What SRC party are you a part of, and what position in the SRC are you running for?
I’m running on the Revive ticket and for President this year. I have also been the SRC’s Welfare Officer this past year.
Could you explain your party’s overall stance and goals for the SRC?
Revive’s goal is to deliver real impact from real students and make real change this year at the SRC.
We are passionate about meeting with university management and pushing for tangible change for students.
What makes the Revive ticket different is that our ticket comprises a very diverse group of individuals. We come from a very diverse set of backgrounds; some of our students are Indigenous, and some of them have disabilities. Still, multiculturalism brings many perspectives on these policies that can impact UNSW the most.
I’m passionate about bringing these different individuals together, which I am very proud of as a leader this year. We’ve had much success with this in the past, and we have some vast ambitions next year. All of our officers are passionate about their respective fields and areas and have personalised experiences in those fields. I want to support my team’s growth this year by tailoring solutions to their student groups’ concerns.
What is your current experience with the SRC?
I have been the welfare officer and have had much success this year in growing the collective. I’ve also pushed for support for the free period products campaign, which was very successful. I was very proud to have free period products in many of the bathrooms down on campus, so that’s amazing.
We’ve also worked to increase the student accommodation scholarships, which have risen by four million dollars this year for low SES students. I’ve also had a big hand in the sort of gender-based violence support. We reviewed the policies for gendered violence at UNSW and revamped club policies for many clubs on campus. I was involved in the Change the Age campaign to lower the age of independent support from the government.
And just generally, as well, mental health has been a massive focus for me. That’s one of my primary focuses, as it was this year. We ran a very successful event that brought together students in a tangible way with mental health professionals to discuss many significant issues related to mental health. We’ve also made a video about this and posted it on YouTube. And that was well received in person. I am generally active and keen to build on that next year.
What are some things you would like to see change around campus?
Student Welfare
I want to focus most of the following year on subsidising more private counselling appointments through the mental health psychology and wellness hub. This is achieved through funding for mental health care professionals on campus and long-term counselling services plans, for which many students are in high demand.
Another issue brought to my attention is that the booking system is not 24-7 for mental health services. That’s something that I’ve also had a lot of personal experience with. I’ve used those services, and not having them 24-7 is inconvenient for me as a working student. That’s something that I want to change next year to make those bookings 24-7.
Some of the other welfare things that I’m a fan of would be:
- Expanding accessibility to free resources like textbooks was brought to my attention as a particular concern for the law faculty. I want to ensure that more equity scholarships are available, especially for low-SES students. Generally, there are more PDF options and subsidised textbooks as well.
- Expanding the Food Hub services to be open five days a week is essential.
- The common mental health spaces are safe spaces and relaxation spaces. I’ve seen many of the rooms on campus need to be more utilised. I plan to coordinate with estate management next year and get an updated schedule for the spaces students can use and when to relax.
Education
I’ll quickly talk about our education policies because this is something that, especially at UNSW, I have yet to see much change from the SRC. There are a few core policies I want to push for, including:
- Standardising submission deadlines to 11.59 p.m. across all courses and all faculty. I’m keen to push for this from the academic board, and I’m passionate about it.
- The automatic short-length extensions. Not all classes and courses promote this at the moment. It has been soft launched across a few courses, but I am pushing for this to be more holistic and representative across all classes. I also want to work for this through the education collective next year.
- A significant policy is that class participation should not result in course failures. Especially for working and regional students – as only some people can consistently travel to campus.
- Finally, there should be a recognised list of exceptions to miss classes. Again, this ties into the idea of students with genuine excuses for missing class. They may not get a doctor’s note – it’s expensive. All those sorts of reasons were very, very conscious of for students.
Another area in which I want to grow is advocating for all student internships to be paid. Especially at UNSW, only pushing students towards paid positions and not exploiting undergraduates or international students. We want to make sure that there’s a focus on supportive, inclusive workplaces that engage students in a way that is the best for their careers. I know I’m an engineer by trade, and many engineers have gone through unpaid internships in their career progression – it is a very exploitative industry.
There’s also this big gap between employment options for international students. However, the language barrier makes it difficult for international students to get involved with them. Expanding part-time jobs, expanding volunteering programs, and advocating for all international students to get involved with those on campus are core. Part-time support and better links to workplaces offer support for international students and create a more holistic hub for getting that experience.
Environmental
I would like to see more renewable energy sources on campus. We do have solar panels and things like that, but that could be expanded. There’s a lot of scope for environmental startup initiatives that students themselves are doing; I’ve seen a lot of positive work through some of the case competitions on campus, and renewable energy courses and activities could be tried effectively to power things on campus.
Gender Support
The women’s officer policies that I would like to see, especially as a female in STEM, we want to see more support for women in STEM. As well as providing accessible contraceptives across campus – similar to what we’ve done with the free period products campaign. As I mentioned before, I’ve worked with gender-based violence support networks and groups, but we want to expand that next year as well. We want to provide comprehensive sexual health education for any gender and work with gender-based violence networks to sort of make this happen.
Ethno-Cultural Support
We’ve also got a lot of international student policies we want to push for, including mentorship programs, bilingual mentors, concession cards, and those sorts of policies. I wanted to see better language support for students. Many of my friends are bilingual, and I’m bilingual as well. It sometimes takes work to understand lecturers in class. We also think tutors and lecturers could have better translations across the board regarding integration with their lecture material and what is published. And I would like to work with the EDI board on that one.
There might be some potential for addressing disparities between services for ethnic and cultural groups and some scholarships we want to expand on. Our ethno-cultural officer is also eager to see more anti-racism campaigns and better training for various staff and students across the university. In terms of that, starting with the SRC and club executive members to lead by example for student groups is effective.
We do have cultural festivals and things like that. I want to get more involved with celebrating student diversity, including the diversity festival. I also want more newsletters to support student advocates in this space and push this through university media. Bilingual mentors could be an excellent way to bridge this gap by holistically involving student life and ensuring equitable access to resources.
I talked about the international students as well. And we also want to organise a 24-7 admin helpline. Our international officer has been very keen to see support on this because of the time differences across the globe. So, especially when students are travelling in between holidays, it takes a lot of work to coordinate with university management in organising various things, whether it be, you know, on Moodle or anything requiring administrative assistance. This is something that has been a particular concern. We also might coordinate with other volunteers on campus to ensure we can support this initiative, and we are keen to see that sort of expansion. And that’s never been done before. I am very eager to push for something like that as a trial run next year.
We’ve also had some comments on the college dining halls that don’t offer cultural dining options. We are advocating with the accommodation board to ensure a better-expanded food selection for students from various cultural backgrounds.
Disability
In terms of course timetabling, there’s a lot of this: I’ve talked to students with disabilities. They’ve flagged that getting extra exclusive help sessions that are disability and accessibility friendly during weeks 6 and 11 would help them catch up before exams and give them that extra support they need. And that would vary from course to course and would be something we must discuss with the registrar. But it would support students with disabilities.
Granting partial academic adjustments in support of students waiting for a formal disability diagnosis. Diagnosis’ is a costly and time-consuming process. We want to acknowledge that there should be some interim guidelines to allow for that waiting-in-lieu period when the students are unaware of the outcome of those applications and get more support from the EDI and academic board on that initiative.
Also, we want to push for specialist campus psychologists and psychiatrists who can expedite ELS documentation. Again, this is a time-consuming process, but we have a lot of improvements in mind and want to push this through some of the boards as well. So, ensure they have a specialist to support ELS documentation and streamline processes like ELP applications, renewals, and disability reporting for discrimination.
Generally, like this year, we did some expanded awareness programs of what the SRC does in the form of better postering on campus. But there’s still a lot of work to be done to promote the actual services side of what ELS services are available and what the SRC is doing to improve that. And postering is a great start, but it’s more.
I want to push for more streamlined processes through the SRC links like we’ve done this year, streamlining that and streamlining better marketing and awareness campaigns around what we’re doing to improve those. Throughout the year, drop boxes, whether online or in person, where students can come with any super clear issue, are signposted everywhere around campus. If you have a problem with welfare, disabilities, etc., post it here. That would also be an immediate and streamlined process for us to act on.
Will your ‘drop boxes’ contribute to getting students engaged with the SRC? As so many UNSW students do not care about the SRC – Do you believe this service would change their perception?
This has been an ongoing issue throughout the years due to the SRC’s lack of presence on campus. The primary time students know about what we do is during campaign season. I think that, yes, that’s positive in that we can say we’ve had wins with period products or accommodation scholarships or gender-based violence support. Still, it’s more tricky throughout the year to maintain that momentum.
‘Drop boxes’ in the form of QR codes located around campus are a straightforward solution to fix that. They could be posted across cafes, everywhere, or any allowed signage across campus. But in the online marketing for SRC, generally, there should be better timelines and checkpoints for guidelines on when representatives and office bearers should be doing certain things and promoting their collective should be hosting more inclusive events where anyone can attend. The SRC could be better utilised to be more inclusive of everyone.
Holistically, I think having that marketing campaign and that sort of promotion piece, as well as being a student hub where anyone can come with any concern and any student can feel welcomed, would be really, really helpful towards the SRC’s presence on campus and the community as well.
You’ve been nominated for the position of President. Why did you choose this role? And what do you hope to achieve specifically as President?
I was nominated for president because I’m in my final year of uni next year, and I’ve had a lot of exposure to leading teams as I’ve volunteered for seven years. The SRC is one of the pillars where I can directly impact students and follow through with my positive wins. Still, I have a genuine passion for the role and a genuine interest in student life and supporting students. That’s been consistent throughout my exposure to volunteering over the past seven years.
I have the leadership experience to uplift and upskill my team in the best way possible. I’ve been a co-president before – leading many student initiatives, and I’ve built many teams from scratch. My ability to multitask and handle many projects efficiently is a core skill of mine. I’m very well-positioned for the role.
I want to be a positive student representative who represents the needs of all students with no bias in a very inclusive and understanding way where students feel like I’m a good friend to them without even knowing me. That’s a personality-wise win from the role. And beyond that, not just upskilling my team but also building the vision and awareness of what the SRC does would be a positive win. Also, throughout the year, positively marketing and promoting our wins and successes and our ability to support student needs as those successes arise would be a very, very positive difference.