I’m standing for both Students’ Union President and NUS Delegate, because I know that my experience this past year in helping rebuild our Union has enabled me ready and confident to take on the role. Aside from serving as Education Officer for the past 8 months, since December, I have been Acting President, as well as taking on many roles within the Campaigns & Activities and Welfare remits, from working closely on the Keeping Wednesday Afternoon Free Campaign (KWAF) to lobbying for a liberated, diverse curricula and working to boycott and oppose PREVENT. 

This past year has been both testing and challenging, and has identified the faults within our Union structure, resulting in a Union wide need for change and rebuilding our lost connections with our membership. I have and will continue to prove myself the person to do this, to rebuild our Union and to regain any ground lost in engaging and servicing the students of this campus.

Voting me as Union President means guaranteeing the continued development of a strong, stable, and strategic Students’ Union that will continue to fight for both our members and those most marginalised in our community. 

As for my aspirations for NUS Delegate, in my role as Goldsmiths’ Representative to various NUS events and conferences, I have maintained a strong relationship to officers and delegates from across the country and members of the National Executive Committee, as well as working on projects with the Black Students’ Campaign and the Higher Education Zones Committee. At conference, I will represent the students of Goldsmiths, and will strive for accountabilty and transparancy within NUS. 

Check out www.dannyforpresident.co.uk to read my (Very) Extended Manifesto and to keep up with the campaign! 

If re-elected, I want to focus on these four areas of development:

1- Resourcing Activities 

We need to develop and expand our Activities strategies and structure to meet the growing demand of students. 

• Democratic Activities infrastructure 
• Establish perk systems for Sports and Society members, working with members of the Gym, SU Shop, the Bar, and the Nursery to ensure integration, and discounted & easy use of these services.
• Expanded Activities Team, in terms of funding, but also staffing and administrative support
• A larger budget for Societies for events and campaigns
• Space for Sports and Societies to meet and practice on Campus 
• Training and support for Media and Society Officers

2- Your Degree in Practice 

With the reality of living in London and rising living costs worldwide, Universities should also serve as a space for individual skill and practice development, as well as academic. I propose three ways to do this:

• Cross Departmental Collaboration for expanded module options
• Establish connections with Further Education (FE) Institutions, public and private sector organisations, and local entities for work placements and experience
• Creating spaces on campus that students can position their degree in the real world, and simultaneously benefit the local community. (For example, English Language classes to migrants in Lewisham administered by  CELAW students)

3- Proactive Solidarity 

We have a socially responsive duty as an academic institution that our education is accessible to the most vulnerable, as well acting as platform for social and political change in our local and wider communities. 

• Maintain our identity as a strong, campaigning Union
• Lobbying to bring back the Postgraduate Work Study Visa for International Students’, as well as defend our rights to rent without demonisation 
• Organising and Mobilising students in opposition to the Government’s systematic attacks on the social and political mobility of students, youth, and the poor.
• Reducing asylum seeking/refugee students’ tuitions to match Edinburgh University (£1800)
• Lobby for housing rent caps, as well as comprehensive tenant’s rights 

4- A Democratic Education 

I will continue the fight for a student centred education that engages, reaches, and supports all our student body. 

• Continuing to Liberate the Curriculum through reading lists, assessment and feedback methods, and pedagogical approaches 
• Tackling the Black student attainment gap, which currently sits nationwide at 20%
• Integration of Mature, Part Time, Student Parents, International, and Postgrad students into the Students’ Union, through developing services and spaces that meet their unique needs