Hi there,

Thank you for your You Make Change. Our elections at SUSU are ran 3 times a year to ensure that we have a wide range of students running from different faculties across the university. At each level from course rep to sabbatical officers, we already have a diverse range of students who are involved – we have a huge cohort of students from different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities and countries who want to represent you at all stages of your degree. We cannot stop anyone from running in an election either as the opportunity is for everyone and anyone and this year, we have had our first liberation officers who work with VP Welfare and Communities as well!

At SUSU, we believe that as members of the union should have a say in everything we do which is why any rep, president, senator, chair and officer are elected through a democratic election process. The students vote for who they wish to see represent them to the university.

We are currently reviewing our democratic systems to see if there is any way we can make it more accessible. For example, we took away people's faces on the website when people vote last year, and we are considering how we can make things more accessible during organised campaigning.

We are also asking the students to think about who they are voting for. Every representative is democratically elected by students, and there must be some onus on the students decisions as they are the ones voting.

To find out more about who represents you at SUSU, head to: https://www.susu.org/representation/your-officers or https://www.susu.org/representation/academic-representation.html for academic interests.

However, if you would like to discuss it further on how we can work to make this better, do email me on vpeddem@soton.ac.uk or drop by the sabb office on your way into building 42.

On behalf of the 2019-20 sabbatical team,

Jo Lisney VP Education & Democracy 2019-20, (vpeddem@soton.ac.uk)