By Ike Idikakalu, First Year Politics and International Relations
Current Union Affairs Officer, Katie Poyner, is Running for re-election this year. But how her ideas have evolved since her first term and what does she plans to do next? Epigram reached out for conversation.
According to Katie Poyner, student societies can make or break the student experience. Societies were her ‘bread and butter,’ at university, and - from the get-go - they were a constant feature of her schedule.
Poyner describes how the societies she was part of as her ‘complete passion,’ and during her tenure as member and then president of History society she recalls many, many happy memories.
In this leadership position Poyner said she wished to become more involved in the Student Union, and work to fix the many problems the Union had regarding student societies.
‘The friends and societies that we're part of is what we remember,’ said Poyner, on her wishes to improve student societies. ‘I want to make student leadership enjoyable and rewarding by making it easier for society leaders to book rooms and set up events.’
Student spaces have been a large focus during Poyner's first term as Union Affairs Officer. During this time, she succeeded in making seminar spaces available to students when they are not in use. She also worked on developing the Find a Seat system, a scheme that allows students to find out how many seats are available in university study spaces and libraries online.
Poyner noted the inefficiencies in the Find a Seat system however, as it ran on ‘A [librarian] with a clicker, counting the seats available.’ She said she wants to digitise the system to make it more efficient.
Beyond this system, Poyner said she wanted to increase the number of places students can relax and spend time with friends in communal areas. If re-elected she aims to increase the number of living rooms on campus, such as the fourth floor of Senate House, and to increase the number of available sensory rooms.
While discussing this topic, Poyner highlighted how her ‘close relationships,’ with the campus division were cultivated in her first term, and argued that, if re-elected, she could continue to use these relationships to better make the changes the system needs.
In her first term, Poyner also did much work on student poverty. She enumerated her efforts on cheap food access within the university which she claimed the university intentionally doesn’t advertise much, and on her efforts in getting student loans to be more effective in the Loans That Last campaign. If she were allowed to continue her work, she says, she can continue to pressure the university, and national government, for improvements in student living conditions.
‘[Students get] little money from maintenance loans,’ Poyner said. ‘[They pay extortionate amounts of money on rent for low quality housing [which is] terrible, damp, and mouldy.’
Poyner has worked with the National Union of Students to lobby Parliament for changes to the maintenance loan system and worked to get the university’s Vice-Chancellor Evelyn Welch to sign an open letter in support of their efforts.
If re-elected, Poyner said this would allow her to continue her work on ‘Housing rights, a maintenance loan that works for students, and cheap food,’ using the contacts and experience she gained in her first term as Union Affairs Officer.
Voting opens at 9am on Monday, 10 March, when candidates begin their official campaigning, and closes at 9pm on Thursday 13 March.
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