Joshie Christian - Vice President Education

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  • Lobby for university wide reading/consolidation weeks, alleviating Semester 1 burnout.
  • Improve clarity of assignments and support reps to reduce overassessment.
  • Greater student involvement in big decisions, keeping you more informed!
  • Reduce email overload by allowing opt-outs and redirecting communications.
  • Transform vacant buildings into study spaces, improve bookings and accessibility.

Vote for Joshie Christian now!

Why vote for Joshie?

I’m Joshie - I want to support your amazing Course Reps and ensure student voices are heard across the university. I’m running for another year as your VP Education to provide continuity, strengthen your representation, and improve your student experience!

Introduce reading weeks - When the Academic Calendar changes, there’s a unique opportunity to campaign for something many students have been asking for! I’ll work with your School/Department Presidents to secure either reading weeks, consolidation weeks, or simply a week during Semester 1 without teaching activity: time to rest, catch up on content, and get ahead on assessments! Existing reading weeks should be aligned, supporting Joint Honours students who often benefit from none of their different reading weeks. Every student deserves a work-life balance, including regular opportunities to recharge!

Continue reducing overassessment -The new university policy will prioritise student consultation during the design of all assessments! As returning VP Education, I will develop additional training and workshops over the summer so your Course Reps can confidently challenge unsustainable assessment practices and improve your overall assessment experience! I’ve collected extensive student feedback about clarity in assessment, and will introduce student-designed templates for assessment briefs. This ensures academics include all the information you need to know, whether that’s wordcounts and referencing, or online tools and the submission process. I will introduce templates for the front pages of in-person and online exams, making sure you’re never left feeling uncertain.

Keeping you informed - When changes happen and decisions are made, students shouldn’t be left behind. I will regularly make sure our student body are the decision makers for the university and the students’ union, incorporating a fortnightly vote or question into the emails from the Sabbatical Officer team! Throughout next year, our university will implement new assessment policies, change its academic calendar, choose a new vice-chancellor, and more! I will ensure all students are regularly updated by running informational campaigns, online and across our campuses, and by directly asking students what they think our community should know more about!

Reduce email overload - Students’ inboxes waste valuable time, as do constant notifications from the app. I plan to push back against extraneous mass emailing, moving communications into appropriate alternative channels, such as MySouthampton feeds. Your primary inbox should be reserved for information about your studies and student experience, with options to opt-out of the clutter. I want every student to be able to prioritise what matters most to them.

Study spaces - I want you to get the most out of your teaching, learning, and study spaces. 

  • Empty floors of Building 2 should become quiet study spaces.
  • Students to be consulted on new study spaces at WSA and City Centre campuses.
  • Room data needs overhauling, improving information available on timetables and booking systems about accessibility, sensory needs, lighting, ventilation, bathroom access, etc.
  • Livestreamed/recorded lectures suffer from shoddy tech; students need direct reporting channels for cameras and microphones that need upgrading.
  • Introduce well-defined room categories to help match activities to the right spaces.

Questions & Answers

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Hiya, thank you for being so honest with your question! Apologies for the delay in response, the SUSU Digital Team and I have been trying to fix a bug where all the formatting disappears from candidates answers, making them difficult to read and process! We've not managed to sort it right away so, rather than send a response that will become a massive wall of unformatted text, I've added it to a doc and linked my answer here: docs.google.com/document/d/15C6W1FrD1KsVYzmnPAHTCZE0EKIVBZpWMUCPVE2lB8A

This question was also asked to Joshie

Answered by Joshie on 04/03/26 10:24

Hiya, thank you so much for the question!

The best place to follow my campaign is to find me on Instagram: @joshie_vp_education

Over the next two weeks, I'll be writing about each of my manifesto points in some greater depth, introducing some of the other things that I plan to work on next year, and recording some videos answering your questions!

This question was also asked to Kunpeng 'Steve' Yu, Leah Ball, Uzair 'Yumiko' Asum-Mirza

Answered by Joshie on 02/03/26 17:52

Thank you for sending this in - this is always such a great question! For me, the only way for your reps and I to hit the ground running, in amongst all the changes happening this September, is for your VP Education to bring together a fresh approach to the training for Course Reps and Senior reps, and for SUSU to have video and informational campaigns and resources ready to launch at the start of the next academic year to teach students all about their new assessment rights and educate ourselves on how we can make even more change this year. The first thing I’ll be doing is dedicating every available minute of the summer months to developing our approach to pushing for assessment and educational changes! I want to empower your course reps to take the world by storm in 2026! We need to be ready to be loud and transparent about any changes coming from the university and everything that we can do as students to have a massive impact this year! All the best, Joshie :)

This question was also asked to Kunpeng 'Steve' Yu, Leah Ball, Uzair 'Yumiko' Asum-Mirza

Answered by Joshie on 04/03/26 09:20

Thank you so much for sending in such an important question. As the formatting on our answers doesn't show on the webpage I'll number my answers to each of your questions to help make it clear which part I am answering at each point.

1) All transgender people are valid, they have always existed and have always been valid. Their name and their pronouns should always be used and respected. I will always speak out when this doesn’t happen in any room or on any system across the university. I have taken on a segment of the responsibilities of the VP Inclusion this year, which has included working hard to reduce deadnaming in university systems, and I am very pleased to report that changes have been made and we are closer to eradicating all known issues. For any students who are looking for support to change their name or other details in university systems, I am always happy to help, and would also recommend starting with this blog from my Transgender Awareness Week campaign that pulled together a bunch of info about correcting names and pronouns across university systems: https://www.susu.org/2025/11/13/names-matter-all-the-ways-to-change-your-name-at-uos/

2) Everyone should be able to use the bathroom and changing room they want to, and should have the right to choose what is comfortable for them. Any trans-exclusionary signage must be removed. Within institutions like universities and students’ unions, it is our responsibility to make our community feel safe and able to use the space they would prefer to be in. Having a range of facilities is also often a good way to achieve this, so no one has to head elsewhere to find alternative bathrooms. Spaces that every transgender student feels comfortable in should be available in every building.

3) I think that gender-neutral facilities are often the right move for ensuring everyone is safe and comfortable. I particularly like the new single-person changing and shower cubicles next to the swimming pool in Jubilee Sports Centre, and also much prefer the single-person cubicle toilets with sinks that are available on the bottom floor of Building 100. The uni has several new buildings or refurbishment projects on the way, such as B75 (the big one in progress on the corner of campus), a new Lab building, and refurbishments of the Nuffield Theatre and the Hartley Library, so we should be asking students what facilities are right for them and making sure these are implemented into these spaces. The VP Education leads on gathering student voice around the design of learning spaces, and the Union President is the key student representative for the other building and estates projects. Both officers should always involve wider student voices, and the VP Inclusion, to ensure that diverse needs from across our student community are represented and implemented into the design of new spaces.

4) Sports should be trans-inclusive, and I would like to see more done by our national sporting bodies to ensure that this happens. I think we should seek transgender student representation on our Sports Executive Committee at SUSU, and ensure fair access to sport across the university, engaging with current students to address any areas where this is not currently happening.

This question was also asked to Kunpeng 'Steve' Yu, Leah Ball, Uzair 'Yumiko' Asum-Mirza

Answered by Joshie on 09/03/26 10:26

This is a great question! There's two things I'd do as VP Education to address when materials are locked away! Many pages are locked or deleted because our lecturers are trying to clear out their blackboard lists of old classes; I want there to be an alternative option to transfer the ownership of the page the admin account for blackboard, so the page can remain open to students but we avoid losing content because academics want to clear out old pages. Some lecturers do lock or delete old blackboard pages to deliberately remove student access, so that coursework can be re-used next year. The best case would, of course, be for updated coursework with new questions to be written each year, but if this can't happen, then we should remind academics that there are always some students in higher years who would have downloaded the coursework solutions or mark schemes, or they can still be found posted in old group chats, so what's the point in trying to hide them away from the next year group! There's clearly no real benefit to doing this for students or for staff, so I would recommend that the option to lock or close a blackboard page has a note or pop-up that suggests staff instead consider taking down the mark scheme, but leave access to all the notes and slides that we need to continue to develop those skills and ideas that span across several modules. I would want to implement both of these fixes to address this issue at the root and shift staff towards ensuring that we have everything we need to be successful and confident at every step of our academic journey!

This question was also asked to Kunpeng 'Steve' Yu, Leah Ball, Uzair 'Yumiko' Asum-Mirza

Answered by Joshie on 09/03/26 18:06

Thank you so much for your question! Top of the list for me, of course, is my year as Course Rep for Mathematics, followed by my year as School President! I absolutely loved every minute of being a rep, and it only drove me to want to think bigger and make fresh and meaningful change! I was also a student senator (on what is now called Student Council), then did a year as Chair of Senate, so I spent over two years (before joining SUSU as a Sabb myself) working with previous Sabb teams and holding them to account! I was very lucky, as chair of senate, to be elected to also be the undergraduate representative on the University Senate! A massive group of around 70 people (5 of them students) that make the high level academic decisions at the university! Outside of repping, I was the treasurer of SUMS (southampton university mathematics society - world’s best acronyms!) for three years, and vice president too for one of them! I planned and ran our end of year ball and had a phenomenal time, especially doing events like the SUMS Pirate Game!!! I’ve been a regular member of Dr Who Society, LGBTQ+ Society, and a couple others here and there! Other things I’ve picked up as a student included three years writing and delivering a buddy scheme for my school (forever thankful for the over 20 fellow maths students who step up ever year to make our Buddy scheme fab!). I have been an open day ambassador for my whole university journey, and delivered the welcome talks to terrifying rooms of about 400 guests. There’s a lot I’ve loved getting stuck in with over the last couple years and I love being able to do the same at SUSU, picking up ownership of events like Break the Ice and bringing extra campaigns like Ace Awareness Week and Did You Know? Thank you for the question it’s such a fun one to answer! All the best! Joshie :)

This question was also asked to Joshie

Answered by Joshie on 11/03/26 08:26