Borrowing from Obama - Change we Can Believe in

I'm not much of an Obama fan, never really was. There was a lot of style and hype about him, but with another election coming, very little of that style has turned into substance. Can I deliver "change you can believe in"? Well that's really up to you, because you get to vote on all change.

So this is where it gets exciting for the nerds and politicos.

During the elections in March one of my primary manifesto points was Democratic Engagement. I promised a new vision, structural reform and to make the Union about students not rules.

Notwithstanding that there are other hurdles for the Union to overcome this year the structure is extremely outdated and I'm very keen this be resolved. We've heard about change at a strategic level for the last 2 years, which is also coming soon, but the change at strategic level is pointless if the change at representative level isn't there to back it up.

Council currently has a mahoooooosive potential membership (I think I may have mentione that in last week's blog) of 566 members. What Aoife and myself have come up with is a Council of less than 80, based on the norm in a lot of the UK unions. What we haven't done is a complete copy and paste.

No two organisations are the same, and even if they were, who's to say the one being copied is doing things as best as possible.

What have we come up with so far?


Who will sit in the new Council?

1 member elected from each faculty by all students in the faculty - 4

1 3rd/4th year member elected from each department by all students with a module in the department (some students will have votes in multiple departments) - 28

3-8 Members for each of the following Special Interest Groups, elected mainly by all students.

1. Equal Opportunities


2. Postgraduate


3. Recreation


4. UL Experience


5. First Year

Operating the new Council

The new Council would meet at least 2 but no more than 4 times per semester and assume the parliamentary, oversight and policy development role of the Union.

Sub-Committees of Council would meet at regular intervals including

1. Finance



2. Academic



3. Equal Opportunities



4. Strategy



5. Recreation



6. UL Experience



7. Committees proposed by the Chair of Council and approved by Council

This, if approved, will give ULSU a more streamlined method of operating. Each committee will report to Council on its work at least once per academic year.

What about the current class rep role?

There will still be class reps, but they will not be council reps. They will carry out the functions currently carried out by reps in their classes.

Departmental reps will meet all class reps in their department regularly and the VP Education will meet with all class reps from a faculty each semester.

So whaddya think? Let me know on SUPresident@ul.ie

Slán

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