By Beds SU
Monday, 6 February 2023
What is the Student Jury?
The Student Jury is a group of students who play an important role in ensuring that our Student Elections for next year’s Sabbatical Officers are free, fair and transparent.
We ask for 6-8 students to be part of our Student Jury, which will be chaired by one of our current Exec officers.
Anyone can sit on the Student Jury! However, places are available on a first come first serve basis, so make sure to get in touch as soon as you can!
What does the Jury do?
The Student Jury hold both Beds SU and candidates accountable in running a free, fair and transparent election. This means that you may be involved in investigating any campaign discrepancies; ensuring candidates have fair representation as far as feasibly possible.; encouraging other students to use their vote but remaining impartial. This means, that if you know one of the candidates, it may affect your ability to remain neutral, and so this may not be the role for you.
In short, we cannot do it without you!
Can I be part of the Student Jury?
Yes! Any student at the University of Bedfordshire can sit on the Student Jury! However, as elections are time-sensitive, we do ask that you are available to meet online during the week of voting, which is Monday 27th February to Thursday 9th March.
With any meetings, we will aim to give you as much notice as possible and will seek to flex the hours to suit as many of you as we can!
We do expect our Student Jury to remain impartial throughout, therefore, if you know any of the candidates running in this election, this may not be the role for you!
What if I’m not based in Luton or Bedford?
Please still get involved! Our Student Jury will be meeting online, which means that anyone can take part. However, as above, you need to be available to meet between Monday 27th February and Thursday 9th March.
What’s in it for me?
This is a volunteering opportunity, therefore any time you devote to being on the Student Jury you can log towards the Volunteering Award which is organised by the Careers and Employability Service. For more information, please click here.
Beds SU will also provide training for you (also goes towards volunteering hours!) to ensure you understand and feel confident in your role, and our elections team will always be on hand to help or answer any questions you may have!
It’s also great experience to talk about on your CV and in interviews: as a group, you’ll have to negotiate and accommodate different viewpoints, communicate your opinions clearly in both written and verbal forms, and that’s before we consider the time management required to fit this volunteering around your studies!