Vote Sophie Clark DDO 

Hey, I am Sophie Clark! I am a third year philosophy student, and I am running to be the SU’s Democracy and Development officer to give students more power in the SU, campaign for climate justice and reduce the student cost of living.

Accountable Democracy

Lower Rent

Free Transport

Skills and Experience

Before University, I campaigned with the national and local Youth Strike for Climate where I worked alongside campaign groups to pull off the largest climate day of action in UK history, mobilising hundreds of thousands of people. 

I helped organise the Warwick Rent Strike where we won students rent waivers for terms 2 and 3 totalling over £5 million won back for students in halls. I helped organise with the national Rent Strike Now Network to win back hundreds of millions.

As Campaigns Officer for Warwick Action for Palestine, we pushed for the university to divest from companies complicit in Israeli Apartheid and border industries.

I am the Outreach Officer for Warwick Allotment Society

I am the Vice-president of Warwick University Chess club.

Uplift Student Power

The Students’ Union is detached from the needs and wants of the student body. SUs should exist to enact students' desires on campus and beyond.

I promise to:

• Work to make campaign funding more accessible for students through outreach to societies and campaign groups on campus.

• Review powers given to elected positions and embolden the SU to prioritise student interests over uni management

• Make information about Student voice, council, committees and positions more accessible to students by talking directly with students on campus, working with the societies officer to inform societies and providing information packs to all freshers halls about what the SU is and how it affects them.

• Follow through on previous commitments made by the Students Union - putting students’ decisions at the forefront of my work.

• I will review all existing policies and clearly communicate to students which of these are being acted on and introduce ways students can know where decisions about policy are being made.

• Push the SU to publish finances in accessible ways to students so that we have a greater ability to hold them to account for what they do with our money.

• Work with PTO’s and Liberation societies to ensure the needs of marginalised students are taken seriously.

• Work with societies officers to reduce the number of members needed for SU affiliation to prevent the closure of small societies. Societies should not be punished for low membership but given space and funding to cultivate communities. 

• Introduce a student consultation around the SU’s strategic plan and ensure it is used to prioritise the campaigns students wish to lead.

• Take the  “decolonisation” of Warwick seriously by working with the education officer to establish working groups in every department. This is not only about adding marginalised voices but reevaluating how we think about education, teaching, and curricula which includes working with the education officer to embed this work within the Student Staff Liaison Committees.

Focus on Climate Justice

The climate and ecological emergency needs to be at the heart of every aspect of our work on campus. Climate change will dramatically affect lives across the globe and urges us to take action to reverse the ways the university is complicit in this crisis.

I promise to:

• Push the university to end academic partnerships, investments and apprenticeship schemes with polluting companies and the arms trade. These partnerships directly tie the university to industries with the highest carbon emissions and complicity in the global crisis we face.

• Lobby the university to make sure all university owned accommodation is adequately insulated 

• Encourage the university to stick to its 2030 target for Net-zero and keep to the words of the 2019 Warwick SU Declaration that we need “community-level systems change in response to our climate emergency”. This means demanding that the university put communities in the Global South, on the front-lines of environmental destruction and extractivism, at the core of its initiatives.

• Work with the environmental and ethics officer to facilitate more vegan, locally sourced and sustainable options in SU outlets. 

• We need a reliable free public transport network for students. I will drive for more consistent and cheaper buses through creating an immediate and long-term plan for how the SU will work with others across the region and nation to push for free transport for students.

Make Student Life Cheaper

The cost of living is becoming increasingly more expensive. With rent and bills increasing year on year students are able to afford to pay for expensive SU fees and the costs of university life, many turn to work alongside their education which they are putting themselves in debt to receive.

I promise to:

• Work with City Council, University Management and a representative board of students to establish a rent cap on University-owned accommodation with the aim to reduce rent costs in the long run for students. I will also push for the SU to make students aware of rent price increases from previous years and lobby for the university to openly include this information on its accommodation sign up page.

• Restore the cost of a pint to pre-Covid levels, with extensions to Bus Stop hours

• make prospective and current students aware of rent price increases from previous years by publishing the information on the SU website and Social Media. Additionally, I will aim to encourage this information to be included on the university accommodation website.

• Support student staff in efforts to unionise and campaign for a real living wage across all of campus regardless of age

• Work with the sports and societies officers to reduce federation Fees to the SU and put in place a process by which they will be abolished as is the case at other universities.

• Push for Free printing in study spaces and the abolition of library fees

• Students spend hundreds of pounds each term on an unreliable and overpriced bus service, one exacerbated in a cost of living crisis. This is unacceptable. In the short run, I will work alongside the University, Stagecoach, and National Express in a campaign to cut prices by increasing subsidies. 

• Simultaneously, I pledge to build a long-term project towards free education by starting with a campaign for free transport for Warwick students in Coventry and Leamington. I will forge a local coalition with West Midland SUs to organise a strong student group to bring demands to local councils which I am already part of building. 

• The markup on groceries from Rootes is extortionate and unacceptable, made worse by the cost of living crisis. I will push to make the Rootes grocery story, SU bars and other SU outlets cheaper for students. This will include increasing affordable Halal, Kosher and Vegan options.

Vote Sophie Clark DDO