Last month, a student voice referendum run by Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) passed with 83.5 per cent of votes in favour.
The Student sat down with EUSA President Brad Stevens to learn more about what the referendum will mean in practice for students at the University of Edinburgh.
The decision to put forward the referendum came from a review that “has taken place over the last year and with that we’d consulted with over 2000 students about their current… conditions in terms of student voice.”
Brad highlighted that the last democracy review referendum took place in 2016 when “Kylie Jenner had blue hair, which I miss dearly.”
He noted that “things have changed dramatically [over the last ten years], especially after the pandemic as well. Students are working now more than ever, meaning that they can’t volunteer their time as much. The balance between academic matters, working, caring duties, commuting… means that we’re more time poor.
“Students wanted to see more flexible roles and positions and networks where they could enter but also withdraw if they needed to without losing the kind of momentum of work that was going on.”
Within the consultations that took place over the last year, Brad noted that what came out top was a need for “a move towards remuneration… essentially paying reps, or giving incentives for students to be able to show up and be able to balance their time better. [A move towards]… a network working model where students can be part of something bigger.”
The potential for Student Representative roles to move from voluntary to paid is attractive to many students, but has not been guaranteed. When asked about the likelihood of this happening, Brad commented: “It’s an ongoing conversation… the context of the university right now does make that challenging.
“This was one of our core priorities… that 85.3 per cent majority says a clear message to the university to say students want these changes, students want support in the student voice that they’re contributing, in the time that they’re giving up and they deserve that kind of remuneration.
“In the conversations I’ve had with the university across different levels of leadership — so academics in the colleges, college leadership, university leadership — I have seen nods around the room.
“So now, I say quite candidly, put your money where your mouth is.
“I don’t think tomorrow, if I said, ‘hey, University of Edinburgh, why don’t you give us like an extra million?’ That’s not going to happen, but it means more so looking at the options that are available.
“Not withstanding, that will be an ongoing conversation, ongoing lobbying through my term, and maybe the sabbatical team after me, but something that is going to be significantly on the table.”
Whilst there was not an official NO campaign against the EUSA Sabbatical Officers’ YES campaign, Protect Student Voice raised concerns about replacing elections with appointments for School Representatives being “anti-democratic and foster[ing] elitism”
Brad recognised this as “one of the more contentious issues because when you say appointment based, I think people get the first initial concern of ‘Oh my God, where’s the democracy?…”
“I think for me… it’s always been a bit of a tussle between having representation and having democracy. Now, in a dream world, in a democracy that is always working, you have both.
“One of the things we’ve had is so many positions across predominately the school level… no one is stepping in to that role. I think the key drive for that… is it’s better to have someone in that room advocating, and the appointment based system enables that.”
Brad noted that the appointment based panel is not set in stone, and that therefore the motions passed by the referendum can still be influenced by student voice.
Protect Student Voice were specifically concerned about the removal of the Student Council.
Brad recognised these concerns, but noted that Student Councils have become “outdated compared to more versatile ways of holding students’ accounts.”
He noted that the Student Council has been inactive in bringing motions in recent years, and has “been trying to do a lot with not a lot of space or time.”
With low turnout and low levels of accountability, Brad argues that the alternatives put forward by the referendum will increase student voice:
“The [new] accountability panel [introduces] students and sabbatical officers from other universities, as well as specific training for students, provides a much more thorough accountability model.
“The thematic working groups look at a plurality of issues across the time frames. It’s not one issue this month, one issue next month. It’s that we’re doing those synonymously across the multiple working groups that we’ll have.”
EUSA Sabbatical Officers ran their YES campaign with a £750 budget, and focused largely on social media campaigning.
Brad discussed the importance of social media campaigning within university communities.
“I think sometimes we forget… we have 5,000 online students in our community who aren’t on campus, who are distance learning… and that online relationship is so important.”
“The people you want to reach are the ones who are the most unreachable. And that’s the challenge.”
“And also it’s good fun… the ways in which not only us, but student societies use [social media] as well as something to be, I think, enamoured.”
Having been successful in his campaign to pass the referendum, The Student asked Brad what successful implementation would look like.
“I think a successful turnout at the March elections… [firstly] because we’re removing quite a lot of the school representative roles from the election, the focus of the elections changes quite significantly”
He noted that votes in these elections also “ show the university that there is a significant chunk of students listening and wanting change and wanting these manifesto points to pass through.”
“[Also for] the thematic working groups to start taking shape… I think we have some of the most incredible campaigning here in terms of Edinburgh students…
“Having working groups that come forward and represent those issues and are integrated within the student voice system that we have at the Student Association can only be a positive — so that would be a real win for me.”
Speaking of long-term goals past his own tenure, Brad said that students “seeing their feedback listened to, but that it’s been acted upon, will be the biggest one of them all.”
“Now that may take three years, five years, fundamental changes at the University of Edinburgh. But I think fundamentally those shifts will be reflected in how students feel about their time in Edinburgh.”
You can listen to our full conversation with Brad on The Student radio, at 6pm on Friday 13 November, and afterwards on Spotify.
Image by Ejay Freeman, Provided to The Student for Press Use
