Know Your Sabb: Academic Affairs

Matt Bailey, Ben Humphrys, Jason Rose and Elanin Vince discuss their campaigns for Academic Affairs Officer

• Why have you decided to run?

Matt Bailey: Course Rep! I have been a Course Rep for three years. I have been actively involved with the academic representation within Chemistry since first year. I have been a member of the Staff Student Committee and have found it a truly rewarding experience. I believe that the Course Rep background, and working on Academic Affairs projects such as Academic Integrity week have given me good experience in the Academic Affairs area.

Ben Humphrys: I've really enjoyed this year working as the welfare sabbatical in YUSU. It's given me great experience working with all the representatives from colleges to try to push forward our representation, through training, regular meetings and lots of cooperative work! In my role, as part of my pledge last year to take the splitting of academic and welfare not as two separate jobs but one job being taken on by two people, I've been able to work on a number of genuine academic issues: undergraduate supervision, periodic review, combined studies review and more and I've seen ways we could really move forward in our academic representation. I find opportunities like that infectious, and I'd really value the opportunity to develop this side of the Union over the next year.

Jason Rose: I want the best person possible to be in the position next year and I believe that I am that person this year. Charlie Leyland has been a fantastic Academic Affairs Officer and if she hadn't run last year, I would have - this year I don't believe that any candidate is the same calibre as her so I'm running.

Elanin Vince: Because Academic Affairs is the most fundamental position in YUSU. Students come to York to get an education, first and foremost. Without the Academic Affairs Officer, students would find it much more difficult to get change and improvement on matters relating to their course. I've been a part-time officer in YUSU and I've loved the experience - as LGBT Officer, I've been able to help other students on a personal level and as a community. The issues I've been campaigning on this year and will be campaigning on if I get Academic Affairs are very important to me and I think I am in a fantastic position to make a difference.

• Why should students vote for you?

MB: I believe that students should vote for me because I have a track record of getting academic issues resolved, I am passionate about the quality of our degrees being maintained and ensuring that quality does not suffer due to modularisation or funding cuts. I promise to fight Tuition Fee increases as hard as possible and if Fees do increase, I will fight every day to ensure that this money goes to pay for YOUR course. Finally, I promise to help students, by making day to day activities such as finding study areas, accessing your timetable & exam results, printing on campus and contacting Course Reps easier.

BH: Students should vote for me because I've shown over the last year how I can use the extent of the experience I've outlined to make real changes in my role, real changes in your representation, real changes to sort out private sector accommodation in York, real changes in our provision in freshers week, real changes in the range of people we bring into the union, real changes to your committees and how they can work and using those real changes in our welfare campaigns. Because I stick to my manifesto and I'm working through it, step by step to fulfill every promise I made last year - and because you know that I succeeded in that the year before.

So students should vote for me because they trust that I can carry through my policies, and I can take the academic officer role through all of the substantive changes that it will face next year. But more crucially I hope students will vote for me because they identify with my policies; with the need to protect their departmental budgets every year to protect their education, the need for enough information to know how difficult a module will be, and where it will lead them, the need to safeguard the quality of their degree, to have assessments that demonstrate the skills you've learned, the need to give adequate support - which means online provision and peer tutoring as well as traditional lectures and seminars, because they want an employability strategy which gives them support all the way through university to do whatever they want to do when they leave: be it further education, a job in the graduate sector, the public sector... wherever.

JR: I am the candidate with the most experience and knowledge of academic issues. I am the candidate with the most passion and determination. I will represent all student groups fairly and make sure that Course Reps do the same; I will fight against damaging Higher Education changes and also negotiate better library provisions -and I will always be open and contactable.

EV: Because I'm running an honest campaign and because I'm in this for them. I'm not a politician, I'm not trying to advance my career or prepare for further education and I'm not using this as a stepping stone. This is it for me - being Academic Affairs Officer, and thus helping students, is the goal. If students vote for me, they are voting for someone who will put them first every time and who won't settle into her ways and start deciding what she thinks is right or wrong, what she thinks students want. I will find out from you what you want changed and I will change it.

• What do you think are the biggest issues the university is facing right now?

MB: There are so many academic issues facing students in York at the moment. Be it the library refurbishment disrupting students during important exam revision, the inadequate facilities on campus for group work or limited access to key course materials. However, in my personal opinion, student finance is the biggest threat to students, both current and future. We do not know how much damage will be caused by the upcoming budget cuts, nor do we know if tuition fees are likely to rise. It is essential that we fight both a cut in academic budgets and an increase in tuition fees to ensure that degree quality is maintained and that higher education is open to all.

BH: 1) Funding cuts: Its obvious, and its crucial. With millions slashed from the HEFCE budget before a general election we can guarantee that bigger and more painful cuts are coming, its going to be crucial how we deal with that: my answer is to give course reps access to departmental budgets, to ensure money is kept in developing study spaces and to work with the institution to find new peer to peer support groups to fill the gaps/make up the difference. We're going to need to be firm in our defence of student's education, but flexible enough to find the right solution, dedicated to getting what students want but realistic in what we shout for - our arguments need to prioritize students education, not ask the university to create a money tree.

2) Modularisation: As the university enters into a new modular format from next year we face two crucial challenges. Firstly we desperately need to ensure that this new format works. Along with standardized feedback and more standard appeals, assessment and study criteria we're facing monumental shifts in some departments - and many of them aren't prepared, only now realising that filling in a "modularisation" form is nowhere near half the battle and that some areas will need real structural change. Coping with this shift will put serious pressure on some departmental infrastucture and we're going to need a strong first year course rep system to deal with it.

More pertinent to current students, perhaps, is the need to not forget all of those who are currently going into their second and third years. With some departments already failing to give sufficient support, feedback and preparation to current students and allowing exam procedure to become a mess its going to be the academic officer's job to identify where departments are forgetting about the students still going through the university and deal with it.

3) Employability: Even though last year was tough, and this year will be worse the graduate job sector isn't going to be on an upswing any time soon. With a backlog of graduates developing their CVs without access to the job market there's going to be higher standards and stronger competition for places for years to come. We haven't cracked employability at York yet, our graduate recruitment rate is still woefully low, and it is going to be a key part of the academic officers job to develop this.

4) Representation: We've developed representation at York massively in the academic side over the last couple of years, but this representation has to be effective. As we move on its crucial that departments see and see soon the power that the representative structure can have, so that the student voice which is present in so much of our decision making process now doesn't end up being a token one. We have a short timescale to prove to the university that we are a force to be reckoned with, next year is going to be crucial in raising our representative profile.

5) Departmental accountability: One of the greatest difficulties that we face is holding departments to account, to ensure that the decisions we push through actually make real, positive changes to students on the ground. It allows, through having every one of the 26 departments accountable directly to the vice chancellor, departments to slip through the gaps without anyone to pick them up. We need a faculty system to strengthen the lines of accountability - faculties of science, arts, social sciences and (possibly) life sciences. This structure would mirror our own representative structure, and allow us to have a stronger voice at every level.

JR: Modularisation is coming into effect in October; the biggest Academic changes for a generation at York. This will be the biggest time user of all things for the next year. Tuition Fees are another major issue as the government report continues this year. Library refurbishment is also affecting almost every student and will improve the studies of almost every future student - but we need to ensure that it's solely beneficial and that there is plenty of study space, provision for more key texts and better support for students.

EV: Higher education funding cuts, without a doubt. This is going to trickle down to every aspect of student life and while the university will try to avoid cutting academic budgets, they're still at risk. We've got to keep departments open, we've got to maintain an excellent standard of teaching and resources and we have to improve the system where ever possible, despite the cuts. Students must come first!

• What is the best thing you've done at university?

MB: The best thing I have done in University in my opinion is to be first Secretary, then Chair of a committee that took ChemSoc from obscurity within Chemistry in first year, to 180 people attending a guest lecture last term. It was a proud moment, and a memory that will last a long time.

BH: In my current role: Freshers week was fantastic, It was great to get out there and greet so many people coming to university for the first time or returning for a second third or graduate year...and I was pleased by the strength of some of the STYC systems we saw. Generally over the year I think the greatest achievement has been reforming and developing welfare committee: Its a big structural change and its the root of all the campaigning, advice and support we've given...as well as the heart of the development of the Advice and support centre, which I initiated with Charlie and developed over the summer.

Before my sabbatical year... I was very proud of my committee and the work we did in the Love Without Borders campaign in my third year, as well as the NUS' recognition of that campaign, and its certainly an example of the enthusiasm I'd like to see in all welfare campaigns at York. Academically my final year project, on the externalities around air travel, was a big (if slightly rushed) achievement and I'm looking forward to developing on that after I finish my sabbatical time at York.

Apologies for having three there....but I've had more time here than most, so it's hard to choose...

JR: The best thing I have done at university is help to raise over £3,000 for Haiti victims a little while ago and over £2,500 for Gaza victims last January. There is nothing that you can do at University better than raising money for those in need and I'd urge everyone to help out at RAG events or donate money! {{Note: I also really enjoyed making liquid nitrogen ice cream as Chair of the Physics Society but I think that option will be blocked by health and safety}}

EV: Becoming LGBT Officer, without a doubt. Peter and I fought a hard election campaign and winning was such an incredible feeling. We've managed to bring so much to the role and helped so many people, and we have so many people to thank for making that a reality.

• What do you think makes you particularly suited to the role?

MB: I am personally suited to the role of Academic Affairs because through the Course Rep system I have learnt how to effectively communicate between departments and students, been able to learn from my peers and help spread best practice ideas to other Course Reps. I feel that I am a personable, approachable, helpful guy who gets on, does his best and achieves results. I don't like time wasting so I promise to push on and get the job done, and fight for the students of this University.

BH: I don't think I have anything to add here... my experience, my ideas, the passion which sees me in the office at ridiculous hours of the morning developing our campaigns and work...everything I've already said I guess!

I would add that one factor that is often understated but is well known across unions is that being a sabbatical officer is in itself a learning process - you develop as time goes on and get more focused, more clear, better at communicating and delegating tasks that stop you fulfilling your main roles. I'm really aware that if I'd started this year with the knowledge, the clarity and the skills I've developed further from my past union work in being a sabb, I'd have pushed my achievement much further in my first two terms. So I hope that, without that lead period (every sabb has it....from every union, for the first year at any rate), I'll be able to push forward more quickly and more effectively than I could as a first year officer.

JR: I have spent years representing students academically. I have won battles as a Course Rep (see full board renovation in the Physics building!) and improved support at the University Library Committee. I have written nationally-distributed articles on Higher Education and have been involved in many discussions on modularisation. I represented the whole of academia in YUSU Council and the whole of the student body in University Senate. This role combines the two and I think that I have already shown that I can do the job.

EV: I'm good with people and I'm honest to a fault. As I've said elsewhere, I'm not a politician and I don't play games. I'm in this for what I can bring to the role and not what the role can bring to me. This position requires sensitivity, determination, skill and understanding, and I have those qualities, as my work with YUSU LGBT has shown.

• Who is your favourite character from Sesame Street and why?

MB: My favourite character in Sesame Street is Oscar the Grouch. This is because in my first year, one of my housemates as part of a campaign for Environment & Ethics climbed into a wheelie bin for poster shots. The comparison was brilliant, and sticks in my memory!

BH: I was always a bit of an Ernie fan... he's a total geek but adorable, but I fell in love with the Elmo toy we had when we shot some videos of what we've been doing in our roles last year... so I guess its got be Elmo!!

JR: The Cookie Monster because (choose the best answer): a) he doesn't shy away from doing what he thinks is the right thing to do or b) cookies are awesome and I also enjoy eating everything. I don't know which is the worse answer...

EV: The Count! He used to scare me as a kid but I loved his voice.

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