Tasha Barrett, President Education & Campaigns, discusses a new fifth Sabb role for the upcoming election.
Last year we announced that we will be introducing a fifth Sabbatical Officer role - amazing news as it provides another position for those of you running in this year’s election to choose from!
Up until now, our President role has been known as ‘President (Education and Campaigns)’ working alongside our Co-Presidents for Welfare and Diversity, Sports and Development and Societies and Media. Moving forward we will be splitting the President role and working as President, Vice-President (Education), Vice-President (Welfare and Diversity), Vice-President (Societies and Media) and Vice-President (Sports).
Previously, the combined role has been a bit too much for one person to spread themselves between, with one Officer having to split their focus and energy between President and Education. Splitting it in two allows each Sabb to streamline their work for the year and put their all into one area of the Union (education and representing the Union in a Presidential capacity, respectively).
One of the key aims in our five year Strategic Plan is to ‘improve education’ and with this new role, we will have stronger resources to do this effectively.
For those of you who may be interested in running for one of the roles (or are just curious about what Sabbatical Officers actually do on a day to day basis), here is a simplified breakdown of what the two roles will involve.
President:
- Lead on democratic representation and procedures/policies
- Taking a lead on achieving our strategic aims and major projects (e.g. The Packhorse)
- Chair of the Royal Holloway Students’ Union Trustee Board.
- Representing students on a large range of college committees (everything from health and safety to Graduation Ceremonies Steering Group)
- Creating and running your own campaigns and manifesto aims, for example lobbying the college to make positive changes e.g. providing gender neutral toilets on campus or water fountains around campus.
- Championing our engagement with national politics.
- Sitting on College Council.
- Chairing General Meetings.
- Ex Officio NUS point of contact.
- Conducting Disciplinary Investigations.
Vice-President Education:
- Implementing and leading the Course Rep system in each department, alongside our Academic Representation Coordinator.
- Creating and running your own campaigns and manifesto aims, for example lobbying the college to make positive changes e.g. suggesting that Emily Wilding Davison be considered as a name for the new library.
- Sitting on committees at the college like Academic Board and Learning and Teaching Quality Committee, in order to represent student viewpoints.
- Working with our elected Education Committee to mutually support plans and ideas.
- Running Education Councils where students can submit motions and raise concerns.
- Developing plans for curriculum improvement alongside the college, for example sitting on the panel for Periodic Departmental Reviews and working on student input within curriculums.
- Working with our Student Voice Team to develop a three year education strategy that will improve all academic areas.
- Trustee of the Students’ Union.
- Deputy President.
Both positions, as well as the other three Sabb roles are full time, year long, paid positions and Officers then have the chance to rerun for a second year if they choose. The roles allow fantastic career development for transitioning from student life into full time work. The enormous range of skills that you can learn so early in your career (everything from financial management to public speaking) greatly broadens the range of options open to you after your year/two years in office.
Our Senior Management Team also works with Sabbatical Officers in the run up to them leaving, to help make sure they have a new job to go into. If you have any questions about the role at all I’d love to chat to you and give you more information or advice, email me at President@su.rhul.ac.uk or drop in to see me in the SU office. Should you prefer to speak to a staff member contact Daniel.Curran@su.rhul.ac.uk our Student Voice Manager.
Tasha Barrett
President, Education and Campaigns