Introduction
I’m Connie, your President Exeter for 24/25, I’m a spirited person who loves the ocean and you’ll often find me on the beach or in the sea! My background is centred around community organising and collaboration, I strongly believe that meaning can be found within our relationships with others. This belief has made me an empathetic person with a drive to create change in our communities. I find the ocean to be a magical and calming place, it rejuvenates me and allows me to decompress - something that’s necessary in our busy lives! I enjoy spending time surrounded by loved ones, usually sharing a home-cooked meal or laughing in nature; these relationships sustain and nourish me. With a care for our Earth and all inhabitants, I hope to encourage and uplift our diverse community to thrive and generate change.
- Connie Chilcott (She/Her)
News & updates
Roles & responsibilities
- To be the recognised academic representative for members for the University of Exeter, attending high-level meetings.
- Represent student views to the University of Exeter, FX Plus, local and national bodies.
- To consult with the student members, both formally and informally, and represent their interests appropriately.
- To be a Sabbatical Trustee of the Students’ Union ensuring the organisation is fulfilling its charitable purpose.
- To support the development of the University of Exeter Student Rep system.
- Work closely with the other Sabbatical Officers on joint priority campaigns to improve the student experience.
- Work closely with the VP President roles, jointly working on projects and delegating as appropriate.
Manifesto priorities
Cultivating Community: Building power through community: empowering students to organize and drive change through impactful campaigns, their academic courses, and future careers. We need to better understand what community means to our students, something which is often illusive. To simplify it, it’ll be broken down into four parts of community; academic, food, campaigns, and future.
To cultivate academic community, I’ll create monthly drop ins with subject chairs to foster more positive relationships with reps, push for continued student involvement in C4C to create a greater sense of belonging and co-creation, and getting more comms out to students about changes that they helped create, closing the feedback loop.
For food as community, I’ll be expanding on the food work we’ve done over the past year, as sharing food is a communal and grounding experience which truly fosters a sense of belonging. This manifests as building in longevity for soup Fridays, expanding our pantry to be on Falmouth and Truro campus, and starting breakfast clubs this Winter. I’ll also be gathering personal accounts of experiences of student poverty and food insecurity, to support change and further progress.
A campaigns community is centred around greater involvement in things that students are passionate about on campus, creating greater synergies with local campaigns to encourage a sense of place, and civic education. We’ll be uplifting and encouraging our SU values, connecting students with local charities and campaigns, and running teach outs, and Know Your Rights trainings. Alongside this, we need greater transparency with students so they can understand what power they have to create change in their community.
Future community is centred around preparing students for the world post-university. Engaging with the career zone to bring more local opportunities onto campus, in careers engaging in just and equitable futures. The future we are headed for is a volatile and unpredictable one, so we need to create opportunities for our students to become more resilient. Alongside this, we want to connect students more on a cross-campus level, so students gain greater access to career opportunities in Devon.