SU President – Nadine Curtis

Vote Nadine #1 because we deserve better. I’ll take on rising costs, over-assessment, student safety – EVAWG, strengthen student voice, women’s health, accessibility and international support, and make clubs, societies and campus life easier to access. Student life is about belonging not coping. Real change, not loose promises.

What is your campaign fundamentally about in running for SU President?

Yeah, so fundamentally on the ground level, my campaign is about making sure that there’s a space on campus for every student and making sure that everybody has access to education, has access to clubs and societies and that no one feels limited, whether that’s by cost, by their needs, whether that’s a disability or neurodiversity or simple things like just your menstrual health, limiting your access to campus.

And this year in the Postgraduate Education Officer role, I absolutely love my role and I really love representing postgrad students. But I have found as I went on, there’s been things that keep coming up and I really want to work on that, but I don’t have the capacity to do so. So the role of president would allow me to have a really big overarching view of what’s going on in the Students’ Union and to make sure that I can work in all these different pockets to help support more and more students. Myself, I was an undergraduate school rep before I went to Postgrad. And it was a similar reason that I went for Postgrad was I wanted something different and wanted to challenge myself and really kind of use the things that I’ve learned to apply to help more and more students.

You were the full-time Postgraduate Education Officer the past year; what were the biggest challenges you faced and also maybe the biggest achievements you faced in representing students?

Yeah, I think that one of the most challenging parts about any officer role really is trying to make sure that you represent as many students as possible and hear as many voices as possible. I think sometimes that can be difficult. We get very bogged down in everyday meetings and things, but I’ve always tried my best to meet the students and bring them in and speak to them and bring them into the office and actually give them time. But I think some of my greatest achievements this year have been the Postgraduate Welcome Fair that had almost 300 students attend; and students told me that they’re really grateful and it was in October, so those that missed the September freshers’ intake were able to actually feel welcomed and sometimes that’s the biggest challenge for our postgrads is that they miss the freshers period and then they feel like they can’t join clubs and societies and things like that.

Apart from that and I think my Postgraduate Supervision Contract that I’m working on it’s a big achievement as well and I ran an event and brought students in and there was about 16 PhD students and we talked about what a contract should have and it was a really big full circle moment for me because the students in the room were like able to say I’m really really glad to see this happening and I was like oh that’s brilliant because it was something that I ran on last year and then I was really seeing it start to happen for students.

What are your methods and approaches to go about sort of mitigating the effects and the negative effects of the cost of living crisis on students?

First of all, the pantry is the obvious one. And we’ve seen a lot of attention on the pantry recently. And it’s just expanding that and making sure that we really keep that going because any day that I’m in the foyer, the lines wrapped around the stairs. And while it’s a good thing we can provide that for students, it’s actually really sad. And when you think about it, the students are willing to wait 30, 40 minutes just to be able to get dry goods. But one of the things to do there is to really push on the tuition fees and to push on the maintenance loans. It’s a really big challenge, but it’s something that we have to push every year. And as a president, that’s something that I will represent: the government and our community should be investing in the education of our future students and that’s just not currently the case.

But apart from that, I’d really like to work on things like the PEC. The PEC has risen in cost for our students and it’s making access to wellbeing really difficult and it’s done in other places and I think that’s something that we really need to remember how impactful the cost of living can be on all aspects of your student life and not just not being able to eat but not being able to do recreational activities as well. I want to put on free bi-weekly sports sessions in the PUC for students. So that’s a bit of a play on community, but also an opportunity to try something. And it’s not an intimidating space to do that. And I’d like to keep that recurring throughout the year just to really help our students.

And then I’ve been working on reusable period products this year as well. So we have the disposable period products, but those don’t take into account our students that are on placement or our students who are commuters. They won’t have access to those disposable products when they’re off campus. So the reusable ones are a really, really big push to try and support our students when they’re not with us as well.

For cost-of-living support, placing students is a huge one too. And we see that it’s MHLS students who use our pantry more than any other student.
and that just shows how much pressure is on our medicine students or nursing students so it’s working on the cost of travel and making sure that that’s subsidized where possible but also the wide length card doesn’t go over 23 which is also ridiculous for our students so that’s something that’s really really important to me as well.

What is your approach with Irish-language and bilingual signage at the SU?

I think that it’s a really important issue and there’s no denying that 100%. But I think that there’s a lot of work to be done with speaking with the Language Commissioners and that’s something that currently Eli (Undergraduate Education Officer) has been taking the lead on Irish language the past year, and that’s something that they’ve been working really hard to try and do.

I think it’s just really important that our students are being listened to. I mean, we’ve seen Ulster. Ulster have got their signs and that doesn’t really reflect too well on us either because it’s worked for them and it hasn’t worked for us. But I think there’s a lot more around Irish language than just the signage. I think it’s about making it present on campus and giving our students the opportunity to learn Irish and to learn any other language, minority languages as well because I myself I came from a background where that opportunity wasn’t there for me and I didn’t get the chance to learn Irish and that’s really unfortunate and so I think Queen’s is the time when you should be able to do that and explore your culture explore your identity.

Summarise your campaign in five words or less…

Student-led, bold, accessible, practical.

Your favourite cafe near QUB…?

I really like the Terrace Cafe. It’s not a Queens owned one, but it actually is cheaper because of that. So I really like it. It’s really nice in there. And it’s not too far from where I studied!

You can view Nadine’s manifesto here.