Forge Press spoke to Eli Thompson, current SU president who is running for the role of Education Officer in this year’s Student Union Elections. We asked him about his motivations behind applying, their plans for campaigning, overall manifesto and more!
When asked about their motivation to run for this role, Eli said “ I have been SU President for a couple of months now and I just really, really enjoy the job and realised that I really want to focus more on the education side. Me and Sam work really, really closely together and that’s kind of been the focus of a lot of my kind of manifesto points and things like that. And actually being in this role; being able to see a lot more of what needs to be fixed and a lot more behind the scenes things that aren’t working. I think that’s what’s motivated me even more to make change and make education accessible for everyone.”
Eli believes the main issue affecting students is “according to our SU survey, it’s cost of living and it will be that and has been that for quite a long time. I’m currently doing work with getting a report on student finance to Abitsam Mohamad, who’s the Sheffield Central MP. So it’s a perfect time for us to actually get our foot in the door and be like, this is what we need. And I think that is the biggest barrier to everyone and because that’s inclusive of people that are first generation coming to university, international students with a student levy, and also disabled students with DSA, not really covering as much as it needs for a student.”
The main points in Eli’s manifesto are “we need education to be accessible, decolonised and sustainable because if we don’t have those three things, it’ll kind of collapse. We’re seeing a really weird higher education environment at the moment. Everything’s changing and lots of different things are coinciding at the same time. which is going to be really interesting. I really want to work on making LSPs and adjustments in general a lot more consistent, because if we can make things consistent, we can then actually see where the problem is. A lot of things aren’t consistent, even within schools. I really want to work more with the academic reps system and societies, because I think there’s a disconnect between the academic side of university and the social side and I want to bring those together and I really, really want to make it very accessible and very clear on how to get compensation.
Eli’s plans for his campaign are “Ducks again. I like it. It works. It seemed to work last time. Let’s hope it’ll work again.”
The first thing Eli would want to change is “getting LSP’s consistent because that’s a really important thing. My aim will be a universal approach so if there is a very common adjustment such as extra time, if that is implemented straight away, it relieves the administrative burden on the university and also helps everyone.”
If the university gave Eli an unlimited budget, he would “pay for everyone’s fees. So no tuition fees, yay. I would fund all the faculties and departments properly. I would give our teaching staff all the funding that they need. I will fund all the research, just fund everything really.”
Eli’s favourite things about university have been “my year abroad. That was genuinely one of the best times and has been a really good experience. I’ve got to meet so many people and work with so many people. and I think being surrounded by like minded people, and academics that actually know stuff that you’re interested in is just really cool.”
If anyone could play Eli in a movie about their campaign, it would be “ Greg Davies, because I don’t think I’d want anyone else, really. I don’t think I need to explain.”
