SU Spring Elections 2025 Interviews: Sophie Bourne, VP Postgraduates

In the run-up to the Warwick Students’ Union (SU) Spring Elections, The Boar and RAW 1251AM collaborated to offer all Full-Time Officer (FTO) candidates the opportunity to be interviewed.

Sophie Bourne, one of a record 12 candidates standing for Vice President for Postgraduate Students, told The Boar about her candidacy for the position. Her interview explored her hope for bridging the disconnect between postgraduates and the rest of the student community, improving University support services, and her commitment to fighting for student representation. 

What are your key manifesto pledges?

Bourne said that the main aspects of her platform are a commitment to improving the student experience for postgraduate students at Warwick; making the SU more transparent; fighting for a “liberated and decolonised” SU that “has sustainability at the heart of everything it does”; and a general advocacy for improving the Union’s ethos around accessibility and inclusivity.

Many Postgraduates feel disengaged from the SU, societies and sports clubs, especially in relation to undergraduate students. How would you make the SU more inclusive to Postgraduates?

For Bourne, she started by noting that most central to the issue is societies and sports clubs failing to reach out towards postgrad students. She said she would work alongside the Vice Presidents for Sport and Societies in making sure that societies are aware of the different needs postgraduate students have. She related her own experience feeling out of place at Societies Fairs as a postgraduate student: “You start chatting to people at society stands, and they perhaps look at you a bit weird – you can fully see I’m a bit older than an 18-year-old.” By just making sure that societies are aware postgraduates want to get involved, she suggested, it could go a long way to improving engagement among the cohort.

So too would encouraging University departments to direct students towards SU events: “I’m in a very small department, so my experience is perhaps not typical, but they’re really good at sending us opportunities and things. I think it would be really good if every department would get on board with promoting the SU a bit more.” She suggested this could further get postgraduate students involved with the Union.

How would you ensure that postgraduate students who come to Warwick from different countries feel welcome and supported?

For postgraduate students from an international background, Bourne said that a key part of supporting this community lies in “really good orientation or induction when you start here”. Her own experience as an undergraduate student coming from a different university informed her belief that: “It’s quite a lot of new stuff to take in when you’re starting at a new university.” She said that it was crucial for the SU to offer a good induction, so that “it’s really clear what the Students’ Union is, what it does, what it can provide you, and why you should get involved”.

What new services, provisions or spaces would you aim to introduce to support postgraduates studying at Warwick?

Bourne was quick to praise the Postgraduate Hub, which she called an “absolutely great” resource: “Everyone I know has really enjoyed having that space that’s separate and just for postgrads.” She affirmed her commitment to working with the library to ensure the space is continued in future, and pledged to work with other parts of the University to create specific spaces and services for postgrads. Additionally, she observed that providing transition support for those moving up from an undergraduate course “is everything”.

The Postgraduate community at Warwick comprises both Master’s and PhD students who may have different needs, dependent upon the level they are studying at. How would you ensure you are advocating for both groups’ interests?

The candidate said that she was especially keen to encourage more postgraduate students to stand as faculty representatives for the SU, a job that she herself held this year. The experience was not only “really rewarding”, but is a program that Bourne believes is “really well-received by the University to have postgraduate students in those spaces”.

To manage this, she called for going out and chatting to all postgraduate students, in particular those on the Gibbet Hill campus which she noted is “a little bit disconnected from Main Campus sometimes”. She would be “really keen” to work with Life Sciences academics and societies like MedSoc to encourage postgraduate input, as well as utilising departmental networks. “I think PhD students have some really interesting points to bring, and obviously their needs are quite different,” she asserted. “I’m obviously not a research student, I don’t necessarily know what it’s like to be a PhD student, but I’m really keen to hear from them, and work with them and for them.”

Many Postgraduates also deliver teaching to undergraduates. How would you represent these Postgraduates’ particular interests?

The position of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) is, Bourne noted, a “really weird position”, for which “student-staff networks and student-staff solidarity in particular is really important” given the dual nature of the role. She touched again on a desire to hear from the concerned body themselves: “I think it’s pointless having a conversation about graduate teaching assistants without any teaching assistants at the table.” Through departmental networks and existing SU contacts, she declared her desire to work with GTAs, “whether that’s just needing somewhere where they can come and rant about stuff, or if they want support to run a whole physical campaign against certain changes the University are making”.

She added her belief in fair pay for the group, too: “I think being a GTA should be valued for the job that it is, because it is hard, and I think perhaps they’ve been neglected a little bit in the past.” She said that she hoped to improve the SU’s relationship with them in future, and ensure that the Union represents their interests as much as the rest of the student community.

What makes you stand out from other Postgraduate officer candidates?

Central to Bourne’s pitch is her experience working as a student representative, both at Warwick and in her previous university, where she worked as a part-time officer. Her work at Warwick as a faculty representative, she suggested, means she has “really good working relationships with lots of key staff members”. This would empower her to take action “from day one” to address key issues in her brief.

She also offered she could be distinguished by her confidence, and a lack of fear of the University: “If I think the University is doing something wrong and students aren’t happy with something, I’m not afraid to stand up and say the University is wrong. And I think that’s sometimes been lost a little bit.” Sometimes annoying the University by going up against them, she said, is what the job is for.

She finished by pitching herself again as “very confident”. “I’ll chat to literally anyone, so I’m always going to be open to hearing people’s opinions, hearing people’s ideas.” She dismissed the idea too that she would be limited by her position as just the Postgraduate VP: “I believe quite strongly in improving access for other students […] I’m not going to just hide behind, ‘Oh, I can only talk about postgrads’.” If something is wrong with the University, she claimed, she won’t hesitate to call it out. “I’m going to stand up and say it, because at the end of the day, I’m elected by the students, and I want to represent them on what they believe in.”

This interview, along with other interviews for the Vice President positions, can be watched in full using the link here, courtesy of RAW 1251AM. [coming soon]

Read Sophie Bourne’s manifesto here.