What a year! When I started back in September, I had no idea what to expect. I joined the SU a bit nervous and fresh-faced, but can say that now I feel entirely at home. The changes we’ve made for the Widening Participation (and wider Warwick) community are, I hope, some of the first steps to real change on campus.

Some big wins this year were in raising awareness of classism on campus. I always felt like it was a conversation I was having in small circles, but now can be more confident about it becoming a more engrained conversation at Warwick. We introduced classism as a category of discrimination and harassment on Report and Support, so the university will now collect data on the extent of the problem.

We also launched a really successful Let’s Talk About Classism series, with videos reaching over 30,000 views on social media and other SUs expressing an interest to continue the conversation in their own communities. Lee Elliot-Major and Sarah Atkinson (and Thalia, of course) did the most wonderful jobs at raising the problems of classism in university and beyond, and for that I have a lot to thank them for. A big thank you also needs to go out to Polly, Molly, and Martha for all of their support on this campaign.

Some more long-going work is the SU’s cost of living work, which still continues. Myself and Tomi have been going since the middle of term 1 to enact real change to support students who are financially struggling. I expect this to continue into next year, but from sitting on a table in the SU drafting the SU’s strategy for cost of living back in October to now presenting a fully-fledged report utilising data from the cost of living survey sent out near the end of Term 1 to Senate, we have come a long way. Our asks for the university to support with the costs of socialising, travel, education, food on campus, and to reform the Hardship Funding process are fundamental to supporting students. A big thank you to Chih-Hsiang, Daniel, and Yaz also for their work on drafting the report to hold the university to account.

I’m really proud that we also set up our own foodbank to support students who needed it, and I hope this continues into upcoming years as an important part of the SU showing an understanding of the struggles students may face.

A big task during Term 1, Emma and I also successfully implemented a Sports Officer Bursary Scheme taking into account WP characteristics, with over £4,000 of memberships being waived to reduce the barriers of students who cannot afford sporting life to get involved. With some long meetings with Iain from Warwick Sport, I’m really pleased that this will be continuing again into next year as a key part of our cost of living work as a university community.

Some other really important conversations which I hope will continue - working with Hamza on supporting the WP team with insights on Young Carers at the university, with Enaya on the inclusion of period poverty initiatives in the cost of living work, and talking with senior leaders at the university on WP inclusion in Personal Tutor training and Warwick Values. I also have to say a thank you to all of those in different departments and individual students who I worked with on advancing the Widening Participation mission; all of these conversations have made important steps to positive change.

I’m still scheduling in conversations with the university about a potential guarantor scheme for students who do not have one, and to introduce the need for student recruitment to advertise to areas currently not covered by Outreach activity - including my own home area of the North East. I hope that these conversations, even if they only happen for a few weeks, continue in upcoming years.

I have absolutely no doubt that Mya will do the most amazing job as WPO next year, and look forward to seeing all of the progress which continues to be made from afar.

This year has been the most wonderful chance to work on important issues which the WP community have to face at Warwick, and to finish off, I want to say a big thank you to all of those who put their trust in me last year by voting. It has been an honour and a privilege to be WPO this year, and I have many people to thank for that.

If you managed to read this far, you’re a real one.

With all my best wishes,

Kieran