Gair Rhydd Meets: An Interview with Students’ Union President Maria Pollard

Could you introduce yourself?

I’m Maria Pollard and I’m Students’ Union President here at Cardiff Students’ Union

What did you study?

I did my undergraduate degree in politics, I wrote my dissertation on the far-right populism in Germany and how they talk about women and LGBT people, pitting minority groups against each other. I enjoyed my degree alot.

You came into the role last year after an election which had unprecedented levels of engagement. Despite that, I think many people will be unsure as to the nature of your role. Could you outline for us the responsibilities which you have as SU president?

So it’s quite a broad role. I have a role in the Students’ Union itself and also a role in the university. As president, I oversee the political direction of the Students’ Union, although there’s a fairly level hierachy between me and the other sabbatical officers. So everyone has a big say and a lot of influence over the whole direction, but I am the main spokesperson for the Union.

Another part of how I set the political direction means that I oversee the campaigns that the Union runs. This year you’ll see stuff from me about housing in October. We’re going to have a housing fortnight to get people in to talk about student housing, exploitative landlords, how to advocate for yourself, how to make sure that you’re signing a good contract, and advertising the resources that our student advice service offers, because I think they’re quite underutilised. Then I’m also going to be doing stuff about the Senedd election.

Then there’s the external political element to my role. For example, Cardiff Council is currently trying to limit parking permits for students, so I’m doing some work externally lobbying politicans on that and other student issues.

I’m also the chair of the board of trustees of the Union.

A lot of people don’t realise how massive the Union is. Obviously, we’re a charity, and student interests and advocating for students is at the heart of everything we do, but we do also have quite a big commercial side, so I’m also on the board of a large business. This involves maintenance of the building and stuff like YOLO and the Taf, as well as sales.

While at the end of the day I don’t decide on those things, the other officers and I do have influence as members of the board and we have a lot of say over how stuff is driven. Some of the time it’s difficult because the Students’ Union needs to make money to do its student resources, to run campaigns, and provide student advice.

Do you think that at times there is a tension between the Union being a commercial body and a body that represents students?

There are obviously some conflicts; for example, balancing YOLO and nightlife with student welfare, particularly if there is a perception that we are perpetuating student drinking culture. But we are trying to provide more opportunities for students who don’t drink to participate in social events, while also making sure students who do drink are able to do it in a safe way. This Freshers’, the officers and SU really made an effort to provide more non-alcohol-centred events. Then also a huge amount of work has been put into student safety at our club events. But some people look at the SU and they reduce it to just being YOLO, like it’s “YOLO, nothing else” or it’s “why does the Students’ Union focus on YOLO?”, but I think you have to look at all of it quite holistically. We have this commercial side, so that we can run all these student services, and a lot of students’ unions don’t have the commercial side that we do. While we do get a block grant from the uni every year, we are able to supplement it with other stuff. If we were just reliant on the university, particularly in the current financial crisis, it would be very difficult for us to operate — we’re one of the biggest students’ unions in the country, the buildings are massive even compared to other big Russell group universities.

So do you think that the commercial side of the Union helps protect its independence?

Yes, I think that we would potentially have to watch ourselves a bit more if we weren’t.

Have you had much contact from the university since you took the role?

Yes, now I have. It’s taken a little while. The summer is quite a weird time to start the role because a lot of the university staff, particularly those with children, tend to take quite a lot of annual leave. So you’re coming into this job and then everybody’s going away. I will say that it took a while for Wendy to meet with me. I only met her last week. I did meet her at my induction with my predecessor, but the first time we had a one-to-one was last week. We should be meeting monthly from now on. I’ve had quite a lot of contact with the pro vicechancellor for education, particularly on quite relevant issues at the moment, like timetabling.

I’m students’ lead representative when it comes to the university. I’m in a lot of committees and working groups, ranging from very high-level stuff like the university council, which is the main governing body with two Students’ Union reps on it, all the way down to smaller working groups on other issues like the student app or violence against women and girls, sexual violence, disability, and Black History Month. So while contact from the university hasn’t been at the level that I would have wanted it to be, it is now improving. I will give them credit for that. There was a bit of disengagement over the summer, and I am hoping I have given feedback so it won’t happen again, but we will see.

And, obviously, one of the developments over the summer was the injunction; have you had many meetings regarding the injunction and does the Students’ Union itself have a view on the injunction?

Well, the Students’ Union put up a statement when the injunction first came out. It was an awkward timing because it came out right at the end of the previous team’s term. I’m sure that you can understand that the first month of my job was a lot of induction. Personally, I don’t like the injunction, I think that students have a right to protest, and I think that protest isn’t comfortable; the suffragettes weren’t peaceful. There is obviously a safety side to it, and, at the end of the day, students need to feel safe and have easy access to their lectures, but also I think in the current political climate cracking down on protests is not good. Sadly, it has gone through the courts. It isn’t the sort of thing where you can step in and reverse it.

I have been in meetings with the university’s legal compliance team to give me guidance on how and where students can protest, so we can relay this to students. I’m hoping that I'll have information about this soon, so that I can share because it think it’s vital that students are able to protest on campus and I think it’s a shame — something I don’t agree with at all. The university says it’s for safety purposes. I can understand a lot of their arguments when I’m in meetings with them. But I think fundamentally that freedom of speech in universities is vital and I’m hoping there’ll be information letting students know that they can protest and that they need to be careful about how they do it.

From your experience in meetings with the university, would you say they have a good understanding of student feeling on those issues or do you think that there needs to be more engagement between the university and the student body?

I think they do. A lot of them are very well meaning, they don’t want to do it — the people I speak to don’t want that to be the case. There’s a feeling that it had to happen after the encampment and the occupation from a security point of view. They mention the amount of money they spent on security. Do I know enough about the intricacies of providing security? No. I think they are keen to communicate with students that protests can happen. We’ve been having discussions about what that looks like, but I think having to get approval to do a protest is stupid.

Is there anything that we should be looking forward to this year, anything that you can hint at?

I think it’s not going to be an easy year to be at Cardiff University. There’s a lot of change in the works and not all of it is going to be comfortable.

I think it’s an exciting year for the Students’ Union. I think it’s not going to be an easy year to be at Cardiff University. There’s a lot of change in the works, and not all of it is going to be comfortable, but I do think we are in a position as a students’ union to shape what the future of Cardiff University is going to look like. I also think politically it’s a big year — we’ve got elections coming up. Students aren’t a demographic who tend to vote, but I think this is going to be a very exciting Senedd election in that it’s probably going to shake stuff up in a way that has never happened since the Senedd has existed. I'm really excited to try and get students engaged on political issues that affect them. In terms of events, there’s always stuff in the works. I’m hoping that I will get student discount for drinks at gigs in SU venues in the next few months, now that Freshers’ is over. There’s other things on the table, but unfortunately they are confidential. There should be some changes around the building, there’s alway new nightclub stuff going on like Circle, and having the queer night more regularly will be really good for that community.

Do you forsee any financial challenges for the Union? We know that venues across the UK are suffering, especially as you have a greater emphasis on affordability than other venues?

Potentially, yes. I think one of the main issues is that for the past twenty to thirty years, the number of students has been growing, and now for the first time in a long time it is flattening out. We’re not getting an increase in students year on year. Thus, growth from a financial perspective is going to become more difficult. That being said, the commercial side of the Union is doing more external stuff over the summer, holding conferences and events to raise money so that students pay less. As for the block grant, we’ll see what that looks like — those discussions haven’t opened yet. Thankfully, due to the nature of Cardiff SU, we should be in a far better position than most.

And, finally, have you got any plans to fix the YOLO queue?

I came into this role and I was like “I'm going to be the one who does it!” The problem is everybody wants to come to YOLO and YOLO is only so big. And when you say “we want to have a full building”, if you have a full building and there aren’t headsets, nobody goes into the other room. If you have a full building and there are headsets, everybody wants to go into the silent disco. There’s a level of conditioning of behaviour that’s difficult to overcome — there has to be a lot of cultural change. I think YOLO is such an institution at Cardiff that it might be very difficult to change some of these behaviours. For example, coming early, staying in Y Plas when the silent disco is on, or going to the Great Hall when there’s no silent disco, and, by God, they are trying! Effort is being made — oh, my God, is effort being made. It was insane after the Cardiff Clash. In what universe is a nightclub full at seven thirty? And the thing is, part of it is a testament to how successful YOLO is. We are one of the best student nightclubs in the UK, and that’s something to be really proud of. The queueing is a problem — nobody likes the queue — but it’s a bit of a wicked problem. If anyone has any solutions, please e-mail me. YOLO is like two nights in one, you have people who comes from seven o’clock until midnight and people who come from midnight until three.

Yes, and we all know which one we are! Any final comments?

This is a big year for you guys, I’m excited to see what you come up with.