Hi there,

Thank you for your query and apologies for the delayed reply.

Firstly, the reason the 'Is the Union Too White?' debate question was removed fromt he Making Change summit last year was because it was going to be led by Arun, the previous VP Student Communities, who was unfortunately ill and thus unable to attend the event so it was not appropriate to continue to have it on the programme.

Secondly, although as you have mentioned our Sabbatical team is all white this year,we have a vast amount of clubs and societies which include students from diverse backgrounds who put on a very broad range of events. We are working very closely with these societies to promote a number of diverse events and support our students and societies from all diverse backgrounds. For example, in October we had Black History Month which I personally worked hard to provide diverse events in conjunction with relevant society groups, such as East African Society, Ghanaian Society and ACS. This year was our biggest and most successful Black History Month yet which saw the most engagement from students to date which was fantastic.

I am also doing alot of work with the University to make the programmes and modules they offer more diverse by looking at changing their programme validation policy which is very exciting.

I hope this assures you that although, as you have pointed out, the Sabbatical team is all white this year we do have diversity in mind and are constantly working to improve diversity and equality at the Union and University. We hope that by actively promoting and putting on lots of events and campaigns which highlight diversity throughout the year, such as Black History Month, this will encourage more people from more diverse backgrounds to run in the future elctions for all roles. Indeed, myself and the democracy team have already begun having conversations abotu how we can improve diversity in our Spring Elections so that hopefully going forward the elected roles in the Union will reflect our wonderfully diverse student population.

If you have any more ideas for what we could be doing to promote diversity or increase engagement with students from more diverse backgrounds please do not hesitate to drop me an email to vpcommunities@susu.org.

Kind regards,

Emily

VP Student Communities 2018-19.