SU Spring Elections 2026 Interviews: Diya Gupta, VP Welfare & Campaigns

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

Diya Gupta, a First-Year Data Science Student, joined the News team to discuss her pitch for the position of Vice-President for Welfare & Campaigns.

Why did you decide to run for this position?

“Honestly, it was a very spontaneous decision”, Gupta said.

“Everyone was getting emails about the SU elections […] So I read through them and I was like, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I should just apply.

“So I read through the different positions and Welfare was what stood out to me the most.”

How will you seek to continue to improve mental health and wellbeing provision on campus?

Diya spotlighted two areas she would seek to improve: Nightline for mental health, and therapy pets for wellbeing.

She supported the existing student-run listening service, Nightline: “it’s a wonderful service.” However, she noted that it “isn’t available every day of the week”. Due to limited numbers, Nightline currently runs variable opening hours.

Though she acknowledged this was reasonable, since Nightline depends on student volunteers, she said it could lead to disappointment when students tried to contact the service whilst it wasn’t running.

She cited friends who had experience calling Nightline only to find the service unavailable, and said: “no one will check the Instagram last-minute to see: ‘are they available at 2am?’.”

She suggested increasing Nightline recruitment, which currently runs twice a year, to address the issue. “I believe that’s one area we can really improve on”, she emphasised.

Echoing her manifesto pledge, Gupta also promoted therapy pets to boost wellbeing on campus.

Though therapy dogs are already called on during exam period, she believes “we can do that much more often and maybe we can even make it department-wide”.

Report + Support disclosures rose for the fourth year running in 2024/25. Are you concerned about these figures, and what more can the SU do to support students?

Diya said she viewed higher Report + Support numbers as a partly positive sign: “It means that students trust the resources campus has offered them.

“If more students are reporting it that means they […] feel comfortable enough to report issues on campus, they believe that something will be done for them”, she explained.

At the same time, she recognised that rising numbers mean issues are still occurring on campus.

She also discussed a specific issue she observes with Report and Support: “Oftentimes, if someone [in a flat] goes to complain, one of the most common things that is done is hosting a meeting for the entire flat.

“I understand the whole motive is to get everyone’s perspective”, she said. “However, at times, the one who has reported can feel overwhelmed in the setting where everyone is there.

For her, one-on-one resolutions in these scenarios work “much better”.

The cost-of-living crisis is still affecting students on campus – even though the new Co-op replaced Rootes, prices didn’t dramatically fall for students. Across the SU-run outlets and the SU’s relationship with the University, what more would you do to support students with the cost-of-living crisis?

“I believe the cost-of-living crisis is something that honestly is not in my hands personally. Even if I try to vouch for it, it’s not something that realistically I can bring change about in just a week”, Gupta replied.

However, she agreed the cost-of-living was a major concern for students. Though cost-of-living debates often centre around campus food prices, she zoomed out to the on-campus accommodation allocation process.

She said students “cannot select their accommodations… they can only give a preference”, meaning that some students could be allocated more expensive accommodation even if their first choice had been a cheaper option.

She also emphasised the range of on-campus accommodation prices, noting that Bluebell and Rootes “sit at totally different ends of the spectrum when it comes to cost”.

“But even if you compare something like Sherbourne and Tocil, for example, they’re also very different.”

Gupta suggested revising the current accommodation allocation process to address this.

She recognised that it would be difficult to ensure that everyone received their desired accommodation, but she said of the people she knew “who hadn’t gotten their first-choice or second-choice [accommodation], many of them ended up in their last choices as well.”

What campaigns would you seek to run over the next year?

“In general, I believe my focus would be more on welfare”, Gupta replied.

Still, she commended the current process for campaigns on campus, whereby students can seek approval on the SU website and “as soon as it’s approved, they can go for it… it’s very orderly”.

As for personal campaigns, Diya said she would focus on mental health as well as “how to get into adulting properly”.

“[Students] turn 18 and they’re immediately in university. And here suddenly you have to cook on your own, you have to clean for yourself, you have to live on your own, you need to manage your budget. You need to manage your studies, going out, everything just happens all at once. I believe for many people that gets really overwhelming.”

She discussed the example of freshers struggling to eat balanced meals, and suggested food drives as a possible solution.

This interview, along with all other interviews for Full-Time Officer positions, can be watched in full using the link here.

You can also view a list of all candidates and their manifestos here.