Laura Edwards is running for the new role of Liberation & Activities Officer, and Forge sat down with them to talk about why they think the role is important, and what they aim to do should they be elected.
We first asked Laura why they chose to run for the role – they said: “This year I’ve been the chair of Liberation Committee and the chair of Liberation Forum, and I’m also on Societies Committee.”
Laura says that there is three main policies that they are campaigning around – the first being to continue progressing the policies that they worked on when they were Disabled Students’ Officer in the 2023-24 year.
“I have already got the sensory room in the IC, which I’ve had a lot of students say is really beneficial to them, and I was able to redesign the quiet room in the SU.
“But I’m hoping to extend this so that every new build has a quiet room in it because I don’t think that’s something that’s on the university’s forefront, but I also want to extend this to communal and social spaces as well.”
“The other policy I want to expand on is is my lecture accessibility for all. I was able to get lecture captions on all of our lecture recordings- Laura now wants to expand this to hybrid learning.
“I think someone’s engagement with their course should not be dictated whether they’re there, or not.
Laura’s other policy that they are planning on progressing is their ‘Free the Nipple’ campaign.
They said: “I hope this can be nationalised – there’s already other SU’s across the country that have adopted this policy.”
Laura also told us that they wanted other people to fall in love with the SU and become engaged as they have.
“Normally when I have conversations with people on this they’re like “Why do you love the SU so much, it’s just a building.”
“And I’m like no! It’s a building full of potential friends, and you can find people with the same niches as you that you didn’t even know you could find.”
Laura also says that they want to get more people involved in SU democracy and change-making, and that people have no idea just how much scope and power they have.
“There’s no reason why it should be that difficult” [to book a room]. “Like why are you giving me the rooms that aren’t available. Give me the rooms that are available, then I can pick the room that I want.
“We need to fix the funding of how we’re funding our societies and committees with money, you can’t just be picking random numbers and being like if you don’t use this then you lose it next year, that’s ridiculous to me, and that shouldn’t be happening.”
Laura also wants to transform Graves into a space for societies and committees to hold events, as well as the Interval space which was previously the centerpiece of the building, until it closed for refurbishments in June 2024.
