Cassey Fallis is one of the candidates for the role of Liberation and Activities Officer in this year’s SU elections. Forge Press sat down with her to discuss her motivations, the importance of the role and her manifesto, as well as her plans for the campaign.
Cassey’s main motivation for running for this role is due to being “utterly disappointed with how my tuition money’s being spent” and overall “angry at the state of things” in this university during her Masters programme over the last 2 years.
Cassey remarks she went for the role as she thinks “it’s time that we choose somebody that has a strong enough voice and a strong enough presence to actually do something about this shit rather than just complaining about it”.
During her term as Vice President Academic in her student union during her undergraduate degree in Canada, Cassey introduced “a charter of students rights, which was the first policy between the university and the SU across Canada”. Her work with introducing “student-first” policies in this role motivates her to “really make sure that students are at the forefront” of her manifesto and campaign for this role.
This role is specifically important to Cassey as “liberation is important to everyone”, recognising the “intersectionality” within this. Cassey remarks that “it felt important to have the understanding of someone with an intersectional background myself”, to provide “a strong voice in the position.”
Cassey also believes that without joining societies and extracurricular ideas “you cannot have the full university experience”, and these can help with both “jobs later on” and builds a “memorable experience” overall. Hence, this role is essential to Cassey in promoting the variety of societies and activities offered to all students at the university.
Within her manifesto, Cassey identifies that a predominant issue at the university is “the lack of communication between the university and the students.” One of the ways to deal with this could be to introduce “a tuition receipt”, with an itemised list of how much money goes to areas such as teaching, construction, resources and other areas. This “transparency on the tuition breakdown” would give students much more clarity and confidence on how the university is spending our tuition fees.
Also, Cassey aims to give more funding to societies within the university, and also “get some more engagement where we can” by “translating out into the wider Sheffield community”. This could take place through “community events” and also reaching out to professionals or experts from outside of the university to provide training to specific societies, giving the example of the sign language society.
Within her plan for her campaign, Cassey aims to “start through social media and build it up from there”. She also emphasises her want to portray a positive image, “the biggest part of my campaign is being able to communicate” regarding her experiences and the changes she is determined to make if she gets the role of Liberation and Activities Officer.
