Historically, there has been a lot of operational work in the role of Deputy President (Finance & Services). And that's still true, trying to get through a long list of finance queries, approvals, contracts and refunds can take up a lot of time. But recently those in my role have been looking to make more of a difference on some of the really big issues that affect students. One particular advantage of this is that I get to look more towards the future than some of the other positions might be able to. As such I want to mention here a couple of major projects that I'm working on which, while really important, may really only come into effect as the years roll by.
Higher Education Funding
The first, of these is our #HEF_ICU campaign at the moment. Deciding how university gets paid for is profoundly important for students in the future and could have an effect on your siblings, friends or even children. With the general election coming up next year too this could be a hot topic and we want to make sure we're in the perfect position to lobby prospective parlimentary candidates and the subsequent government to make sure that student views are represented. To achieve this we have been running what we call the HEF Survey over the last week and a half to probe all students views about whether we think we should be sticking with Tuition fees, having University completely paid for by the nation, applying instead a graduate tax. A lot of work has gone into a survey that really focuses on several of the issues surrounding this and I'm proud to say that so far over 200 people have replied to it. But we need lots more. The Survey is open until Midday on the 19th and can be found at imperialcollegeunion.org/HEF-survey. The results of this will be used to write a policy which will be debated at the first Union General Meeting that has been called this year at 18:30 on 1 December in Blackett Laboratory LT1 where every interested student will be able to attend, have their opinion heard and vote on our policy. Some questions have been raised about how we will actually use this to lobby government and I would like to clear a little of that up here; we have yet to develop a strategy for this campaign, this is because our approach will need to be based on the stance we as a union take as you would not want to lobby in the same way for Free Education as you would for Tuition Fees for instance. Do please check out the survey and come along to the meeting... we need 200 at the meeting to make it a success so if everyone that takes the survey comes along then that will be incredible!
College Financial Sustainability Strategy
In the past members of the union have been critical of the college. But one thing they've been doing well of late is trying to get Student and Students' Union representatives into top level meetings on college strategy. I've been lucky enough so far to be given a seat in the College's Financial Sustainability Strategy Group meetings which will be helping to define the college's strategy for the next 5 years or even longer. This is of huge importance that directly affects us as if the college can't be financially sustainable then the adverse effects will inevitably fall on students. It's been a really positive step to be able to have a voice in those meetings and get a say in how the university ensures they are able to continue funding world leading education and research without placing more of the financial burden on students.
