Vote Ciro and Malena for Academic Affairs Officers
Ciro Puig Bonet
- 2nd year BA Politics and World Philosophies
Malena Bastida Antich
- 3rd year BA IR & Chinese
- Student Rep Politics & IR 2018-9
As Academic Affairs Officers, we will strive to:
1. DECOLONISE THE CURRICULUM
- Push for a compulsory Anti-racism Workshop at the start of the year.
- Condemn SOAS' complicity in the policing of BME & Muslim bodies and the criminalisation of their political thought by supporting Preventing Prevent.
- Seize gender studies not as a mere "topic" in academics but as a tool of power/knowledge.
- Campaign for the anonymising of marking, and continue the process of investigation of student drop-outs with specific consideration to the BME attainment gap.
- Support and demand institutional protection for students facing racial discrimination in SOAS.
2. ENSURE TRANSPARENCY & AVAILABILITY
- Provide a weekly office hour for students to come directly share their questions & issues with us.
- Make minutes of meetings with other SOAS bodies open and public.
- Organise teach-ins to support other forms of alternative education.
- Encourage tutors to open seminars to all students who wish to audit a course.
- Organise closely with student reps for them to report back on feedback and general issues.
- Promote binding academic-lead councils to democratise the opaque management of SOAS and fight its bureaucratisation.
3. FACE THE OPS RESTRUCTURING
- Oppose the library cuts, like the loss of 5 subject specialists, the E-services team and the specialist help for people with learning disabilities.
- Protect the survival of our most weakened departments & demand the retrieval of the modules that remain cancelled.
- Give full support to academic and non-academic staff if they take industrial action to resist casualisation.
- Develop solidarity links between the student body and Save SOAS Library, J4W, and FFP.
- Ensure the continuity of Accountability Forums with senior managers organised by Crisis SOAS.
4. IMPROVE LEARNING ATMOSPHERE
- Facilitate the creation of note-sharing clouds to promote the collectivisation of learning.
- Initiate a platform that records existing reading groups in SOAS in order to broaden their access.
- Promote the use of all-class essay feedback among academic staff in order for students to be able to learn from others’ learning paths in assignments.
- Demand departments to provide optional print booklets of required readings. Students should not bear the budget burden of their learning preferences.
5. RESIST THE COMMERCIALISATION OF OUR EDUCATION
- Contest forms of assessment/surveillance enforced by the neoliberal logic of UUK system, like the NSS.
- Oppose any fee increase and mobilise the Union if a potential rise comes.