Manifesto - Taylor's version

Dear Reader, My name is Taylor and I’m running for re-election as your Undergraduate Education Officer. I’ve loved the job since I took over in July, but I’m ready to do more. I’ve got a reputation for shaking things up (or off). Everything has changed since I took over. Here’s what I’ve done in the first 8 months:

• I made self certs 7 days instead of 3 so you’re safe if you look at assessments and think “I forgot you existed”
• I got disabled students dedicated support for their timetables because everyone deserves a place in this world, especially at university
• I studied your needs and your views and told UEA every one of them
• I reopened the Quiet Space so that it's not just a blank space any more

There’s a lot of bad blood out there at the moment so this is what you’ve made me do. I’m running for re-election to continue listening to and fighting for you.

I have a vision, some of my wildest dreams, to do just that. Here’s the vision:

Lecture recordings for every student on campus

Some students get recordings… but most of you don’t. UEA could do it in covid – why not now? It’s not just important to help you revise – but for some disabled or commuter or mature students, it can be the difference between seeing that content or not. It’s fundamental to your education. This needs to be mandated by the university. I’ll get this done.

Supporting Students as Priority 1 in Strikes and Marking Boycotts

This role is there to support your education. That means fighting for any impact industrial action has on your learning to be mitigated. If there’s a marking boycott, that’s making sure that 3^rd years can still graduate, 1^st and 2^nd years know whether or not they’re progressing to the next year and supporting students to do what they want on strikes - getting the education they’re paying for or supporting their lecturers. If we don’t support students first, we are not a “Students’ Union”. I always make supporting students my top priority.

Strengthening Support

The most important thing about your education is the support you get. Everyone has an academic advisor - but have you ever met them? I’ll lobby UEA to sort out that system.

Building Academic Communities

We need to build more robust academic communities in every school, allowing better academic representation, a greater sense of belonging through stronger societies and a closer relationship between students and academics.

An SU that’s more transparent and celebrates its achievements

We’re being more transparent about what we do – we do still have more we can do, particularly on our finances. But we also need to celebrate our achievements as a union.

Together we can make a difference to UEA. I hope that I can count on your vote once again.