Warwick Students’ Union Term 1 All Student Vote opens on Tuesday

The All Student Vote (ASV) for this term will open at 9am on Tuesday 12 November, with the meeting to take place the day prior.

Students at the University of Warwick have until Friday 15 November at noon to vote on seven motions put forward to the Students’ Union (SU).

The All Student Vote meeting held today at 5pm in the SU Atrium enables students to debate and vote on ideas and motions that have been submitted by fellow students.

Successful motions become official SU policies which sabbatical officers will have to act upon. 

The motions for this term are:

• Guaranteed on-campus accommodation for students returning from a year abroad
• Post-study work visas to be made available equally to new and existing students
• Increasing available study space
• Switching to Ecosia as the default search engine on all campus computers
• The SU to call for climate justice
• Warwick SU for Fair Pay and Pensions
• Approving SU affiliations with external organisations. 

Guaranteed on-campus accommodation

This motion asks the SU to lobby the University to guarantee students returning from a year abroad on-campus accommodation for the 2020/21 academic year. 

The University had previously provided guaranteed on-campus accommodation for students returning from a compulsory year abroad. However, this decision was revoked for those students returning in the 2020/21 academic year. 

Post-study work visas for new and existing students

This motion asks the SU to lobby for international students to receive a post-study work visa and to work with the University to protect the rights of international students.

This comes after the government’s new visa scheme named ‘Post Study Work visa’ would allow international students starting university in 2020/21 to have two years non-extendable leave after their studies. This policy does not apply to existing international students already studying in the UK. 

Increase available study space

This motion asks Milly Last, the Democracy and Development Officer (DDO), to increase the number of available study spaces by term 3 of the academic year 2019/20. 

In a 2017 All Member Survey conducted by the SU, 46% of undergraduate students stated “lack of study space” as their main concern. Proposed resolutions for this motion have included “changing the old Sports Centre into a study space for students.”

Switch to Ecosia on all campus computers

This motion asks the DDO and Rebecca Brown, the Environment and Ethics Officer to lobby the University and SU to make Ecosia the default search engine on all campus computers.

Listed in the motion were reasons such as “Ecosia is a search engine that uses over 80% of their benefits towards reforestation and already more than 70 million trees have been planted.” 

The SU has stated: “Students are willing to make the switch, the 170 followers on Instagram and more than 50 subscribers on Facebook we rallied in only a few weeks demonstrate that wish.” 

Warwick SU for Climate Justice

This motion asks the SU to campaign for the University to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 and to demand the University to remove the BP archive. 

The SU will ask the DDO and President Ben Newsham to support the climate strike on 29 November and to do the same for future climate demonstrations. 

Warwick SU for Fair Pay and Pensions

This motion calls on the SU to support the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) staff taking industrial action over disputes regarding pay and pensions and also supporting student protests against the University. 

SU affiliations

This motion asks the SU to approve its affiliations with external organisations. The current affiliations are National Union of Students (NUS), British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS), AdviceUK, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) and Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce.