Jay Coe - Vice President Inclusion

I’m Jay, a 3rd year history and politics student. I’m disabled, LGBTQ+ and an unpaid carer. 

I have experience working at SUSU’s venues, and as Neurodiversity and Disability Society’s Welfare Officer. I have raised my own and member’s issues directly to SUSU and the University. I have helped support Disability History Month through NDDsoc’s events, and with a blog post I wrote for SUSU to raise awareness for Unpaid Carer’s Right Day. It would mean so much to be able to continue my efforts to make the university a place that is welcoming, accessible and supportive for all, with the voice of every student being heard. I’m incredibly dedicated to this as someone who has faced accessibility issues at university in the past, and watched my friends face similar struggles.

As your VP, I will work towards:

• Improving the university’s resources and their accessibility.
• Ensuring support for students who can’t access healthcare, work, or appropriate housing.
• Ensuring learning plans are being communicated and implemented.
• Ensuring no one is being deadnamed in classes or in emails.
• Ensuring that the same support is available to students no matter the department or campus. 
• Encouraging course staff to reach out to students if absence is persistent to help find out how they can be supported, and in a similar way, continuing to work with the university on the PAT Project to ensure everyone is being adequately supported. 
• Improving accessibility on campus, such as better directions and warnings when accessibility features in buildings, such as lifts, are out of order. This also includes ensuring the university is following through on the issue I raised last year about the inaccessible state of the Highfield-Avenue walkway, and highlighting similar cases.
• Ensuring the university will make their future expansions fully accessible. 
• Ensuring disabled students' classes are in locations and times that allow them to attend. 
• Ensuring students are appropriately accommodated in their exams, and seeing how exam accommodations can be improved to avoid failure to accommodate.
• Promoting accessibility outside of campus, by raising awareness and lobbying the local council and government. 
• Seeing how both the Union’s accessibility networks, and awareness campaigns can be expanded and better promoted, and see how we may be able to involve relevant societies in such initiatives.
• Working to improve the issues faced by international students, such as finding UK guarantors. 
• Working to improve, and raise awareness of, issues faced by other minority student groups, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and religion based hate. 
• Continuing to raise awareness of, and work to improve, the issues student carers face.
• Ensuring student feedback is being received and acted upon.
• Examining where further issues can be raised for all areas, including university sports, societies, work facilities and across all UK based and international campuses. 

It’s incredibly important to ensure that our minority communities are being adequately accommodated and supported, and that everyone feels welcome at University and in our local community. With your vote for Jay, this is something that we can make happen.