What sets apart your LCO candidates from each other?

With elections opening tomorrow, we decided to interview your Liberation-Campaign Officer candidates so that students could get to know them better. We asked candidates what their main goals are, what sets them apart from their opponents, and what they’d like to see change at the uni.

Manifestos for LCO candidates can be found here.

Students with Disabilities Officer: Luke Halpin and Rowan Birch

Via @luke_and_rowan_for_swd on Instagram

1) What are your main goals for the role?

“Our main goals can be summarised as accessibility, accountability, and community. This means improving the accessibility of university life for all students, holding the university accountable for its responsibilities to students with accessibility needs, and continuing to build a valuable, supportive community for students with disabilities.”

2) What would you bring to the role that you think your opponents wouldn’t?

“Our extensive experience, of working within forums, with LUSU, with university services, and self-advocacy, means that we know exactly who to work with, to achieve meaningful change which benefits our community. Not only will we run events for our community, we will work in the background to make university life more accessible for everyone.”

3) What are the main changes you’d like to see in the university?

“The biggest change we want is for accessibility for all to be a consideration from the start, in the planning of any service or event by the university and the students union. This means uploading lecture recordings before a student asks for them, making sure that events are in accessible buildings, keeping up the accessibility measures first introduced during the pandemic. The student community should always include people with disabilities.”

Students with Disabilities Officer: Arwen Smith & Charley Zollinger

Via @arwenandcharley on Instagram

1) What are your main goals for the role?

“We want to work hard to continue and expand on the pre-existing safe spaces that are an integral part of SWD. We also want to campaign to make the changes we want to see within the university as we believe they will make the university more accessible.”

2) What would you bring to the role that you think your opponents wouldn’t?

“We both have a high level of understanding of how the forum works and the relationship to LUSU, other forums, and societies, thanks to our time on both the SwD and LGBTQ+ execs. We communicate regularly with other disabled students and we’re therefore very aware of the accessibility issues within the university and campus. We also just generally have a large range of skills between us from our backgrounds, allowing us to work well as LCOs as well as being well equipped to work well with an exec and help the exec out where needed.”

3) What are the main changes you’d like to see in the university?

“We want to help make the university more accessible by working with the elected VP of Education to improve lecture recordings and captioning, alongside working with departments to make it easier for students to access support, such as streamlining the extension request process or, where this isn’t possible, requesting clearer guidelines for students with and without an ILSP.”

Women+ Officer: Hana Dodsworth

Via @hanadodsworth.x on Instagram

1) What are your main goals for the role?

“My main goals for the role are to run widespread campaigns that enact change across the university. I also want to create a diversity pledge for sugar to have DJ’s that have different races, genders, ages etc.”

2) What would you bring to the role that you think your opponents wouldn’t?

“I think that all opponents in the elections this year bring v strong skills. Even though my role is unopposed there is still a high standard that I need to reach and I think it’s a lot about confidence and making decisions based on reasoning and sound judgement”

3) What are the main changes you’d like to see in the university?

“The main changes in the university I’d love to see is more advertisement of the SU and a push for making the campus accessible for students with disabilities as-well as staff members and students supporting and advertising the importance of safe spaces on campus as we (the forums) are there to be used.”

Elections for FTO open Tuesday 7th March at 10am.

Featured image via @lancastersu on Instagram, @luke_and_rowan_for_swd on Instagram, @arwenandcharley on Instagram, @hanadodsworth.x on Instagram

Related articles recommended by this writer:

• The many, many types of students you will encounter in the library
• Lancaster University’s Women+ forum announced events for Women’s History Month
• UCU announces an additional strike day