This year’s Student Union Part-Time Officers Elections were the biggest in the history of Bournemouth University. Nearly 40 students ran for election and a record number of students voted.
The Part-Time Officers are active in supporting the Full-Time Officers (President, Vice President: Communications, Vice President: Education and Vice President: Landsdowne) across the full range of student affairs. Their roles include everything from Community Officer and Environmental Officer to Democracy Officer.
PR, Advertising and Marketing students were not to be left out of the campaigning fun! Several from the CMC school were nominated for various positions and got going with persuading the 18,000-strong population of Bournemouth University that they were the best for the job.
First year PR student Dev Mistry has been successful in becoming our Community Officer. This means he takes the responsibility of helping integrate Bournemouth University with the local area and vice versa. Local residents and students hopefully live side by side in harmony and the Community Officer’s job is to actively promote and encourage students and the community to share their skills and expertise.
Dev says: “As a first year it was quite daunting to run for the post. I was up against some really well known people and their manifestos were amazing.” This is a sentiment echoed across the vast number of nominees. Emmy Smith, a second year Advertising student agrees that a real bond was formed between the people running and that many have made firm friends with their competition.
Dev’s campaign focused on the use of social media, namely Facebook and Twitter. Telling people his plans for the coming year over these platforms helped voters to spread the word easily if they liked what he had to say. It was the best way for him to reach a vast number of students on a personal level. Many of this year’s winners used the same approach, adding to notion that social media really is the way to get movements off the ground.
Final year Advertising student Samantha Stockwell was also successful in her bid to become Campaigns Officer. In addition to using social media, Stockwell employed a creative campaign. She took to the university floors with small paper hearts, with “Love Sam” hand written on each of them. Perhaps an indication that – while social media is fast acting and mass appealing – at the end of the day, we love a free treat.
Well done to all the nominees and congratulations to Dev Mistry and Samantha Stockwell!