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► Part Time Executive Representatives

Part Time Executive Representatives

The Union Executive (or Executive or even just ‘Exec’) is an important central committee that meets regularly to make day to day management decisions about how the Union will interpret the broader policy and strategic decisions made at higher more debate-lead meetings. As well as the four Sabbatical Officers and three Campus Representatives and General Manager (the senior staff member of the Union) the proposed structure creates eight extra part-time (by which we mean unpaid) representatives who are elected by and from global ballot to reflect the opinions and needs of specific types of students at this powerful body.

Under the recommended Constitution Union Executive sits as a sub-committee of the most senior body within the Union, the Trustee Board. As such it has wide ranging powers to interpret and implement operational decisions that can vary in scope from conducting consultation and research on campaign issues through to defining direction for the staff of the Union. As such it works closely with the General Manager and Senior Management Team of the Union.

The Part-Time Executive Representative positions as recommended in the proposals are defined as follows: (each is an active link to the relevant role description within the elections pages of the Union website)

Part Time Students Representative

LGBT Students Representative

Women Students Representative

Postgraduate Students Representative

International Students Representative

Ethnic Minority Students Representative

Mature Students Representative

Ethical and Environmental Representative

Any student who self-defines as belonging to the relevant group may stand for the above positions, and the positions are open across the entire student community.

*Why define these positions as above? What about the representative rights of other sections of the student society?

This question has been raised (and will probably continue to be raised) throughout the drafting of the proposals, and the answer is two fold.

Firstly the Union recognises that the list above is quite possibly imperfect and very open to interpretation, and in attempting to define global groupings for elected representatives to be held accountable be we drew upon the experience of other students’ unions. The list is defined by ‘liberation campaign’ groups (like LGBT, women, ethnic minority) and groups of students who, for whatever reason, are not well represented within the Union currently. Research suggests that if a specific position is created to champion the rights and opinions of a minority engaged group then participation from the members of that group increases, which is part of what the representation side of the Union is all about.

The second part of the answer is that if the list is imperfect it is at least an improvement on virtually no global representation at all. Where students feel that they can define a more appropriate schedule of role-specific officers then the proposed structure has the flexibility and student accountability to allow it to be tweaked, changed and generally moulded to suit the needs of the membership. So, in essence, if you can do better then get involved and let the Union know!