Hustings Speech

My name is Desmond Mckenna. I am a third year single honours Philosophy student. I came to University as a mature student through the DACE access course. My motivation to run for president is that i feel the SRC will require a responsible and experienced set of hands to guide it through what will be a turbulent year.

I have served as a class rep in the past, and am currently one of the single honours Philosophy reps. I help out at the student disability service where i offer support in the form of scribing. I was the sole member of the Hetherington executive and as such was responsible for winding down the club. This was not an easy decision to take, nor was it a popular one. It was however the right decision to take. This has given me valuable experience in managing and co-ordinating an organisation within the university.

I was pleased to note that a number of the ideas i hope to pursue were mentioned at the non sabb hustings. A lack of inclusion, representation and participation were mentioned as big problems with the SRC and i will tackle these challenges head on through more direct engagement with the student body.

One issue that is currently a major concern of students is that of cuts. It is all very well to shout about cuts that have already been passed, but i think the focus should fall on how we can respond to future cutbacks at our university. Again this requires more engagement with the student body. we need to hear the opinions of all students and not just the few vocal groups that can at times seem to dominate the debate.

I will be pushing to reduce the carbon footprint at Glasgow university. I have ran a paperless campaign, that hopefully will be taken up by candidates in future elections. There is a lot of 'dead' space around campus and space around the halls of residence that can be transformed into student run allotments. More recycling facilities, lets not just send our recycling to landfill, but investigate more sustainable ways of dealing with waste. I would also like to see an end to the requirement for paper submissions of course work in favor of email attachments. 
Indeed the technology we have is not used to anywhere near its potential. Why not have a more interactive student networking platform where we can have podcasts and streams of lectures. One can go online and access lectures from other university's. Why not Glasgow? The dependence in terms of financial cost to the src just to hae the uni servers host the elections should be reason enough for us to seek an independent solution to our IT issues.

In closing i would like to state that although there are a lot of good things about the SRC; Strong and competent full time team, a fantastic location and a good working relation with the university, there are areas that require attention. The perception that the SRC is not representative of the student body needs to be addressed immediately. The domination of political factions has also been singled out as a criticism.
I offer a non-party platform in order to represent all students and foster a more inclusive and representative SRC.

Thank you.