2019/20 academic year was the defining moment for any leader who was indeed committed to working towards prioritizing the enhancement of the living experience of the group he/she/they led. To leaders of students’ unions across the United Kingdom, we were faced with persistent industrial actions which severely affected students' pursuit for high-quality education. Covid19 also brought another set of challenges which I felt tested my ability as a student leader whose students were deeply affected by this pandemic academically, economically, socially and psychologically. We also saw the death of George Floyd in the United States causing a great and urgent shake-up of institutional leadership tables in the United Kingdom, especially in a university like ours, to start making intentional and deliberate changes that attempt to reduce if not eradicate the racial prejudice, inequality and injustices against people of the black race in the university. Finally working in a politically charged students' union set up in the UK, where ideologies always take precedence in almost every debate, running an issues-based office as the first international student to be elected as the General Secretary in the Union’s history wasn’t just challenging but a huge drain on my mental health at every step of the way. However, I cannot hide the enormous learning experience it has been for me through it all. On a high note, we have witnessed history for the first time in the United Kingdom, where eight international students have been duly elected to lead the University of Manchester Students’ Union (the biggest Students’ Union in the UK) for the 2020/21 academic year.

Heeding to the realities of some of these challenges, in addition to the persistently accepted conventional culture of behaviour and expectations that I was confronted with in the SU set up in the UK, I had to stand my ground and make very difficult and politically incorrect decisions all in the bid to put students’ interest first. I received social media bullying from political groups on campus who weren't too pleased with my politically incorrect decisions and stands. I also made it my agenda to focus on bringing to the fore, the hidden and relegated issues of international students, postgraduate students and disabled students and ensured that most of them were dealt with and given equal attention. I also brought diversity and inclusion to the table, working with the International students’ officer on it all year.

The Students' Union as an Organisation has also faced a lot of inherited and lately realized challenges which stem from staff turnover to inclusivity problems and dwindling financial performance of some key sections of our commercial units. We have also seen how the union is still finding it challenging in appealing to the wider postgraduate community and non-white students. However, this year, we have worked incredibly hard with the senior management team and trustees in identifying some of these gaps and barriers in our operations that pose these challenges and in 2020/21 we look forward to tackling these issues head-on to ensure that the union becomes the safest and inclusive place for all our students and staff. The creation of the first full-time Postgraduate officer position by the immediate past executives was an excellent initial step towards making the SU a welcoming place for our Postgraduate taught and research students.

In all this, I have had an incredible time at the students Union. As a focused and progressive man, I have learnt an incredible lot from some of the staff, the elected executives and students of the union who were committed to ensuring that I got the support required and were open to learning from my perspectives as well. With all these learning and support I gained, below are some of the achievements I made:

Education

• Convinced the School of Environment Education and Development (SEED) to lift the registration cap placed on modules, hence granting students the flexibility to select modules that align with their passion & interest.
• Convinced the university to change its “attendance monitoring system” to “engagement monitoring system” to focus on identifying and solving the causes of students’ disengagement rather than its previous purpose of policing international students for immigration purpose.
• Led in the development and inclusion of assessment method diversification campaign in the academic literacy masterclass for academic staff development.
• Guaranteed the class of 2020 a graduation ceremony by persuading the university to change its initial decision of cancelling the ceremony due to Covid19, to postponing it to another safer date to organise.

Rights Protection

• Negotiated a joint agreement with the University which protected students' from being denied assignments assessment, graduation and academic progression during the national University College Unions’ strike action. (Ref: https://bit.ly/UCUStrike)
• Championed freedom of speech and tolerance of diversity of views among our students through my weekly radio show/Facebook live programme called “GenSec on Radio Show” (Ref: https://www.facebook.com/GenSecOnRadio/)
• Persuaded the university to refund to students, fees of cancelled international field trips due to Covid19.

Welfare and Wellbeing

• Ensured an uninterrupted stay in university halls for current and future 51-week contract holders, by ensuring that their rent agreements gave them the option to dovetail their existing contracts to their ensuing year’s contract.
• Negotiated for students’ residents in university halls who left due to covid19 to be released from rent contracts, saving them an aggregate average of £11m.
• Re-engineered the university’s Covid19 hardship fund application process and requirements, which granted both home and international students equal ease and rights of accessing the fund.
• Contributed to students’ social inclusion, mental health and physical wellbeing by organizing the pioneering UoM Olympics with 12 different sports disciplines among the faculties and halls of residences (Ref: https://bit.ly/UoMOlympics).

Representation

• Negotiated and gained a guaranteed postgraduate representation at all university's academic decision-making groups (TLG, TLEF, TLG Executive Group) which ensured that postgraduate students’ issues were equally heard.
• Negotiated and gained a guaranteed student representation on the University's History & Heritage Strategy Group, which gave students the right-of-say in its strategic and resource decisions in the group.
• Negotiated and gained a seat at the Clinical placement Group for our SU FBMH Postgraduate Rep, which ensured that our medical and health students were part of and influence the university’s decisions on making up for lost clinical placements and lab hours due to COVID19.

Accessibility

Negotiated and gained the university’s commitment to:

• Install a braille printer in one of the libraries;
• Allow disabled freshmen to arrive ahead of actual school reopening dates for early access to and custom training on learning aids and university facilities;
• To secure accommodation for these early arrivals.

Employability

• Gained a commitment from The University’s Disability Advisory Support Service to outsource its recruitment of disability support workers to our SU Jobshop. This will generate income for our SU as well as provide our students with high paying and skill-gaining jobs.

Social Integration

• Contributed to students’ cultural awareness by organizing with the international students’ officer, five student-led cultural events (i.e. Film Screening, a night of Myth-busting, Festival of Music and Dance, Fashion show and Global Food show) under the Global Week celebration, which saw 100s of students participating (Ref: https://bit.ly/GlobalWEEK).
• Collaborated with the Part-time international students’ officers and community officer for Whitworth and Rusholme in organizing a winter networking and socialization event for students during the end of 2019 (Ref: https://bit.ly/UoMWinterParty).

Sustainability

• Facilitated students voice in negotiation which led to the university bringing forward by a year, its socially responsible investment policy review and ultimately divesting from fossil fuels.

To conclude, as a re-elected officer I look forward to working with you and for you, to ensure we co-create the student environment that is safe for everyone to have the most memorable experience and a build a memorable community we will grow to be proud of.

KWAME ASAMOAH KWARTENG
GENERAL SECRETARY
2019/20 academic year