Ali Shahid, one of two Union President candidates running in this year’s Executive Elections, has spoken in more detail to Label about the plans within his manifesto.
He aims to work on the “teacher feedback system” and “module feedback system” to make it more consistent: “I believe with the rise in tuition fees there will be huge competition between universities and so it’s important that you have a good feedback system”.
Shahid thinks the rise in tuition fees means that self catered halls are not going to be filled so a “reduce to the cost of halls” is ideal but, if not financially viable, has discussed providing more complimentary services for students. He also spoke of providing a cheap bus service for students between parts of the campus that he states should be accessible to all.
Among other points in his plans should he become Union President, he described post-graduate students as “the neglected species of the university” and thought it was very important to involve them further. He also spoke of improving the Lufbra.net website to make finding information easier and working on the marketing of the executives “because seventy to eighty percent of the students don’t even know what the executives are doing”.
Shahid is confident in himself and that in the next sixteen days of campaigning, “the most important thing will be just talking to people, telling them what your plans are and what you want to do for them”.
“I have very good experience behind my back, in the first three months I won four elections so that speaks of my credentials, before that I was the sports president for three consecutive years in Pakistan, the general secretary for the oversees club and the marketing manager so I really have the experience to do things and really want to change some of the stuff and market Loughborough as a global university.”
When discussing his competitor, ex-Faraday hall chair Ellie Read, he wished her “the best of luck” and said, “may the best candidate win”. At the candidates reveal Shahid stated that Read “definitely has more popularity than me but I want to do some really good things for this university… I’m sure about myself and I know what I want to do and I will make sure that all the wishes of the students of this university come true”.
Ali Shahid will be campaigning against Ellie Read for the position of Union President for the next sixteen days.
