Written by Liam White, Students’ Union President.

 

One of my aims for this year is to bring more transparency to our students about what your Students’ Union is doing to represent you, and I hope you’ve seen that through our social media and our news articles! A lot of our work is harder to loudly celebrate though – the long-term projects, the subtle influencing through university governance, and even my own manifesto objectives which will continue beyond my own time as President.

 

You can read below some headlines of what I have been working on. I’m proud of what we have achieved so far, and I’m incredibly grateful to be leading such a wonderful student community. As always, drop me a message if you’d like to discuss anything you read below. Here’s to Surrey’s continued success in 2025!!

August – the new team, building bridges, and hosting a conference

 

My biggest priority from Day One was to prepare the new sabbatical officer team, and we spent a lot of the summer training for their roles and building our team dynamics. You’ll have seen the brilliant work Luana, Matt, Ravi and Sam have done over the recent months – and I’ve been proud of our ability to tackle problems as a team.

 

For me and my role, it was important for me to build relationships with key contacts and committees. I sit in the highest forms of governance across the University:

  • University Council: responsible for the administration, finances, strategy, and everything needed to run a university!
  • Senate: the governing body for teaching and research, all about regulation and education strategies.
  • Executive Board x Sabbs: the Executive Board are a senior body in the University, spearheading day-to-day operations. I work with each member individually, and we meet with them monthly as a sabbatical officer team.
  • Team Surrey Leadership/ Surrey Sports Park: all about leading the direction of our sports clubs and facilities.

 

I also sit in various subcommittees (University Education Committee, Finance Committee, and more!). To make sure I’m an effectively engaging in each opportunity to represent students, I spent my first month meeting the various Chairs and key figures for each group. This maximises my ability to have my say, and influence the discussions of each group.

 

Finally, we hosted the Southern Unions Conference! We hosted over 20 SUs, together representing over 275,000 students, right here in the Union building. We transformed Rubix, the Basement, and the Front Room into conference spaces and facilitated a brilliant network of sabbs and staff sharing their ideas and goals.

 

Fully trained and settled into the role, September marked the time to make some changes! First off, I compiled the manifestos of our sabbatical and part-time officers to form our Union Priorities for the year. This document outlines our objectives and is regularly reviewed when we meet with the University. In the new year I will be publishing updates to each of the Priority points, so stay tuned!

 

Talking more broadly about Union leadership, my role also includes steering the Students’ Union’s leadership team and acting as the Chair of the Board of Trustees. Here we discuss the direction of the Union as a whole: everything from our strategy, to the commercial operation of Rubix. We are very fortunate to have an experienced selected of external Trustees, who share their wisdom about running our organisation effectively – and bringing change to our students. An early job of mine was to oversee the recruitment of two student trustees, making sure that students form the majority of the board’s membership.

 

As campus started to get busier with returning students coming back to accommodation, I had an interesting challenge to react to! Some students were told that certain accommodation services (such as provided toilet roll) would be stopped, which didn’t match up with what they had signed up for. So the first issue I challenged an executive board member with was about, of all things, toilet paper. Thankfully it was a simple fix and the decision was reversed – teaching me a valuable lesson about how to navigate staff structures to make a change happen, no matter how big or small!

 

Then, of course, we welcomed our brilliant new freshers to Surrey. Freshers’ Week was a huge success, with the Union providing the greatest provision of free or cheap daytime events in our history. This comes directly from mine and the sabbs’ vision to build belonging on campus – something now seen in the Union’s Belonging Events series. Whether it was crafts, my treasure hunt, or a trip to Ninja Warrior – we were proud to welcome our newest members of the community through free or affordable events!

October – Sports Park, restructures, and Vision 2041

 

Now that term was in full-swing, my role kicked into high gear. October marked the time for many university committees to discuss long-term strategy. My role in these meetings is to challenge committee members with student perspective. That, however, comes with compromise: when resources are limited, which parts of university should be prioritised? My answer, as always, is that the student experience should be protected – which can be a lot more complicated than it sounds!

 

A great example of this is my role in the Surrey Sports Park Board. SSP has an interesting duality where it is a commercial enterprise, balancing student and non-student memberships, with the aim to invest in facilities and experiences for students. I boldly claim in my manifesto that I want to “reclaim SSP for students”, because so many of us felt that the space was deprioritising its student members. As a board member, I am helping to steer SSP towards a better community atmosphere: reviewing the membership structures and updating the facilities to provide better value. The challenge comes in balancing commercial sustainability with the needs of our students.

 

In the theme of balancing priorities, many of you will recall that the University underwent a period of restructure this calendar year. Our role was to protect the student experience, successfully lobbying for the protection of key services such as the Centre for Wellbeing and Disability and Neuroinclusion teams. Yet with many members of staff taking voluntary severance, students were undeniably impacted. As Union President, I escalated and resolved several issues: modules subtly being removed without following closure plans, course reps not being correctly integrated or valued, administrative and timetabling problems, and so on. All of this relies on our network of representatives across the university, showing the impact the student voice can bring.

 

This leads nicely into how our students have a say in the University’s new strategic plan – Vision 2041. The national reality of higher education ‘grow or die’, so Surrey must look ahead to the future. This includes the development of new research institutes, adoption of online-only courses, and more. When the strategy was launched, I was invited to the presentation to offer my own perspective views of the plan; and I was very glad to see experience, inclusion, and community as areas of focus moving forward! I took the opportunity to highlight how Vision 2041 is impossible without putting our student voice first, challenging the staff community to continue working with us to bring Surrey into the future.

November – education, campus spaces, and representation

 

November became quite an education-focussed month for me. As mentioned above, I sit on Senate and University Education Committee, both of which met in November to discuss academic matters. This included changes to the School of Engineering, as well as changes to how MEQs are carried out and reviewed; both of which were heavily influenced by student input. I also met with the provost to begin mapping out my plans for the professional training year, with my vision that they should be have improved support provision and directly contribute, credit-wise, to your degree. This is a long-term goal that I’ll be continuing to pursue in 2025!

 

Another long-term goal of mine is to free up more spaces for students on campus. Many clubs, societies, and individual students are struggling to access suitable spaces. Whether its wooden floors for performances, practice rooms for music, or even just an office for a team of postgraduates to work from, there are a lot of pressures for rooms. I have several roles, here. As a Union, we mediate the clashes between clubs and societies to try and offer spaces as equitably as possible. But as our community grows, our ability to find space gets more limited. That is why, in my meetings with the Executive Board and the Vice-Chancellor, I bring our students’ challenges directly to the University’s leadership for inclusion during room audits and expansion projects.

 

Beyond my mission to improve our education and experience, my role also means that I find myself representing our students on broader issues. In November, I wrote a letter of support for Surrey’s plans to build a solar farm, advancing its green energy targets in-line with our students’ needs for a sustainable future. I also attended remembrance services and the raising of the UN flag, welcoming Surrey to UNITAR and opening up international collaboration for sustainability research. I even attended the Times Higher Education Awards ceremony, where Surrey was shortlisted for University of the Year!

December – international conference, OSCAR, and national representation

 

December kicked off with me flying out to Hong Kong! Surrey was invited to an international conference about the globalisation of knowledge, all about international collaboration and developing fields of research. Me and a postgraduate researcher in virology, Alexandra, accompanied the Vice-Chancellor to give student perspective on developing fields such as AI. It was fascinating to learn about higher education systems from other countries, and I felt very proud to share how much emphasis we place on student experience compared to many other institutions. I also met our Hong Kong alumni network, sharing the current student experience and letting them reminisce about Rubix!

 

A fundamental part of being a sabbatical officer is our role as a panel member, for the university’s Officer for Student Complaints, Appeals and Regulations (OSCAR). This team handle procedures for disciplinary, support to study, and academic appeal panels. In these, our role is to represent the interests of the student body. For me, December was busy being a panel member for many of these cases; it is important that there is student perspective is included for the best outcome of both the student and the university.

 

A priority of mine when stepping into Presidency was to make sure the Union was using our students’ voice on the national scale by politically advocating for our students. That is why I invited our local MP, Zöe Franklin, to the Students’ Union. In short, I enlisted her support in pushing for our University’s inclusion on some form of extended London weighting maintenance loan, as well as boosting our voice following the prematurely-closed consultation period for the Renters Rights Bill. You can read about her visit in greater detail in my news article on the Union website.

To conclude…

 

2024 was a challenging year: the overwhelming financial burden on our students, the changes throughout the university, and the daily pressures facing our generation just to name a few. Through it all, I was proud to see our community grow and have the courage to speak out. It’s been an honour leading our student community throughout the year so far – I can’t wait to see what 2025 brings. Take care, everyone!