1. Wednesday Night at Vault: The famous KCLSU Sports night is back at the Vault. This has enabled KCLSU to expand its commercial operations and utilize our beautiful spaces at Bush House efficiently. Credits to the commercial team at KCLSU as well who have worked relentlessly for this.
2. External speaker form wait time to be reduced from 15 days: I have received complaints from societies who face difficulties in inviting external speakers for events on campus. The primary reason has been that the external speaker form needs to be filled in at least 15 working days before the event. I have been working with the Freedom of Expression Advisory group to reduce this time by forming a single risk assessment process for King's and KCLSU.
3. Sleeping Pods at KCL: I have been working with the King's Estates Team to get nap pods on Campus. This will be beneficial for students who study late nights at the library especially during the exam period. The project will start with a pilot and if successful feedback is received we will have them installed on more campuses.
4. Team King’s: Have been working with KCLSU and King’s Sports to form a community for our sports clubs so that the students feel a sense of pride while playing for our University. No matter what sport you play at King’s, a student will be a part of Team King’s.
5. University Challenge: This year we had one of the most successful University Challenge trials in our history. We had over 150 people attend out of which the top 8 were selected for the second round which was the buzzer round. The top 5 then formed a team and entered the competition. King's has never won University Challenge but, I hope we change the history this time.
6. Commercial Surplus at KCLSU: Despite having great venues and cafes, KCLSU has not made a commercial surplus for several years in the past. I have been working with the commercial team to introduce new events and to encourage societies to have events at our spaces by giving them better deals than any other venues in zone 1.
7. Affordable accommodation at King’s: Our VP Welfare and Community Robert Liow and I have been active members of the Rent Setting Group and have worked closely with King’s residences to make accommodation more affordable for students at King’s.
8. Better deal for International Students: Being an international student myself, I have experienced the various difficulties we face, first-hand. Thus, I have been closely working with College International Committee and King's Vice-Principal (International) Dr. Funmi Olonisakin for better representation of international students and ensuring a smooth Brexit for the student body.
Robert and I have also had the chance of working with the university to make a joint submission to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International students. Here is the link to find out more about it: https://www.kclsu.org/news/article/6015/A-better-deal-for-international-students/
9. Digital Transformation at KCLSU: I have worked closely with our Digital and Communication team at KCLSU in building a new website for KCLSU. We also had an app for the #kclsuWelcome fair which received a great response with almost 5000 downloads and students using it an average of 14 times (total almost 70,000 visits). We are now working to see how we can improve our services by providing a full-time app for students.
Our VP for Health Faculties Hannan Badar and I have worked with our Director of Digital and Communications to form a new subcommittee to the trustee board called the Digital and Communications committee. This will oversee our whole process of digital transformation at KCLSU.
10. Lessons from Auschwitz: I had the privilege of joining student and university leaders on a Lessons from Auschwitz trip organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust. I was joined by President Ahad Mahmood and VP Education (Art and Sciences) Mohamed Salhi. It is our collective responsibility to eradicate all types of hatred from our campuses. We will put our learnings to practice while combatting anti-Semitism on campus.
I have been working on a lot more things. If you have any issues or queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me on vpad@kclsu.org.
Hope you had a great Autumn term. I would like to wish all the students at King’s a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year in advance. Have a great winter break. See you soon!