Abdul Patel and Tasneem Ismail, two students from the Department of Political Economy (DPE) have started a new campaign to lobby the university to establish a common room for their department. Both Abdul and Tasneem are student representatives for their respective degree and year, 2nd year Politics and 1st year Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) respectively, and sit on the DPE undergraduate Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC). Through these roles, they have engaged with students, staff and faculty across DPE and noticed a stark need for DPE students to have their communal and academic space.
They believe that since DPE is such a diverse and large department, encompassing degrees such as Politics, Economics, PPE, Philosophy etc. which consist of large student populations, the department often feels fractured. In Tasneem’s words, ‘each course seems to be on its own journey’. It is difficult for students to interact with others from outside their degree and therefore, the department feels disunited.
They believe that a common room will uniquely solve several problems:
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It will amplify student voices and create community within the department.
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The department will not have to book spaces on different campuses to hold events; these spaces are often unavailable or not suitable for more distinguished events with external speakers.
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It will also allow student reps to garner student opinion and for the faculty to market different events instead of having to bombard students with emails that often go unread.
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It won’t just create a communal space but an academic one too.
Abdul and Tasneem have been in conversation with various Program Directors and the Student Engagement team, they believe there is support for this idea within the faculty and have been encouraged to take it further. According to them, these issues have been raised by students SSLC meetings but it is rare for action to be taken. As a result, they are taking matters into their own hands.
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