Third year Politics and Economics joint honours student Bradley Escorcio is running for Union Affairs Officer in the LUU Leadership race. Her Campus Leeds caught up with him to talk about his campaign and manifesto. Voting opens 4th-8th March.
Why have you chosen to run for Union Affairs Officer in this year’s Leadership race?
I wanted to do it last year but decided not to as I didn’t want to split up my course. Basically I think my degree is quite well suited to the position as Union Affairs Officer deals with democracy, government, finance, then politics and economics is in there as well. I’ve just really enjoyed representing students over the past few years as a rep, so I think it’s useful to get involved and bring about change.
What experience do you bring to the role?
In first year I was president of my halls committee, so that was a lot of organising events, bringing in change and representing students. This year I’m the school rep for Politics and International Studies, so that’s also a bit of the same, but I’ve also been dealing with the consultation as the Social Sciences building, the one opposite the library, is getting refurbished this summer. It’s an £8 million project and I’ve been working on getting students’ views and making sure they get to see what they’d like in the new building. I’m also a Terrace supervisor and I’ve been working there for almost two years now, so that’s given me a lot of experience within the Union, finding out how we do things around here and how we can bring out positive change for students.
How do you fit everything in? What with your degree, your Rep responsibilities, your campaign and working for the Union?
Thankfully I don’t have to do a dissertation as with joint honours it’s optional. I just have to stay organised and get everything planned, then hope everything goes smoothly.What do you want to do to improve the Union?
The main thing is communication with students. We do a lot of awesome stuff here and people just don’t know about it so I’d like to make sure we try to engage more with students and make sure they get involved in ways they know how to. I’m going to introduce a smart phone app, one that can benefit a lot of students and also help accessibility in many ways.
Could you expand on the smart phone app?
One of my ideas on my manifesto is to bring in a LUU smart phone app for Android, Blackberry and iPhone, which will allow you to engage with the Union in ways like booking rooms, selling tickets for your events, advertising space for clubs and societies, getting deals sent straight to your phone and news updates. I also want to make a media section so students can connect with different student media all in one place and on the go.
What will you change in the Union?
I think the Union is pretty positive but the thing I’d most like to change is how we actually let students make changes. At this moment in time we’ve got the Better Forums but they’re not really publicised and lots of students don’t know how to get involved with them. I also think that a lot of students find that the process is quite long and off-putting so I’d like to simplify it and make it easier for students to bring in change; whether they tweet something or they submit it through the app there should be a member of the exec accountable and ready to reply to them.
How did you come up with your campaign and manifesto and how’s it all going?
With the actual campaign I’ve set up a group on Facebook with about 20 of us where we just brainstorm ideas and see what we think will work and what doesn’t. The Union gives all candidates £40 to spend on your campaign and you’re allowed to add in an additional £35 of your own money, just to keep it fair. We’ve had some crazy ideas and some good ones but we’re just trying to balance it out at the moment. Look out for a potential flash mob on Friday.
In terms of manifesto, part of them have been ideas that I’ve developed throughout the year and then just before the Leadership race started I went around to different clubs and societies and asked what they’d like to see in the Union and then collaborated their ideas and put it into the manifesto.
Can you tell me a little bit more about your manifesto?
One of the last sections of my manifesto is about making the Union more dedicated, so while we’re here and enjoying our courses I want to extend the services and the time that the Union’s open. Furthermore, when students are leaving I want to make sure that they have the best prospect to get a job, so one of my ideas is to extend a current scheme that we have in the Union. For any internal staff right now there’s a scheme called ‘Walking In The Shoes Of’ where any member of staff can go and do a week in a different department within the Union and gain some new skills, which might help them in deciding what they want to do after they leave. At the moment you have to be a current member of staff but I’d like to open that up to more students. Obviously we can’t have 30,000 students running around the Union so it was an idea that we could extend to set up a shadowing scheme between the Union and local businesses. That way we’d try and get students involved and give them a taste of different sectors and roles so that when they leave they have their degree, but they can also say I’ve tried this and I’m really passionate about this and I’d like to continue with it.
Are you involved with any groups or societies?
As a School Rep I’m supposed to be part of the Politics society but other than that I’m not officially part of any. However if I have friends going I’ll just go along as a non-member.
If you don’t get elected what are your plans?
Definitely going to stay in Leeds, because I’ve fallen in love with the city and I can’t leave! I haven’t got any official plans yet so we’ll see.
What would you like to do in the future, career-wise?
I’m not sure right now. I was one of those people who came to Uni and didn’t know what I wanted to do, but after I’ve had some experience working I think I’d like to pursue a career in marketing.
Finally, why should we vote for you?
I’m pretty friendly, outgoing, approachable and I think I’ve got the experience to really benefit this Union and represent students in a way that they’d like to see. I’m a big fan of representing and bringing positive change, it’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years, so I’d like to use my skills to help improve the student experience at Leeds.
Image Sources:
All Bradley’s own.