of Edinburgh, service prefect, and served on Student Council. Jane has travelled which she believes would help her as a first-year rep as it taught her independence, teamwork, and responsibility. If Jane was elected, she would seek to set up online activity sessions between first years with second and third years. Additionally, she looks to promote online charity events to engage first-year students, as well as reaching out to get sponsorship for sports teams, clubs and societies.
David Murdoch
David states that he would put the views of the majority before his own as he looks to understand other people’s points of view. Due to the limited ability for first-years to have social interactions during the Covid-19 pandemic, David wants to work for students to have as normal a student life as possible. He vows to work with you to come up with a fair solution to the problems of rent, in which so many believe to have been a money-making scheme for Glasgow.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew seeks to collaborate with students, listen to other opinions, and attempt to implement changes to improve Glasgow University, which he believes will improve the student experience and lifestyle. Andrew also discusses how he wants to be an approachable representative that people feel comfortable to contact. He states that he wants to make a completely non-judgemental environment as he is interested in everyone’s thoughts.
Kyle Thomas
Kyle describes himself as an approachable person. In his manifesto, Kyle seeks to increase opportunities for first-year students due to the restrictions in place. As students have been self-isolating, Kyle focuses on mental health due to the increased stress that people have faced this year. Additionally, he wants to improve the Universities environmental policies as a whole, and wants to improve help for people with learning disabilities.
Voting will open at 9am on 15 October 2020. All registered students can do so at gla.ac.uk/vote. You can find manifestos here.
