Tuesday 29-04-2025 - 14:43

Everyone always says the year as an Officer flies by. It turns out this is even more the case when you're only here for 10 months! There are very few jobs where you come straight out of university and suddenly you're having meetings with Vice-Chancellors and deciding the political direction of an organisation. It's a weird adjustment. It's certainly been 10 months of ups and downs and challenges and conflict, but reflecting on my time here has given me the chance to think about some of the things I'm proud of.

This was the first year of having one Education Officer after last year's Officer restructure. I had a lot of concerns about the restructure and unfortunately, some of them have come true. It's been a tough year for postgraduate taught representation, an area where I've tried my best but didn't have the lived understanding of what that experience is. It's also been tough to be the only Officer in University education committees surrounded by academics and management, but I hope I've been a decent representative of students in those rooms. One of the worries I had was that a smaller Officer team would mean fewer women in full-time Officer roles. This year, I was the only woman full-time Officer in a team with two headstrong men, which certainly came with its challenges. But I'm happy to say that for next year, I've been proven wrong and there will be an Officer team made up of solely non-men. I could be wrong, but I imagine it’s the first time this has happened at Durham SU.

This year has been overshadowed by financial difficulty and cuts. While some of this was to be expected, it did make this year one of some unpredictable crises. Naturally, one of these that took up a lot of time has been the cuts to Billy B opening hours. After believing that I had successfully shut down talks of changes to opening hours this year, the University went over all of our heads and implemented a very last-minute reduction. This was quite a stressful time for both the SU and the library and, understandably, for students. I shared student testimony with the University on why this was a bad idea, but it was clear that, in the financial situation as dire as the one we find ourselves in, anything that can be cut will be. I was proud of the achievements I had in pushing for alternative study space, which hadn't been thought out clearly by anyone making these significant, rushed decisions. I am also proud to have pushed for comprehensive student consultation, which will be carried out this term.

These financial difficulties have also inevitably meant cuts to staff. Our University has a history of treating staff as expendable, who can take on more and more as they cut more and more jobs.

Standing with the UCU has been a very formative part of my time at Durham, from standing out in the snow on a picket line in my very first term. In this latest wave of cuts to both academic and professional services staff, it was extremely important to me that the SU continued to support staff in the recognition that the interests of staff and students are intrinsically aligned.

Cuts to professional services staff means cuts to porters, lab technicians, catering staff, library staff, all the people who ensure this University runs smoothly for students. It was a privilege to be able to work with the UCU and other campus trade unions this year to work towards our shared interests and ensure that the SU keeps its stance of supporting the UCU in light of this. It's tough to be leaving before action starts, particularly if a marking boycott starts, but I hope my colleagues will continue to represent students while supporting staff through this.

Through all of these depressing changes, I'd like to think I have made some positive changes. A lot of this year has been spent trying to change extension policies to take into account the increasing number of students in part-time work and with caring responsibilities. This process has made it clear that any change to education policy is met with reluctance and even aggression from some. Being surrounded by a room of academics tearing apart my ideas is one of the hardest things I've had to go through. However, I'm proud of the progress I've made and am hopeful that those continuing my work over the next few months will achieve the needed changes that take into account the changing makeup of our student population.

Coming into this year, the most important thing to me was improving disability support. So many other things have come up over the last 10 months that I wasn't able to spend as much time on this as I'd have liked, but incremental progress has been made.

The main change I wanted to introduce this year, free internal assessments for specific learning difficulties, which can be used for internal adjustments, will be introduced in October, which hopefully will make a huge difference for these students.

That being said, there's so much more to do in this area, even down to disabilities and adjustments just being taken seriously. I'm confident that my successor, Ellie, is passionate to do something about this.

Course reps and concerned students brought to our attention a change to the Education department travel fee policy, another victim of the financial cuts. Through our collective effort, we managed to overturn the policy change, saving students hundreds of pounds. I'm also constantly inspired by the efforts of estranged and care-experienced students, a constantly ignored group, to fight for the support they deserve. My consistent pushing on this hasn't always made me the most popular, but the consistency everyone has had in not accepting crumbs is what has pushed the University to finally put together a support package. There's still further to go, and this package still isn't enough, but it's a step in the right direction.

So much of what we've been able to achieve this year has been down to student activists and volunteers. I want to thank our course and faculty reps for their hard work, which can often feel like it has little reward.

We're currently at a crossroads in the future of higher education. The marketised funding model of universities is broken, and there will need to be a serious reckoning in the next few years. I certainly don't envy those who will be having to deal with it. Our Government wants a model of universities that exist only to teach students things that will further growth and productivity while gutting any research capacity. The Trumpian assault on academic freedom and research funding will have a huge knock-on effect in the UK. Our funding model relies on students' tuition fees and profit. More and more students will be taken on, placing more pressure on the housing market and on the learning environment as staff to student ratios increase. Universities are reaching a breaking point. The student and union movement must continue to fight marketised education and tuition fees as we get closer and closer to an all-out crisis.

On that rather sour note, I wanted to thank some people who have both supported and challenged me this year. My fellow full-time Officers, Dan and Moi, whose spirited debate has taught me a lot about myself and my convictions. All the part-time Officers, who have come into something completely new, and particularly the Faculty Officers who have been an absolute joy to work with. Most of all, the SU staff who have been so supportive through every step, and above all Olivia, the Education Programme Co-ordinator, who has been the best staff support I could have ever asked for. This can be a deeply frustrating and dispiriting job, but I reckon it's been worth it.