SU22 - Jamie-Lukas Campbell for Postgraduate officer
Jamie-Lukas Campbell
I’m running to become your next Postgraduate Officer because I’m confident that I can utilize my years of professional experience as an advocate and leader in government to serve as a voice and champion for my peers. Whoever you elect to this post must have a solid working relationship with Queen’s staff, understand what we can realistically accomplish together, and be passionate about amplifying students’ voices.
Postgraduate students represent 32% of the Queen’s community – that number is expected to grow. We need to work together to ensure that our programmes, facilities, and professional development opportunities arise to meet that challenge. Your next Postgraduate Officer will need to be mindful of this and be a pragmatic champion for all.
Since being elected HAPP PGT rep and the Student Council’s Representative on the University Senate, the governing body of the university, I’ve served as an advocate for transparency, opposed proposals to increase accommodation fees, called for better and more targeted communication to students, sought to expand interdisciplinary learning, and demanded diversity and inclusion efforts from the top.
Together, we can accomplish a lot. And, as your Postgraduate Officer, I’ll be a champion for our community, committed to working alongside you to make Queen’s the best campus for all.
Here’s just a glimpse of what I’d like to accomplish together:
Improved and inclusive career and professional development programmes. We invest in our education to prepare us for career moves, research study preparation, or earn more money. Let’s work together to demand that students’ experience and career prospects are better served and that training opportunities are scheduled around times that work best for all students – regardless of experience level or discipline.
Job and recruitment fairs that are inclusive of students across all disciplines. The last two fairs skewed heavily towards actuarial and computing disciplines. I’d like to work with university staff to produce a more robust recruitment fair, including one that features employers ready to sponsor international students who have uprooted their lives to study here and begin anew in Belfast.
Fighting the rising cost of accommodation. Accommodation costs are rising while our wages, student financing, and scholarships remain stagnant. Besides the increasing costs within Queen’s Accommodation, the university should be at the forefront of conversations about education and student accommodation commercialization.
Enhancing collaboration and communication. I’d like to form a student-led working group to identify ways to streamline communication from the university. The existing communication system can feel overwhelming and disconnected.
Increasing cross-disciplinary collaboration. I selected Queen’s because of the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and scholarship. I want to work with you to see more of that across campus. More student-led seminars and presentations, more research collaboration across our schools, and opportunities for students to support each other’s development.
World-class facilities for a world-class institution. Let’s work together to demand improvements to our facilities. Many of our classrooms have outdated technology with broken or offline audio and streaming systems, the computers in the Graduate School are slow, and workstations are not always functional, printers across campus and in university accommodation are out of order more often than not, and accessible entryways malfunction far too often.
World-class working environment for a world-class institution. Covid-19 led to students feeling isolated, unsupported, and uncertain about the future, especially our postgraduate students. I will fight to ensure that the university considers postgraduate students’ mental and emotional wellbeing, equitable wages and working conditions, and integration into our academic community.
If Queen’s is going to improve our falling student satisfaction surveys, and if we’re going to continue to build a more inclusive campus for all, students need an experienced and pragmatic Postgraduate Officer to work with them to hold the university accountable. Together, we can strengthen communication and collaboration across the university, fight against the commercialization of higher education, and demand opportunities that set us all up for success. Most importantly, we need to help Queen’s refocus its mission: students first – I hope you’ll vote for me so we can strive to do that together.
To see all the candidates running, visit the QUBSU website.