Silent Student Representatives
Do you know what the Arts and Divinity Senate rep
has been doing for the past year? Do you
know if the SRC member for equalities has made the union more equal? Has the Member for widening access made access
any wider?
I have no idea what any of our representatives at the Students Association have been doing with themselves since they were raised to their illustrious positions. I have no doubt that they have all been doing a completely fantastic job, and I’m sure they have made the union a better place, but the hard evidence of this is distinctly lacking.
This is because our representatives at the union don’t seem to keep us very well informed about their activities. It can’t be too difficult to have a news page detailing exactly what the people we have trusted to populate the Students Representative Council has been up to. We have the frenzy of election week, in which thousands of candidates and acolytes stand, mob-style, outside the library and the union, and press-gang the bemused electorate into voting for them and their often very reasonable policies. A burst of noise: the rest is silence.
The turnout to our student elections is usually much higher than for elections to other students’ associations in the UK, but this is followed, it seems, by months of relative quiet. We clearly have a large number of interested and engaged students in St Andrews, who care about how their union is run. We also have a large number of eager candidates, who say they want to make a difference. What a shame, then, that we don’t see this level of enthusiasm and interest carried throughout the year.
I would like to know how much wider access to the university has become over the past year. I want to know what the Arts representative is doing in the Senate. I even care a little bit about what the member without a portfolio has been up to. Why can’t this information be made more easily available?
Peter Flynn
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeep_novak/2848892563/
I have no idea what any of our representatives at the Students Association have been doing with themselves since they were raised to their illustrious positions. I have no doubt that they have all been doing a completely fantastic job, and I’m sure they have made the union a better place, but the hard evidence of this is distinctly lacking.
This is because our representatives at the union don’t seem to keep us very well informed about their activities. It can’t be too difficult to have a news page detailing exactly what the people we have trusted to populate the Students Representative Council has been up to. We have the frenzy of election week, in which thousands of candidates and acolytes stand, mob-style, outside the library and the union, and press-gang the bemused electorate into voting for them and their often very reasonable policies. A burst of noise: the rest is silence.
The turnout to our student elections is usually much higher than for elections to other students’ associations in the UK, but this is followed, it seems, by months of relative quiet. We clearly have a large number of interested and engaged students in St Andrews, who care about how their union is run. We also have a large number of eager candidates, who say they want to make a difference. What a shame, then, that we don’t see this level of enthusiasm and interest carried throughout the year.
I would like to know how much wider access to the university has become over the past year. I want to know what the Arts representative is doing in the Senate. I even care a little bit about what the member without a portfolio has been up to. Why can’t this information be made more easily available?
Peter Flynn
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeep_novak/2848892563/