In a joint venture with Insanity Radio, we have interviewed all the candidates for VP Education and created a podcast with questions that delve deeper into their individual manifesto points. Our ongoing Sabbatical Officer coverage and involvement with the elections has been exceptional this year, with the media outlets chairing Candidate Question Time, and we will continue with this by interviewing all winning candidates on elections night so keep an eye out for our coverage. Here are our brief summaries of each candidate and their manifestos:
George White – 0:00.30-0:10.30
George White is aiming to increase study spaces across campus, oversee a smooth transition when it comes to the academic restructure on campus, eliminate paper hand-ins and provide further engagement with academic societies on campus. He is eager to become more engaged with student voice across campus should he be elected to this role, and improve on the issues that he has seen affecting students here at RHUL. He explained to us how his ideas are unique compared to other candidates’ as well as how they would be different and more effective than anything already in place – this was particularly regarding opening up use of other rooms on campus as study spaces throughout the year rather than just during exam season.
Maliha Reza – 0:10.30-0:22.20
Maliha Reza is campaigning on a platform of improving the careers service, implementing lecture capture and setting a minimum standard for Moodle resources. Improving the careers service is a lofty goal, and we asked her to explain that decision and how she would go about in detail. Additionally, lecture capture is already an issue that current VP Education, Jack O’Neill, has aimed to implement but she plans on furthering the work that he has already done and building upon his foundation. She is one of the only candidates to discuss the BAME attainment gap in higher education here at RHUL. It is an issue that we questioned her on extensively, with her explaining what the statistics were and why it was important to tackle it.
Kate Roberts – 0:22.20-0:33.10
A key issue of Kate Roberts’ campaign is to ensure that the academic restructure ultimately provides a better educational experience for all students. She also aims to implement lecture capture and effectively work on the democracy review within the SU. All of these issues are important to the student experience and her interview largely explains why she is the unique individual to work on them.
Alex Balkan – 0:33.10-0:51.15
Alex Balkan’s platform maintains that education at RHUL should be accessible, accountable and employable. Our interview focused on these ‘buzz-words’ and asked him what they mean to him and why he chose to run on those values. Accessibility is an important word and we wanted to know if he was aware of what changed was needed to ensure accessibility in education. In addition, he is aiming to get more study spaces on campus for students, adapt to universal standards of teaching across all departments and improve mental health awareness.