On the Campaign Trail: Day 4

Today, voting opened! After an initial problem that meant the Academic Officer voting had to be reset, voting began again at 10am. Any of those students who voted for Academic Officer before 10 will unfortunately have to re-do their vote. Laptops have been set up in the Hive so that students can vote there if they want, and ‘Union on Tour’ has begun, so some Student Officers will be going to a different academic building each day, in areas where often union involvement is lower, to raise awareness of the elections and provide laptops for voting. We’re hoping to raise turnout even more this year, so fingers crossed!

When I first came onto campus, I spent a bit of time at the UCU picket line, and BBC Look East came along to film for a while, to report on the strike. As a result, this evening, current Academic Officer Rachel and I (with my ‘Kirsty for Academic’ t-shirt) appeared on the evening news! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00znwt9/Look_East_East_24_03_2011/ - at about 18:35, but I don’t think it will stay up for long on iPlayer)

Me and Rachel on the BBC Look East

You may be noticing a pattern here, but today was yet another beautiful day. Plenty of students were outside, in great moods and we were able to talk to many more. I chatted to a group of MED students, who expressed some of the same concerns as Medics I’d spoken to earlier this week, such as library opening times during July, when they still have work to complete. This is something that, if elected, I would definitely look into further and try to remedy. A group of mature students in Blend were particularly interested in the changes I would like to make to IT services and the implementation of e-submission, and I spoke to students from pharmacy, LIT, Art History who were all frustrated that they hadn’t yet received their exam timetables. Two American Art History students, who are based in the Sainsbury Centre, said they weren’t sure they would vote in the Union elections as they didn’t feel that connected to the Union and were hardly ever near Union House. I discussed with them what the Union does, how it supports, advises and represents students and how voting in the elections was a way of feeling more involved in the Union, of having a say in how it was run. After we had talked for several minutes and I discussed my policies with them, I think they were convinced to vote! When I went to the final blocks in the Village I didn’t reach last night, several students complained about printing issues and we discussed the ways in which my policies of improving printing services and e-submission would both help this issue.

Students enjoying the sun in the Square

As ever, if you would like to find out more about my policies or when I’m going to be about to chat to you on campus, please email me (academic[AT]kirstycallaghan[DOT]com) or write on my Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/KirstyforAcademic.