When I joined Cambridge in October 2020, the first thing I saw the SU doing was campaigning for all online teaching, in spite of an extremely obvious desire among students to have the least amount of teaching online possible. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a good first impression.

What did leave a good first impression, however, was my JCR —the President of which fought back against the SU’s policy and proposed the motion which killed it for good at SU Council. I was heartened to see common sense prevail in the end, and put the schism between the student body and those elected to represent it down to a one-off misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, I was wrong to do so. In my second term, I saw the SU’s proposals for a reading week. While I appreciate the idea, as a Natural Sciences student, I saw various problems with it, including rhetoric about being able to remove Saturday lectures under the new plans (a terrible idea, as there is no space elsewhere in our weeks to move them to). With these concerns, I submitted an amendment to the SU’s annual Student Member Meeting, but while speaking in favour of it, I could see on the Zoom call several Sabbatical Officers sniggering and laughing.

“To me, this exemplifies the lack of engagement students have with the group that should be lobbying for them”

The contempt they had for me as someone they purport to represent was appalling. Yet, I had no recourse to complain. The Sabbatical Officers are virtually unaccountable. Once elected, removing one from office requires a referendum in which 2000 student members must vote, which would be nigh impossible; SU election turnout is dire even in the main set of elections in Lent, with around 25% of students normally voting. To me, this exemplifies the lack of engagement students have with the group that should be lobbying for them.

I am now Christ’s JCR President, and as such I regularly engage with the SU and its campaigns. Ironically enough, the reading week has made a comeback, and is now being consulted on by colleges. I doubt it will get a positive recommendation from many. The proposals are badly written, glossing over the countless issues they would cause, such as the impact on outreach programmes and the interview period, thus giving the impression that they haven’t even been considered.

Of course, if the SU had bothered consulting JCR Presidents about it, we would have raised these issues well before the proposals went to colleges, meaning we might now be looking at good, universally supported solutions. But frankly, I believe the SU thinks itself above consultation.

“What are the Sabbatical Officers actually paid to do? Express solidarity and attend committees?”

JCRs are far better at dealing with the problems students face. When spiking cases rose last term, it was not the SU that responded. It was my JCR, among others, providing free drinks covers to students and pursuing other measures. This term at Christ’s, we are tackling health inequality by introducing a scheme to pay for students’ prescriptions. Even the schemes that the SU does fund — like distributing sexual health supplies — rely on the JCRs to actually distribute them. As far as I’m concerned, it would be no more work to buy the supplies ourselves as JCRs. That would at least guarantee that nobody would go on strike and leave us without a way to access them — which is exactly what the SU did for part of last term.

Of course, funding is an obstacle for most JCRs to run schemes like this. Mine is fortunate, as our budget is substantial enough to cover the schemes I’ve described. Many others are not in such a position. However, if we scrapped the SU and distributed its budget among JCRs and MCRs, that problem would be mitigated. After all, what are the Sabbatical Officers actually paid to do? Express solidarity and attend committees? I see little more than that on their Facebook updates.

And if that is all, why do we need Sabbatical Officers? By reorganising the portfolios, we could easily make the work manageable for current students — and with the burden of having to take a year out to do it removed, a much broader field of candidates would no doubt run for office, giving us stronger representation, with more accountability, that actually works to deliver students’ priorities.