Meet your 2020 SULS Election Tickets
With voting for the 2021 Sydney University Law Society (SULS) Executive taking place next week, Pulp asked the tickets about their vision for the Society. You can read their full answers here.
FLARE for SULS
Presidential candidate: Wendy Hu
Manager: Dasha Moskalenko
FLARE is an experienced ticket with reasonable and detailed plans for the Society and a particularly strong focus on international student welfare.
FLARE is an experienced ticket; they tell us they are the “only ticket with students who have served on the 2019 & 2020 SULS Executives and Committees”. Presidential candidate Wendy Hu ran unsuccessfully for Vice President (Education) on Zest last year, and was previously a Competitions Director and a delegate to the Australian Law Students Association Conference. VP (Education) candidate Sinem Kirk is this year’s SULS Women’s Officer, VP (Social Justice) candidate Sophia Semmler was the 2020 Social Justice Competitions Officer and VP (Careers) candidate Cameron Jordan is a SULS Education Consultation Officer. FLARE’s candidate for International Officer, Sissi Chen, is particularly qualified for the role having founded an initiative to provide mental health support for international students and completed her Honours thesis on international students’ experiences with racism and sexual violence.
FLARE identified their priorities for next year as fostering a sense of community within SULS, expanding student support and equity schemes, and “lobbying the Faculty to ensure the academic program is flexible in accommodating student needs and adequate support services are provided”. When asked what SULS could have improved upon in 2020, FLARE pointed to international student support, saying that “international students are disproportionately feeling anxious about career prospects, asynchronous learning, inflexible assessment structures, and unsustainable costs of living in light of the pandemic”.
FLARE’s three favourite policies were enhancing SULS mentoring programs, creating meaningful online socials and being a stronger voice in advocacy. They suggested creating more opportunities to mentor younger law students regarding clerkship applications, participating in competitions, and continuing the International Students Mentoring Program. Regarding online socials, they envisioned “Netflix parties, virtual karaoke nights and a SULS edition of the Great British Bake Off” along with informal international student socials to encourage casual discussion. They committed to advocating for flexible learning, diverse assessment structures, Summer and Winter School, and more consultation hours with Faculty.
FLARE planned to make SULS more accessible by increasing hybrid online and in-person events like competitions and Wellness Week. They also want to hold a second Law Camp for students in second year. They listed a number of other initiatives to increase engagement with students: “a Virtual SULS Office over Zoom and WeChat, JD Torts Moot, a Policy Writing Competition, Pre-Penultimate Student Career Support, SULS Carnival, SULS Sports Gala Day, Art and Design submissions and International Students Career Development workshops”.
They want to reach out to disadvantaged law students by expanding equity schemes and making events more accessible, for example through mentoring, equity-supported socials tickets and making all events accessible to students with disabilities. Their focus on increasing peer support for international students was identified as another strategy to engage with marginalised students.
The Government’s recent increases to the price of law degrees is an issue which has motivated an increase in political engagement from SULS, with law student contingents attending recent student rallies and outrage regarding the police’s brutal treatment of Professor Simon Rice. FLARE described themselves as “staunchly opposed” to the Higher Education Support Bill and argued the policy would “only exacerbate the lack of diversity in, and structural inaccessibility of, a legal education”. They saw a role for SULS in making public statements about the issue as well as actions like fundraising and advertising protest, but drew a line at commenting on political parties or politicians, which could threaten SULS’ status as a registered charity. They also hoped to coordinate with other law societies around Australia to oppose issues like wage theft and exploitation.
On how they planned to work with the Law School, FLARE committed to being a “strong independent body” which would leverage its relationship with the Faculty to achieve things like boosting scholarships, but would be willing to lobby the Faculty to advocate for student issues.
SPLASH for SULS
Presidential candidate: Dani Stephenson
Manager: Rosette Sok
SPLASH provided an ambitious and social justice focused platform which, while informed by experience on the 2020 SULS Executive, is forward-looking.
SPLASH for SULS is equipped with plenty of institutional knowledge about the society, with four current members of the SULS Executive appearing on their ticket. Their approach to the Society in 2021 is to wield their knowledge and experience to pursue “big, ambitious and evaluated policies”. Their answers identified a focus on social justice and inclusivity, identifying that “our purpose as law students isn’t merely to interpret the law, but to change it”.
This focus on social justice appeared in SPLASH’s critiques of the 2020 Executive, which suggested that a “long-standing narrowness” in the Society’s approach to social issues has hampered the Society’s capacity to respond to education cuts. SPLASH aims to “accommodate and nurture” student activism, a mandate they argue is outlined in the SULS Constitution. They also plan to advocate about issues like “wage theft... hypercarceral policies and addressing issues of gendered or racial violence.”
Their three favourite policies were a wellbeing stipend, a legal clinic and an internship for credit unit. The wellbeing stipend would aim to provide students with the resources to deal with mental health issues. The plan for a legal clinic aims to “lay the foundations for the establishment of a practical legal opportunity in social justice for everyone” by fostering partnerships with community legal centres and eventually establishing SULS’ own CLC.
They plan to engage with disadvantaged law students by lobbying for more E12 enrolment and connecting E12 enrolled students, as well as to “adopt assessment practices that are more accommodating of work commitments” and schedule events in ways which do not exclude students working weenights. They want to increase engagement with students by thorough representation of JDs and creating specific events for students like JDs and international students. They added that “our international portfolio director, Anne Peng, has been able to expand our reach onto WeChat”.
SPLASH advocates adapting to the challenges of COVID-19 by supporting students to adapt to online learning and lobbying the Faculty to accommodate students better, for instance by holding study groups over multiple time zones, opposing mandatory attendance of tutorials and strong resistance to ProctorU. They said they would draw on the experience of the 2020 Executive by learning from the town hall about Summer School cancellation, which they saw as “a great model” for student consultation which should become “a systematic approach to student deliberation”.
Regarding how they would relate to the Law School, they told us that they would lobby the Faculty for “more flexibility, financial assistance or increased academic support” and the involvement of students in decision-making. They also noted that “we would stand in solidarity with teaching staff affected by course cuts”.
VIBE for SULS
Presidential candidate: Casper Lu
Manager: Riley Vaughan
Vibe for SULS prioritised practical measures which would directly improve students’ quality of life and mental health, with an emphasis on bringing new students into SULS.
Vibe told Pulp that their priority was to achieve “a vision of support, assistance and mentorship” within SULS, which they aim to do by allowing students who have not previously been on the SULS Executive to “take up leadership roles”. While Vibe lacks representation from the current SULS Executive, they suggest this will work to their advantage by bringing new perspectives into the fold. They also note the long-standing involvement of their Presidential candidate, Casper Lu, in the Society, and the engagement of people on their ticket in multiple portfolios.
The ticket has a focus on mental health, identifying disproportionate rates of mental illness within the legal profession and aiming to increase options for student support. They suggest this is a particularly important mandate given the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. They praised the 2020 SULS Executive for “a more active role in lobbying faculty” on education issues and greater student consultation, ultimately suggesting that this is a valuable strategy for reaching out to students.
Vibe’s three favourite policies were to advocate for law students’ education and mental health, and to improve competitions. In order to improve the quality of education, they hoped to lobby for the reinstatement of Summer and Winter School to allow “degree flexibility and customisation of one’s approach to studying”. They also want to advocate for a fairer exam timetable and a “flexible and comfortable approach” to students’ educational needs. Regarding mental health, Vibe aimed to “heavily encourage the use of CAPS” and introducing a YouTube series to discuss the issue.
Vibe advocated the expansion of the competitions bootcamp to explain mooting and skills competitions to newcomers, which they argue will increase engagement with competitions and improve students’ skills. They plan to make the bootcamp more substantial, hands-on and extend the opportunity over two days. In terms of addressing the transition to online learning, Vibe argued for better mental health care and student support to help students handle the difficulties coming from “mental health and Zoom fatigue”.
Vibe hoped to engage new students in SULS by scheduling events carefully around exams and other commitments and to increase the volume of smaller events like “free food and coffee”. They also prioritised encouraging new sign-ups to the Society to avoid SULS becoming “cliquey”. When it came to including disadvantaged law students, they suggested that providing mentorship and guidance was a particularly important way of offering support. They also hoped to further subsidise tickets to events and to subsidise tutoring services. They added that their ticket is ethnically and gender diverse and includes 5 international students from varying backgrounds.
Vibe agreed that SULS should advocate against the fee hikes and course cuts, saying that “they further exacerbate the experience and perception of many that a law degree is inaccessible and university financially prohibitive”. In general, they suggested that SULS should do advocacy on other policy issues that affect students and are beneficial to society. They provided some examples of strategies that the 2020 Executive could have used to address the fee hikes, such as “producing fact sheets on protest rights and police powers, and creating a working group to do a policy submission on the issue”. They indicated a desire to “provide avenues of support whilst still giving students a free and informed choice”, emphasising the importance of abiding by the requirements of being a registered charity.
Regarding how they would relate to the Faculty, Vibe favoured a “collaborative” approach and noted that Casper will be the incoming undergraduate representative for law students, suggesting this would provide additional avenues for working with the Faculty. However they noted that they “do not expect to share their positions often” and would prioritise the educational issues of students.