Student apathy has reached record levels as 47 out of 75 roles up for grabs at this year’s Rep Elections were left vacant or uncontested.
Harini Sivakumar and Nick Miao
An analysis by The Cheese Grater can reveal that of the 75 roles available, 29 roles were left vacant and a further 18 were uncontested, meaning only one candidate is running excluding re-open nominations.
This means over 60% of the roles were vacant or uncontested, more than double from last year when 14 out of 51 roles were uncontested, but saw no vacancies.
Among the roles with no one running include all but five Hall Community Officers (HCO), who are running uncontested, all but three postgraduate research faculty reps, who are running uncontested, all four Welfare Reps for Sports, both of the Societies Reps for Arts, and both available roles from the Research Students’ Network.
Notable uncontested roles include the Trans Officer, four undergraduate faculty reps in various Stem subjects, and the Disabled Students’ Network Social Secretary, where the only person standing is serial candidate Yixiao Huang.
At a time when rent has skyrocketed with little, if any, improvement to hall experience – rodents, intruders, and phantom defecators all on the loose – why are students reluctant to bring about change?
One reason could be the lack of publicity surrounding the Rep Elections. One UCL student told us that she had ‘no idea the rep elections had started,’ while another ‘didn’t even know we had halls reps.’
Indeed, one look at the Union’s Instagram account tells us just how much it cares about the Rep Elections, with more posts dedicated to emulating TikTok trends than the second most important student election after the Spring Leadership Race.
The Cheese Grater also understands that the Democracy and Representation Team is currently being run by a single (presumably overworked) member of staff, as everyone else has either left the team or been sent away on secondment.
Another reason could be the recent restructuring of the HCO role, formerly known more straightforwardly as Hall Representative.
Since last year, the role of HCO has shifted away from advocacy with UCL Accommodation towards a greater ‘focus on community building events within Halls’, partly because UCL no longer wanted to deal with Hall Reps, who used to receive a £200 reduction off their rent.
Ironically, the new emphasis on an HCO’s role to do ‘community building’ appears to have backfired, as 18 halls are now left without democratic representation, presumably because nobody understands what the new role entails.
Union regulations do not specify a procedure for what to do when a role is left vacant, so it is unclear if it intends to fill the 14 HCOs, 11 Faculty Reps, four Welfare Reps for Sports, two Societies Reps for Arts, and two Research Students’ Network posts within this academic year.
However, it’s safe to say that some Union meetings might feel a bit empty this year, especially in the Welfare and Community Zone, one of the three ‘policy zones’ that forms the Union’s primary democratic organ and would have been attended by HCOs and Welfare Reps.
They will instead be filled with Cheese Grater journalists demanding answers to the shocking length of this list:
List of vacant positions, where no one is running
- Hall Community Officer for Arthur Tattersall and John Tovell House
- Hall Community Officer for Astor College
- Hall Community Officer for Beaumont Court
- Hall Community Officer for Bernard Johnson House
- Hall Community Officer for Campbell House East and West
- Hall Community Officer for Endsleigh Gardens and John Adams Hall
- Hall Community Officer for Goldsmid House
- Hall Community Officer for James Lighthill House
- Hall Community Officer for New Hall – Caledonian Road
- Hall Community Officer for One Pool Street
- Hall Community Officer for Prankerd and Schafer House
- Hall Community Officer for St Pancras Way
- Hall Community Officer for Stapleton House
- Hall Community Officer for John Dodgson
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities PGR Rep
- Faculty of Brain Sciences PGR Rep
- Faculty of Laws PGR Rep
- Faculty of Life Sciences PGR Rep
- Faculty of Life Sciences PGT Rep
- Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences PGR Rep
- Faculty of Medical Sciences PGR Rep (Clinical)
- Faculty of Medical Sciences PGR Rep (Non-Clinical)
- Faculty of Population Health Sciences PGR Rep
- Faculty of Population Health Sciences PGT Rep
- Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences PGR Rep
- Welfare Reps (Sport) x4
- Societies Reps (Arts) x2
- Research Students’ Network Secretary
- Research Students’ Network Welfare Officer
And this list:
List of uncontested positions, where only one candidate is running apart from RON
- Trans Officer
- Hall Community Officer for Frances Gardner House and Langton Close
- Hall Community Officer for Ian Baker House and Ramsay Hall
- Hall Community Officer for Urbanest Kings Cross
- Postgraduate Hall Community Officer for 109 Camden Road (Ann Stephenson, Ifor Evans, Max Rayne and Neil Sharp House)
- Undergraduate Hall Community Officer for 109 Camden Road (Ann Stephenson, Ifor Evans, Max Rayne and Neil Sharp House)
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities PGT Rep
- Faculty of Brain Sciences UG Rep
- Faculty of Engineering PGR Rep
- Faculty of Laws PGT Rep
- Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences PGT Rep
- Faculty of Medical Sciences PGT Rep
- Faculty of Medical Sciences UG Rep (Clinical)
- Faculty of Population Health Sciences UG Rep
- Faculty of the Built Environment PGR Rep
- Faculty of the Built Environment UG Rep
- IOE, Faculty of Education and Society PGR Rep
- Disabled Students’ Network Social Secretary
Additional reporting by Angelina Bones.
The Cheese Grater has reached out to Students’ Union UCL for a comment.
This article featured in the Digestive – Rep Election Special