UCDSU Campaigns and Engagement Officer Miranda Bauer is campaigning to be the next SU President. Her comprehensive and ambitious manifesto has radical undertones, and extends to all remits of student life.
This year’s UCDSU Executive Elections see two current Sabbatical Officers running in the presidential race. This year’s Campaigns & Engagement Officer Miranda Bauer is hoping to extend her tenure within the union as she is running to be the next President of the UCD Students’ Union. .
Despite having been a Sabbatical officer only for a year, Bauer has been heavily involved with the Students’ Union during her time in UCD: starting as a class rep and peer mentor, she then served as Social Sciences & Humanities College Officer and SU Diversity & Inclusion Campaigns Coordinator. To Bauer, these roles equipped her with the appropriate experience to run for the Presidential post – alongside providing her with expert knowledge of both the SU and the University.
Bauer cites her continuous dedication to student life “in Ireland and UCD and nationally and internationally” as another reason she is fit for the role. More importantly, however, she emphasises her stance “for academic freedom in an intersectional way”, which permeates her presidential campaign. One way this transpires in Bauer’s manifesto is her willingness to collaborate with UCD Access and Lifelong Learning (ALL) to support students on ALL pathways. Additionally, Bauer expresses her willingness to fight for students’ voices to be heard, for instance, by increasing the frequency of board meetings the SU sits on, as well as allowing more students to participate in the Student Partnership Forum.
Bauer’s extensive campaign background can be inferred throughout her activism-prone manifesto. Alongside expressing her willingness to fight to ensure an enjoyable university experience for students, an integral part of Bauer’s campaign is her project to reform the union. This aspect is perhaps the most ambitious area of Bauer’s campaign, as she admits to having “so many examples of things that [she] wants to do”. Most of these proposals relate to changing the Union from a structural perspective, which is an idea that stems from Bauer experience as Campaigns and Engagement Officer during the past year. For instance, Bauer revealed to the University Observer that when she entered the job, she “didn't know how much admin work [she] would have to do”, as these commitments meant she “could not be out in the ground as much as [she] wanted to.”
Alongside expressing her willingness to fight to ensure an enjoyable university experience for students, an integral part of Bauer’s campaign is her project to reform the union.
Indeed, Bauer’s decision to run for president stems from her commitment to structurally reform the union: “I feel like the president's role is to have oversight over this. And if there's structural issues, it's up to the president to change them. [...] I want to run to make sure that we can fix the union from within so that we can actually make effective change.”
Bauer’s decision to run for president stems from her commitment to structurally reform the union.
Alongside relieving Sabbatical officers of most of their administrative tasks and giving more training to college officers and class reps, Bauer’s plans to reform the union are tied to her commitments to intersectionality. She aims to create a new position within the executive, a part-time Diversity & Inclusion Officer, that would ensure the upholding of the SU’s claims of inclusivity: “I've seen multiple times that we can pledge to intersectionality, we can pledge to make sure that we support diverse students coming from diverse backgrounds and everything. But if there's not a role that is dedicated to do that, there's not really any accountability to be held.”
Accountability is another integral area of reform for the SU, especially in relation to Sabbatical officers. Bauer aims to achieve this through training college officers accordingly – for instance, by training them to read reports. In Bauer’s view, “reports are really not scrutinised as much as they should be... And those reports are there to make sure that we are held accountable. But if class reps don't feel comfortable holding us accountable, if they don't feel comfortable reading those reports and actually scrutinising them, then we have an issue. And that's something that hasn't really been done in training before. And that's something that I would love to start on.”
In Bauer’s view, "reports are really not scrutinised as much as they should be... And those reports are there to make sure that we are held accountable. But if class reps don't feel comfortable holding us accountable, if they don't feel comfortable reading those reports and actually scrutinising them, then we have an issue."
Another area of reform relates to bilingualism. Despite being mandated to foster bilingual promotion, Bauer admits that the SU has failed to ensure that “the Irish language is kept at the forefront all the time.” To counter this, Bauer plans to “media train the Irish language officer [...] so that [they] can work on bilingual promotion with us and so that we can actually make sure that we are keeping that mandate fulfilled.”
Radical undertones can be inferred also in the other areas of Bauer manifesto – particularly with regards to measures to alleviate the cost of living for UCD students. For instance, Bauer's main plan to tackle the housing crisis is to lobby for a rent-freeze on on-campus accommodation. The way she aims to achieve this is through direct action, akin to how Trinity College Dublin succeeded in this endeavour. With students in UCD “paying the highest rents amongst all other universities”, Bauer suggests that if students agreed, “direct action” could replace the “peaceful path” the SU has followed thus far on the matter: “if they think that direct action is the way, then who am I to stop it? And I'm here to encourage it.” Bauer cites “sit-ins” and “protests” as examples of direct action to achieve change with regards to housing.
Radical undertones can be inferred also in the other areas of Bauer manifesto – particularly with regards to measures to alleviate the cost of living for UCD students.
Another point in Bauer’s extensive project to alleviate the cost of living for UCD students is the abolition – or at least, a drastic reduction – of home fees. “I believe education should be free. And if it's not free, at least it should be accessible”, is Bauer’s rationale behind this proposal. However, she is aware of how incredibly ambitious this goal is: “it would be very disingenuous to say that I will get to do this. But I'm going to fight for this and I'm going to set a precedent to keep fighting for it.” This fight would involve lobbying the government to give more funding to the university to tackle the current economic deficit.
“I believe education should be free. And if it's not free, at least it should be accessible."
To Bauer, this lobbying would also positively impact international students’ fees: “one third of UCD's financing and resources come from international student fees – which is... a hell of a lot.” Therefore, “once you get to make sure that home fees are at least severely reduced, you won't have to use international students as cash cows anymore.”
Bauer’s proposals to make student life more economically accessible also apply to the SU Shops: “the main bridge that the union has with students and that the students have with the Union are the shops.” The first step in this regard would be “to make sure that our shop staff get paid a living wage”, which Bauer would achieve by having the SU President “sit on weekly meetings with the shop staff management and the management of the union.”
Bauer’s manifesto is incredibly comprehensive. Indeed, alongside these ambitious proposals to alleviate the cost of living, she also pledges to increase a sense of community on the UCD campus – including ‘remote’ campuses Smurfit, Richview, and Newstead. Events are the privileged strategy to achieve this – for instance, “themed weeks”, “collaboration” with campus groups, and ensuring that planning the annual UCD Ball begins “very early in the year.” As for remote campuses, Bauer hopes to train the relevant college officers “on how to bring union initiatives” to those areas.
Similarly to her opponent, Bauer aims to further increase community spirit on campus by repurposing Building 71. Bauer cites how moving the union offices to the space “has been in the union's view for two years now”, since it would allow the SU to be “more central and... more approachable.” In Bauer’s plan, Building 71 “would be solely for students to have as a social space.”
Bauer’s plans for Building 71 feed into her proposals to improve students’ wellbeing. Indeed, should plans to move the SU offices be successful, “the health and counselling services can expand and that's something that would be incredibly beneficial for them; [...] it would basically be shooting two birds with one stone.” Although the allocation of resources for mental health services depend on the government, Bauer nonetheless pledges to ensure that “the links that we have with the counselling services are there, that we are continuing to ask how they think that we can support them best to make sure that they can support students and that we actually have enough counsellors for students, that we have enough space for the counselling services.”
Should plans to move the SU offices be successful, "the health and counselling services can expand and that's something that would be incredibly beneficial for them; [...] it would basically be shooting two birds with one stone.”
The extension of libraries’ opening hours are also integral to Bauer’s plans to improve students’ support, as is the interesting proposal of adding self-service stations with kettles and microwaves around campus. Bauer ties the latter point to how “students are saying that they can't really afford to buy the food [on campus]. So it's important that we provide options for students to be autonomous in their food life.” Logistically, the implementation of this specific measure would follow consultation with management as well as UCD Estates.
The comprehensiveness of Bauer’s manifesto is a manifestation of her willingness to improve student life in every SU remit, which is a project she had wanted to take on in her tenure as Campaigns and Engagement Officer already: “I realised that I wanted to do so many things in so many different remits [...] And I was like, ‘maybe I should run for president and do everything.” Indeed, she argues that the most important part of the role of President is “having a holistic approach, [...] having an observant eye... at all of the aspects of student life.”