Kendall Field-Pellow

Why vote for me?

Tired of all these meaningless elections? Fed up of SUSU’s nonsense repeating term after term? Wonder what SUSU is actually for?

DO vote me #1 if you:

• don’t care who wins this arbitrary election
• think that SUSU isn’t serving the purpose it claims to
• want to see dramatic change within SUSU

DON’T vote me #1 if you:

• actually like any of the candidates and genuinely think they will change things
• are perfectly content with the way SUSU operates
• think I will accept the position (I won’t)

Here’s what I think a VP EdDem should do:

• Engage students in the issue of marketisation of Higher Education. We’re heading towards crisis as the UCU strikes happen more and more regularly, yet SUSU hasn’t critically engaged in the reasons why uni staff are striking. We should be at least talking about the fact that the uni are casualising our lecturers’ contracts as it affects our education! The Vice-Chancellor of OUR uni is the chair of UCEA - he was in the negotiations with the UCU! That alone should make our uni an epicentre for student politics!!!
• Re-politicise the Union. SUSU have forgotten that they are a body of student governance; they are meant to be the heart of student politics at our university. Yet instead of fostering and encouraging student activism and campaigning, they treat students like passive thoughtless consumers who are only here for the generic ‘university experience’ as if our tuition is a festival ticket. SUSU is where student activism goes to die, and that needs to change.
• Re-evaluate the bureaucratic machine. It’s not SUSU’s fault it is a bureaucracy, it’s meant to be bureaucratic by its very nature. However, the wheels of this machine are falling off, as democratic engagement (which was already on a slow decline) is now plummeting. Noone cares or knows about the AGM, student consultations,‘You Make Change’, termly senate meetings, etc except for a tiny minority of students; and SUSU blames the majority for being ‘too apathetic’ or ‘not taking up their responsibility’ without asking ‘why?’. If students really don’t care about the part of SUSU that makes it an SU, then why should it continue to be one? The way it’s democratic processes work need to be overhauled and replaced, as well as its attitude towards its student members.
• Actually try to change the University (y’know, the point of SUs). STEM degrees and research are being increasingly funded by and geared towards unethical industries like Arms, Surveillance, and Fossil Fuels. The university should not force us towards militarism, fossil fuels and privacy-invasive Big Data, we should have the right to choose. We need to demilitarise, decolonise, decarbonise and divest our university for the sake of our careers, if not our consciences.
• Tackle racist policies, borders and policing in higher education - which kill knowledge and discriminate against minority students and staff - from the Hostile Environment to the Prevent duty. Join the Southampton Black Students’ Network for more info on this.

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