Last term, VP: Union Affairs, Max Crawford, with the backing of the LSU Executive, put forward the idea of having a Vice President Post-Grad role on Exec from next year. The idea of having an additional Sports Sabbatical position on Exec was also discussed, with the aim of relieving Executive duties on VP: Sport, leaving more time to actually do work within the section. Whilst these ideas were passed by Union Affairs Committee, the university have not passed it due to funding at this stage.
Label spoke to Max Crawford to find out his thoughts:
“It’s a real shame because it’s something that we’ve worked so hard to introduce but unfortunately, because we are not able to fund the position, the decision lies with the university and as it was not in their budget plan for this year I can understand why it’s not going ahead. We will try again with a bid in April to get into their budget for next year.” – Max Crawford, VP: Union Affairs.
Loughborough University will receive LSU’s bid for the roles again in April for the following year, putting the union way ahead of where they have been this year in terms of requesting the extra funding. Max Crawford is very passionate about introducing this roles whilst he is in post and no doubt will continue his efforts to obtain the funding for the roles.
The question is, are the roles really needed in the long term? Whilst a paid Post-Grad role would be beneficial in many ways, it could be argued that our current Exec should be able to facilitate Post-Graduate needs within their roles, current Post-Grad DO shared his opinions with Label on this, find out more here. An additional Sports Exec position was requested for different reasons, although already one of the greatest staffed union sections, it is arguably the one with the greatest university links. Whilst these positions will not be available in the upcoming Executive election, there is nothing saying that the university will not fund the roles in the future.
In a comment piece Dan Leedham questions why LSU doesn’t fund the position anyway.
Join in the debate in the comments or tweet us @LabelOnline. Got a lengthier opinion to share? Email LabelEditor@lsu.co.uk to find out how to get involved.
