Warwick SU Elections 2025 Question Time Day 1: Part-Time Officers

As part of preparation for this week’s Students’ Union (SU) elections, The Boar recently attended a Question Time event for the candidates vying for the Part-Time Officer positions.

Candidates for the positions were able to launch their campaigns with a short speech, followed by questions asked by The Boar, RAW 1251AM, and audience members in the Kevin Gately Room in the SU building.

Widening Participation Officer

Kicking off the event, the unopposed candidate for Widening Participation Officer, Sihaam Hassan, set out her motivations and ambitions for the role.

In her speech, Hassan highlighted her own personal experience and explained: “I understand how important it is to feel supported and I hopefully want to create that environment for future students.” Among her proposals is the introduction of workshops and bursaries to address people’s individual circumstances, as well as a focus on career advancement.

Asked how she would support working-class students who may be less informed about competitive industries, Hassan suggested that “having workshops that cater to people’s particular niches and the careers that they want to go into would be really important”. These workshops would make use of the personal experience of alumni from similar backgrounds, and would be accompanied by mentorship schemes.

Hassan also acknowledged the necessity of part-time work for widening participation students, and pointed to organisations like Unitemps as useful for finding “flexible work experience” suitable for students. 

Environment and Ethics Officer

There are five candidates running for Environment and Ethics Officer, only one of which was in attendance: Helena Ratcliffe. Another candidate, Bhumika Sachdev, was not present but had her speech read out.

Ratcliffe took a critical stance on Warwick’s green credentials, saying that “the University should do more to ensure that they hit their 2030 net-zero target”. She rejected “vague targets” and suggested that she “would campaign for action now rather than later”. To hit recycling and energy efficiency targets, she called for a greater variety of bins on campus and automatic lights in all accommodations. On the topic of ethics, Ratcliffe said that she aimed to “ensure that students are more involved in the vetting process for companies working with the University”. She also suggested that students should be better informed when seeking future careers with these companies, by “increasing the accessibility of the BP archives” for example.

Commenting on Warwick’s ‘2:2’ rating by People & Planet’s University League and 82nd ranking in the UK for sustainability, Ratcliffe said: “That’s definitely an area I would focus on.” She focused on how the University could improve the sustainability of food waste, suggesting that waste from outlets on campus could be used in compost or for generating energy. Ratcliffe also stressed that “it’s really important to also set up smaller targets along the way to meet the 2030 deadline”, suggesting that “more direct” and immediate milestones would be helpful.

Discussing major steps that the University could take to improve recycling and sustainability in waste disposal on campus, Ratcliffe reiterated her previous points about improved food waste disposal. She also drew on her own experience of flatmates misunderstanding recycling to press the importance of “greater sustainability education”. This would involve “more training, especially as a fresher”.

Sachdev’s speech highlighted her ambition to “bring a change on campus”, backing “an efficient lighting system” for campus and “the use of environmentally friendly packaging materials”. Her ethics-related pledges were to “encourage the university to invest in sustainable development projects” and to “focus on CSR [Corporate social responsibility] to ensure equality for all”.

Women’s Officer

The most contested position up for grabs, Women’s Officer had six candidates, two of whom attended the event: Katie Todd and Valliammai Subramanian.

After outlining her experience at the Societies Forum, Student Council, and PLAN, Todd emphasised her “first-hand experience of the importance of inclusion of all identities on campus”. Her main pledge was to “make Warwick a genuinely safer place”, for instance by providing free drinks covers in bars and clubs. She also noted that she would “amplify underrepresented voices”, prioritising safety and empowerment to “ensure that our communities remain safe”.

Asked about female students’ concerns about safety on nights out, Todd stressed that education “should target everyone on campus”, raising awareness of schemes like Ask Angela.  Her pledges involve “reaching out to societies” to promote education and giving a voice to “strong female role models”. She added that active bystander training should provide ‘more comprehensive information, specifically about clubs off campus” and that training should be provided throughout the year.

Asked whether Report + Support is fit for purpose, Todd said that although the system is a “good thing”, it hasn’t been “completely successful”. She described the system as “difficult to use” and it “hasn’t been quick enough”. This could be helped by improving the accessibility and transparency of the process, as well as by “making sure women have options to talk to many individuals as possible”. She suggested that it is crucial that women are not “asked outdated questions”.

Subramanian began her speech by emphasising her “personal experience with the challenges women face” and focus on “campus safety and security”. She proposed emergency phone booths near accommodations, better lighting on paths around campus, and a “security checkpoint” between campus and Cannon Park. In addition, Subramanian backed the increased subsidisation of self-defence workshops for female staff and students, a “woman-only night bus service running from 1am to 4am”, and weekly refills of sanitary products across campus.

In response to the same question about female students’ safety concerns, Subramanian suggested “mandatory consent workshops especially during Freshers’ Week”, which would be in-person rather than online. She also said that she would “collaborate with clubs” to increase female staff at club nights and support “regular social media campaigns”. In order to “normalise conversations about consent and safety”, she would work with societies.

Unlike Todd, Subramanian said that Report + Support is indeed fit for purpose, although she pointed out some of the same issues, like students’ lack of awareness about the system. To solve this, she proposed a “specified timeline to get feedback” and reiterated her interest in in-person workshops. This would be accompanied by “much wider anonymous reporting with the option to receive support without formal escalation”.

Ethnic Minorities Officer

Riann Mehta is running unopposed for the role of Ethnic Minorities Officer this year. Opening his speech, Mehta touched upon his own “first-hand understanding of discrimination that ethnic minorities face”, before going on to outline his key manifesto pledges. These include mandating minority officers in all University societies, making world foods more affordable in Rootes Grocery Store, and addressing structural issues causing “racism and fascism” on campus.

He went on to add that he would aim to achieve this through projects such as the decolonisation of curricula, and “preventing the University from being complicit in its work with Rolls-Royce and other morally ambiguous pursuits”. 

When questioned how he would work with the Jewish community at Warwick, Mehta said that he saw combating antisemitism as “a very important issue”, but stressed that “we can’t conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism” and made reference to the Warwick Conservatives’ ‘Nazi song’ scandal. He said that “we can’t pretend that [the scandal] happened out of the blue” and rather it “is something that happened due to a lack of education and a lack of regulation”, calling for greater diversity in societies to “prevent” it happening again. 

Mehta also stressed a similar message for tackling Islamophobia on campus, saying: “When it comes to Palestine and issues surrounding the Middle East, the Union should put pressure on the University to stop its complicity and stop allowing for this rhetoric to spread.”

Disabled Students’ Officer

Next up were the candidates for Disabled Students’ Officer. One set of candidates are running jointly for the role, Ruby Deakin and Harriet Paget, who were also in attendance at the event.

Deakin and Paget opened their speech by discussing their aims for the role. They said that there is a “need for more communication channels to be put in place”, so disabled students from different departments and the departments themselves can communicate on issues and “tackle” challenges collectively. 

Responding to questions from The Boar, they said they would “champion standardised policies” in order to improve accessibility of education for disabled students at Warwick, including an ‘opt-out’ policy for lecture capture, and a review of the current wording of reasonable adjustment arrangements. Paget also said that it is important to “recognise the systemic issues of how sports clubs are run”, adding that they would work on collaborations between disability societies like Warwick Enable and sports clubs at Warwick.

Discussing policy changes, they said: “We believe that standardised policies such as this will reduce resistance to change by departments that we’ve faced a lot recently and create a more inclusive environment for all students, not just those with a formal disability diagnosis.” 

LGBTQUA+ Officer

The evening was brought to a close by candidates for LGBTQUA+ Officer – one set of candidates was in attendance at the event: Jessie Yu and Mattie Oke, who are running jointly for the position. 

Yu and Oke outlined their visions for the role, stressing their commitment to making the University “more inclusive for all students no matter where they come from”. Among their campaign pledges are a global queer culture campaign, an accommodation fund for LGBTQIA+ students looking for safe housing, and the promotion of more events during LGBTQIA+ History Month. 

When asked how they would work with pride groups at Warwick to boost community events on campus, Yu answered they would “ensure regular communications between Pride, PLAN, and the SU to support joint events that work for all LGBTQIA+ students, especially for international students”. Oke also added that he would expand collaborations and seek to introduce “diverse events”, including casual meetups and welfare events. 

Discussing issues faced by LGBTQIA+ students on campus, Yu said she believed the biggest problem was “the lack of institutional support for queer students, especially those from international or less accepting backgrounds”, as well as the need to expand welfare resources and queer culture campaigns. Oke also emphasised the need for more inclusion on campus, such as adding more pronoun options on University websites and expanding the availability of gender-neutral facilities, in the “ever-evolving political climate” of “invisibility and exclusion”.

Trans Students’ Officer

Whilst one candidate – Rowan Pipe – is running for the position of Trans Students’ Officer, they were not in attendance at the Question Time event and therefore did not present their manifesto or answer questions. 

All candidates were offered the opportunity to participate in the Question Time event, although not all candidates were in attendance.

A recording of the entire Part-Time Officer Question Time event can be found here, courtesy of RAW 1251AM.

A list of all Part-Time Officer candidates and their manifestos can be found here.

Voting closes at 5pm on Friday 7 March.