Isobel Porteous - Union President

Hi there! Thank you for your question. Yes, I have mentioned that I would push for some of the exam period before Christmas break, but I wish I had rewritten this in my manifesto to instead say 'Making use of the changes to the academic year!' (we had a very strict word limit for our manifestos so I definitely didn't get to include all of my points). As you may already know, week 12 of teaching is now before the Christmas break, so I want to make use of this change by either moving some exams before the break to help with bad exam spacing, or to give everyone a reading week - whichever students prefer the most! I highlighted exams before the Christmas break as I know for a lot of students, they feel like they don't get a proper break over Christmas because of this. Also, with everyone's exams in January, room availability for exams is often an issue which can lead to many students having to sit multiple exams in one day or less than a day apart. This is something which I feel is a very large issue, so having some exams before Christmas would hopefully help! Of course, this would not be the case for all courses. Degrees which are very coursework-heavy would not have their exams moved before Christmas break, as I know this would be much to stressful for students to worry about exams and coursework simultaneously, and have a detrimental effect on their grades. However, courses which are more exam-heavy may benefit from having their exams before the break (even if it is just one or two of them) to give them peace of mind that some of their exams are over and so they have more spaced out exams! I also want the university to start releasing exam timetables earlier if this were to happen, so students have time to get ready and feel prepared before their exams before Christmas. Hope this helps!

Definitely more frequent, cheaper buses! So many of our buses are way too infrequent at the moment (like the U6, U1N, U1E, U7, U2 and U9) and means that students either have to wait unreasonable waiting times for buses, or resort to other means of (potentially less safe or more expensive) transport. Because of this infrequency, buses also end up being very overcrowded - which makes for not the most pleasant journey! Our bus prices have also risen far too high to be affordable on a student budget anymore, so with no restrictions, one of the first things I'd do is reduce both bus fares and bus prices for all buses! It is very unfair that some buses (like the U7 and the U1N) have much higher prices than other buses, and just in general we have to pay way too much currently. I hope this answers your question!

Yes of course! Students being overbooked onto courses is a major issue that impacts every part of university life as you said. Sadly, I think the university allows these departments to get away with overbooking their courses because it gives them a greater amount of funding. If I‘m elected I would definitely want to work on this issue, as having the right amount of students on each course would relieve pressure on lecturers, increase availability of larger lecture theatres and hopefully slightly reduce pressure on local transport too. I would work with the university to create stricter regulations around course capacity, given our limited uni resources, and ensure that each department (but most importantly the ones who are notorious for overbooking courses!) follows these regulations and must submit frequent updates about the number of students on their course to the university, so that courses have an appropriate number of students on them before they begin.

Hi there! I think what made me first want to apply for Union President was hearing about issues that my friends (especially those on society committees) or people around campus would talk about (or post about online), and resonating with these issues and wanting them to be fixed! I wanted to help ensure that current student experiences can be improved before they graduate next year, or in the next few years. Overall, I just really want to have a positive impact and make a difference on behalf of all students, and I have lots of ideas and thought out solutions as to how I want to go about making this change - which is why I applied for the role!

Yes! I have 2 - My Instagram @isobel_for_president and my TikTok with the same name. I will be posting more stuff there soon!

Thank you! As I have said on my instagram post about buses, changes made to buses (increasing frequency and reducing fares) will be very difficult, given the university’s budget and the current cost of living crisis - not to mention that bus companies are separate to SUSU! At the moment, most of our single prices are £2.60, which is slightly less than the national cap of £3, so it would be possible for them to charge more if they wanted to. I want to prevent this from happening.

My plan around reducing fares is to first work with the local council, Unilink/Bluestar and the university to see if there is any chance of lowering bus fares and creating a local cap (which other councils have managed to put in place). I would want to first get the buses that are priced at £3 (the U1N, U7 and U9) in line with the other Unilink routes. If there is a lot of resistance to this, then I will work with Bluestar/Unilink to try and bring in a student fare - so we get reduced prices on all buses, even if the rest of Southampton does not (this is very common in a lot of other uni cities!).

For the bus passes, at the moment Bluestar/Unilink has an Academic Year bus pass and an Annual Bus pass - both of which are valid for 365 days. Not all students need to use university buses all year round, so I would campaign to introduce another bus pass, which is just valid from September to June instead of July to June! This would mean that students who feel that they don’t need the academic year bus pass could get a cheaper one, since it would be valid for less time.

Finally, I am prepared to make this a national issue, especially if my other plans to reduce fares above fail. Recently, the government rejected a petition to bring the bus cap for a single journey back down to £2. As part of my job as president, I will be working with other students from the Russell Group universities and I would raise bus prices as a large issue during meetings with them. I plan to start an UK university wide petition to give to the government campaigning for the cap to be lowered once more, which with enough support, would hopefully pass.

Another issue I would raise with is attempting to nationalise our bus companies (a very aspirational goal, but worth a try!) Our bus companies (Unilink/Bluestar). are owned by the GoAhead group, who operate in London and the Southeast. Sadly, they are owned by two foreign transport companies in Australia and Spain. As the GoAhead group is one of the leading bus providers in the Southeast and London, and has only recently changed hands (it used to be owned by a company in Newcastle before 2022) I would work with other councils and universities in these areas to petition the government to get this company nationalised, so we have more control over our buses!

I hope this answered your question, and thank you again for asking it!

Hi there! Thank you for your question. Yes, I have mentioned that I would push for some of the exam period before Christmas break, but I wish I had rewritten this in my manifesto to instead say 'Making use of the changes to the academic year!' (we had a very strict word limit for our manifestos so I definitely didn't get to include all of my points). As you may already know, week 12 of teaching is now before the Christmas break, so I want to make use of this change by either moving some exams before the break to help with bad exam spacing, or to give everyone a reading week - whichever students prefer the most! I highlighted exams before the Christmas break as I know for a lot of students, they feel like they don't get a proper break over Christmas because of this. Also, with everyone's exams in January, room availability for exams is often an issue which can lead to many students having to sit multiple exams in one day or less than a day apart. This is something which I feel is a very large issue, so having some exams before Christmas would hopefully help! Of course, this would not be the case for all courses. Degrees which are very coursework-heavy would not have their exams moved before Christmas break, as I know this would be much to stressful for students to worry about exams and coursework simultaneously, and have a detrimental effect on their grades. Students need time to properly focus and complete their coursework before they worry about exams! However, courses which are more exam-heavy may benefit from having their exams before the break (even if it is just one or two of them) to give them peace of mind that some of their exams are over and so they have more spaced out exams (this would also allow other courses to have more spaced out January exams too)! I also want the university to start releasing exam timetables earlier if this were to happen, so students have time to get ready and feel prepared before their exams before Christmas. Hope this helps!

Isobel has not answered this question yet

This question was also asked to Krzysztof Mikulski, Alice Robertson

Isobel has not answered this question yet

This question was also asked to Krzysztof Mikulski, Alice Robertson

Isobel has not answered this question yet

This question was only asked to Isobel

Isobel has not answered this question yet

This question was only asked to Isobel