Leacsaidh Marlow
A group of Impact Magazine writers have looked over the candidate manifestos for this year’s Student Union Elections. Our team of elections reporters interviewed every candidate who attended Media Day, discussing their motivations for running and their manifestos. Editor-in-Chief Leacsaidh Marlow has summarised and discussed each candidate’s main manifesto points, and given her views on the manifesto. Voting closes on 13th March 2025 at 5pm.
Nayab Shakoor
Key manifesto points:
- Advocate for improved academic and wellbeing support specifically for international and postgraduate students
- Initiate more networking events and cultural exchange events
- Improved support with visa applications, career guidance and financial support
- Celebrate diversity and enhance inclusivity
Nayab communicates the necessity for advocacy, representation and community support within the postgraduate and international student communities on campus. She has experience as a class representative, and shows clear knowledge of the importance of academic feedback, effective communication between academic staff and students, and empowering student voices. She also has experience working for an NGO that has allowed her to develop strong organisational and leadership skills.
Her manifesto centres around making necessary efforts to increase advocacy for the underrepresented postgraduate and international student communities. She wishes to achieve this by improving networking for these groups to foster cultural exchange and career support, as well as offering visa and financial guidance to better the transition and integration into UoN as an academic institution.
Her manifesto shows clear relevant experience and an obvious passion for advocacy of underrepresented academic groups. She has identified four key areas to focus improvements in, spanning academic and social struggles. Her manifesto is more strongly focused on the challenges faced by international students and lacks a little in advocacy for the postgraduate student community. Her campaign would benefit from laying out some clear strategies to tackle the issues raised, as well as discussing some more topics specific to postgraduate students at UoN.
Riffat Shaheen
Riffat summarised her campaign with the sentence: “One for all, all for one”.
Key manifesto points:
- Prioritise academic and social welfare of all students
- Address issues specific to international students, ensuring they are confident to share their feedback and voice and concerns
- Enhance lines of communication between students and university administration
- Support the postgraduate community with effective networking events, cultural diversity and inclusive policies
Riffat told Impact that the manifesto point which she is most passionate about is focusing on students’ wellbeing, ensuring students are consistently listened to and feel as if their issues are being addressed. As an international student, she felt she was offered so little information about the application process that she specifically wants to focus not just on provisions for international students once they arrive here in Nottingham, but also ensuring that their application process is as informed and simple as possible. She conveys the importance of recognising how diverse the postgraduate community is here at UoN, and how strategies must be tailored specifically to these groups as they are often underrepresented in university discussions.
Riffat has an educational background in Nursing, and has a wide range of skills gained from her experience in healthcare settings that she believes make her a strong candidate for VP Postgraduate & International. She has led many initiatives in the past, around quality improvement in healthcare, training and healthcare mentoring. She has developing strong communication and leadership skills, demonstrating a passion for advocacy. Riffat’s manifesto details an impressive array of relevant skills and experience, and lays out four key areas to target for improvement should she be elected as VP Postgraduate & International. Whilst her identification of principles targets is strong, her manifesto doesn’t detail any specific strategies to target these, or the steps she aims to take to reduce these challenges.
Sandhya Sriram
Sandhya summarised her campaign with the sentence: “No more confusion, just solutions”.
Key manifesto points:
- A focus on the rights of international students: improving visa support, funding opportunities and flexible employment opportunities
- Uniting cultures: celebrating global festivals and cultural nights, and running networking events to focus on and celebrate a range of cultures represented in the student body
- Improve academic balance: enhanced mental health support
- Feedback: collecting and delivering feedback to relevant bodies
Sandhya told Impact that the manifesto point she is most passionate about is creating and fostering a strong and diverse cultural community where all international students feel welcome and supported.
Sandhya has wide-reaching experience that makes her a suitable candidate for VP Postgraduate & International. She is studying her Master’s in Physiotherapy, having travelled to UoN from India, and has a strong understanding of how difficult it can be to integrate into a new academic and social environment. She champions the importance of collaborative problem-solving approaches and supportive communities in her manifesto. She has an obvious passion for using her lived experiences to inform her tackling of student experience issues, aiming to improve integration and long-term support for international and postgraduate students at UoN. Sandhya’s manifesto neatly divides her aims into four key categories, titling each with a memorable tagline, which is a strong campaign strategy. Her manifesto principles are also wide-reaching and cover the most commonly reported issues that international and postgraduate students face. There is a stronger focus on international student issues than postgraduate issues, and there is limited detail of how the proposed changes and improvements will be effectively achieved, but the manifesto is undoubtedly targeting the key areas for both groups.
Toby Cheung
Toby summarised her campaign in the sentence: “Bridging culture, embracing diversity and enhancing student experience”.
Key manifesto points:
- Raise awareness of the Global Buddy Program, peer mentoring initiatives, and student groups specifically targeted towards international and postgraduate students
- Encourage easier integration into university communities for international students
- Organising more cultural events to combat homesickness in international students
Toby told Impact that the manifesto point she is most passionate about is “bridging the culture”; she enjoys seeing the diversity in the university and wishes to champion more events celebrating different cultures, letting people get to know a wider variety of cultures so that the university community can be more accepting, and people are more comfortable to be themselves and make more connections outside of their tight-knit groups.
Toby has a wide range of experience in student representation, both in university and faculty contexts, and in the Students’ Union as President of K-Pop Society. She has run many events, demonstrating strong leadership and organisational skills, both key capabilities that she believes make her a good candidate for VP Postgraduate & International. Her manifesto shows a strong understanding of the struggles that postgraduate and international students face, and is nuanced in its understanding of that these challenges extend far beyond the academic spheres of the university. Her suggestion of a leaflet featuring culturally diverse restaurants to highlight these to international students who may be experiencing homesickness is unique and innovative. Her solutions to target issues are specific and achievable, but not massively ambitious. Her manifesto would benefit from some further innovative solutions to tackle the challenges that she raises, such as proposed changes to the existing programs that she highlights.
Wanru Gao
Wanru summarised her campaign in the sentence: “Empowering international and post-graduate students through better support, stronger connections and a louder voice at our university”.
Key manifesto points:
- Enhance academic support, guaranteeing access to tailored resources and opportunities specifically geared towards postgraduate students
- Simplify processes and provide information and support to international students
- Promote cultural exchange
Wanru told Impact that the manifesto point she was most passionate about is creating a postgraduate and international student hub – a dedicated space that will be designed to support these groups of students through their unique challenges, focusing on visa support, career support and cultural networking. Her aim with this initiative is to build a better and more diverse community between international students and support as many people as possible.
Wanru understands firsthand the struggles of being both a postgraduate and international student, demonstrating that she knows how difficult it can be to adapt not just to new cultures but to entirely different academic structures. She has a wide breadth of experience in various different leadership positions, and explains that having experienced management of many large-scale projects she is well-equipped to hold the role of VP Postgraduate & International.
Wanru’s manifesto is specific in identifying key issues that postgraduate and international students face, especially recognising the lack of presence of voices from these groups in feedback spaces and decision-making environments. However, she doesn’t lay out many specific solutions, or explain how she aims to implement changes to tackle these issues in a way that hasn’t been actioned before.
Head to the UoNSU website to check out all of the candidates and their original manifestos. Cast your votes from Monday 10th March at 9am.
Leacsaidh Marlow
Featured image courtesy of UoNSU, no changes have been made to this image.
In-text logo image courtesy of Joseph Banks, no changes have been made to this image.
