We caught up with our new CEO Emma Taylor-Large to find out more about her vision for the future of the Union.
We caught up with our new CEO Emma Taylor-Large to find out more about her vision for the future of the Union.
What’s your vision for the future of the Union?
My vision continues to be the one set out in our current strategic plan, and that is to have a positive impact on every student. With the mission to be relevant to every student.
A bold statement, but one I believe we hope to achieve through dedicated effort, innovative approaches, and a commitment to excellence. We want every student to not only succeed academically, but also have the opportunities to make friends, socialise, get involved in extracurricular activites and have a fun experience whilst at uni, and that is absolutely our role as a Union to provide those opportunities.
What’s one thing you’re looking forward to doing in the role?
The one thing I am looking to do, is starting to work on some key strategic areas that I have identified as priorities for the organisation. These areas include a full review of our communication strategy, which will be led by our fabulous marketing team, and will include the scope of website, emails, social media platforms and how we share comms with the University's marketing team. Additionally, I plan on doing a full review of the current student voice mechanisms, to understand from students and staff whether the current mechanisms work and how we can improve these. I would like to see a focus on how we work with university academics, as it is clear where we have engaged academics we have increased engagement from their students.
Finally – and this is a biggie, my strategic vision needs to reflect our value of being student-led; therefore, the Union will begin research to understand what students need from the Union for us to remain relevant and have a positive impact on every student.
Describe the Union in three words?
I hope you don’t mind but I am going to go for five – if that’s ok, and those are our values, which ultimately are the epitome of who we are and what we strive to be.
Challenging, Empowering, Supportive, Transformative and I think importantly Student-led, to ensure that voices of our membership shape and influence the Union’s delivery.