Alec Kotz is running for President in this year’s SU elections. In the run up to their campaign, they sat down with Forge Press to discuss his vision for our student community if he were to be elected.
When talking us through his manifesto, he said “I’m looking through the lens of how we build a new sort of sense of community that the students union. I have the idea of firstly building a community where we provide better support for student activists and student groups that are working to tackle the same things that our Student’s Union is working to tackle. I really want to make sure that we are advocating for students.” This includes, they said, the recent “exploitative practices by the university such as the recent 12% rise in Ranmoor/Endcliffe rents, which is directly exploiting students in a very vulnerable position.”
Having been almost completely uninvolved from the Student’s Union until his third year of study, Alec hopes to offer a unique perspective that represents both those who are “heavily embedded within the Student’s Union” as well as those who consider themselves “outsiders”. A key area of Alec’s manifesto outlines a campaign they call ‘It’s never too late’, through which he aims to increase engagement from students who may otherwise lack the confidence or access to get involved. “From my own experience, I know that the SU really does have a transformational capacity in how it can really benefit students when they’re able to get involved – they can build so much confidence, they can build a lot of skills which is really useful. ‘It’s never too late’ is going to focus on students who may want to engage but think either that it’s too overwhelming or that it may be too late. This will support people like international students, postgrad, mature students and also commuters and student carers – these groups are really not represented within our societies so we need to provide more support to include them.”
If elected as president, Alec also plans to strengthen the presence and celebration of creativity within our student community, with the introduction of monthly open mic nights and student-run arts and crafts markets. “I think it’s such an important area which does provide a lot of respite from stress. I also want to put up more things such as um student artwork around campus, which I know that Hallam has been very successful at. I would love to see a campus that is full of student art and full of creativity because I think that is something which is really powerful and will build a sense of identity within our students union.”
During campaign season, Alec plans to make himself visible around campus with a warning sign which people can pose with. “I think it’s really important that we ensure that everyone feels empowered within this election season, because we do not generally get a large amount of students actually voting.” They hope that future elections will see increased student engagement and therefore a more representative student body. “I’m really passionate about trying to achieve some genuine change in the students union – we can’t just maintain the status quo. With the current engagement crisis that we’re facing with the students union, we need to change things and encourage students to actually get involved.”
