Elections week begins with Candidate Question Time

Elections week kicked off on Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 February with the Candidate Question Time hosted in the evenings in the atrium.

The turnout to the event on Monday ranged from around 30 for the questions to the welfare and campaigns candidates but rose to around 60 for the questions to the education and presidential candidates.

There was a similar turnout for the event on Tuesday. Numbers dwindled as the questions went on, but some attributed this to the cold in the atrium rather than a loss of interest.

Questions were asked to candidates standing for the sabbatical positions of welfare and campaigns officer, education officer, and president on Monday, and postgraduate officer, sport officer, democracy and development officer and societies officer on Tuesday.

The candidates each gave a short speech about why they were running and answered questions submitted anonymously by students, and then took questions from the floor.

On Monday evening, the candidates for welfare and campaigns answered questions first: Karis Baxter, Louis Bond, Hava Kranat, Ruth Robinson, Amy Swain, Cathryn Turhan and Ellen White. Chris Drake was absent from the hustings.

The anonymous questions ranged from the issue of religious tolerance on campus, the role of the four liberation officers and how to make accommodation and campus more accessible for disabled students. A question from the floor brought up the issue of mental health provision by the University.

The candidates offered their ideas for tackling religious intolerance on campus: Robinson suggested increasing communication between faith societies, whilst Bond also recommended improving communication to stop animosity that can be caused by miscommunication.

On the topic of the four part-time liberation officers, Turhan suggested giving them an office from which to operate, whilst Baxter proposed spreading the workload further and raising awareness of the role of the liberation officers.

On the subject of improving accessibility for disabled students, Swain recommended improving assistive technologies on campus through technology and improving access to Students’ Union (SU) events like the summer party.

White advocated communicating more with disabled students to finds out their individual needs. On the area of mental health provision, Kranat thought that the counselling services on campus needed improving, with a wider selection of therapy approaches needed.

Next it was the turn of the candidates for education officer to answer questions: Erin Davies and James Entwistle.

The anonymous questions focused on improving the personal tutor system and quality of contact hours, asking if ‘education conventions’ were a success, whether the new Student Staff Liason Committee portal page would be successful and how the quality of feedback students received could be improved.

On the topic of the personal tutor system, Davies put forward the idea of people having the same personal tutor throughout your whole degree, whilst Entwistle hoped that the introduction of Virtual Learning Environments would enable a more interactive relationship with tutor and student.

Finally the candidates for the position of president took to the stage. Aaron Bowater, Muhammad Ali, Ben Frew, Ben Sundell and Nick Swain each took turns to outline what they wanted to do as president.

The questions varied from asking what they believed the most important issue was to students, to whether they thought the NUS was value for money, their position on boycotts and what they thought about allegations of sexism in SU societies and sports clubs.

The candidates agreed that financial concerns were the main concern for students, with Frew promising to work on fighting hidden course costs, whilst Swain said there shouldn’t be a disparity in resources departments offer to students.

Bowater suggested that fees should rise to £100,000 so that nobody would be able to pay them off.

On the NUS, Sundell said that the national body offered important resources to SUs, whilst Ali suggested that it should be better value for money.

On Tuesday evening, the first candidates to take to the floor were those running for postgraduate officer – Kit Long and Lucy Gill.

They were asked questions ranging from the question of how to be more inclusive of postgraduates in the Warwick community, the problem of scholarships and degree funding and how to help postgraduates with their time management between teaching and learning.

Both candidates agreed on a postgraduate orientation or welcome week as a proposal, and Gill stressed the need for the SU to campaign for a postgraduate loan scheme. Long wished to focus on increasing the number of scholarships within the departments which need them most.

The next candidates to give a short speech and answer questions were the candidates for sports officer, who included Zoe Buckland, Robbie Gorman, Thomas Lamb and Baris Yerli.

Students asked the candidates questions about how the sports officer would reach out to all students, including those who were not interested in sport, storage space for clubs and the problem of excessive drinking at Pop!.

Zoe believed that hall sports were the way to get the sports officer involved with all students, and Yerli insisted that more relaxed ‘sports’ such as a spoon and egg race would help break down the barrier.

Lamb said that improving the interface and accessibility of the Warwick Sport website would encourage more support.

On the controversial topic about binge drinking at Pop!, Gorman said that although he thinks it is important for clubs to have a debriefing session on their afternoon matches, a balance needs to be struck between that and excessive drinking.

The four democracy and development candidates were the next to take to the stage: Cosmo March, Joanne Phillips, Hiten Shah and Sam Tracy.

Questions were raised regarding the awareness and success of democracy, attendance of the All Student Meeting and a floor question queried the lack of female representation in democracy at Warwick.

March emphasised his experience as a democratic officer, whilst Phillips suggested the new idea to “speed date a sabbatical officer” to get to know them better.

Shah proposed encouragement of extended campaigning of policies before voting for officers starts, to increase the number of voting students. Tracy wants to push for more voting booths around campus.

The final prospective candidates to take questions were Shayan ‘Shaggy’ Amin, George Chester, Rea Malhotra Mukhtyar and Ant Scott, who were running for the societies officer position.

They were asked about the importance of halls societies, the ease of setting up a new society and the dichotomy between quantity and quality of society members.

Scott suggested that halls societies are very important and the halls presidents should consider remaining in halls in their second year, as they do at other universities. Amin disagreed, saying that presidents would actually rather live with their friends in second year.

On the issue of setting up new societies, Mukhtyar said she would fight for faster feedback on society applications, whereas Chester wanted to create an easier application process altogether.

Voting for candidates opens at 9am on Wednesday 27 February.