Manifesto Analysis: Aonghus Marshall

Aonghus Marshall is a 3rd year Philosophy student who sees his background as a Senior Student Ambassador as valuable experience for the DoSDA role. He sees building connections across the St Andrews Community as the foremost item on his agenda.

Feedback

Mr Marshall pledges a regular office hour— a common pledge from candidates across these elections that raises questions as to why the current and previous Sabbatical officers have not done it already. Beyond this office hour, his manifesto does not elaborate on wider institutional feedback for the Union’s entire system of societies. This notwithstanding, Mr Marshall presents a clear vision of how to make himself available and open to feedback were he to become DoSDA.

Collaboration

In order to nurture the community Mr Marshall strives to cultivate, he focuses much of his manifesto on the collaboration of the Union with societies. Building bridges between these groups is an intuitive goal of this role; he highlights encouraging inter-society cooperation as a key to doing so. Whilst this plan may be effective, his other clauses to encourage collaboration and cooperation are slightly unclear, hardly elaborating further than the rather universal hopes to work closely and form connections between academics, staff, subcommittees and societies.

Outreach

Improving outreach both between societies and students and societies themselves is a cornerstone of Mr Marshall’s agenda. His manifesto is less expansive than Sam’s but details how information boards would improve communication. enable societies to engage with students in a more inclusive way. His intention to update the Union website has been shared by many DoESs over the past few years.

Aonghus’s manifesto is extremely short compared to most of the manifestos in this year’s elections. It offers achievable goals but is extremely light on any policy whatsoever except vague notions of boosting community among societies. Mr Marshall fails to elucidate a radical wider vision for a role that is nigh on unknown amongst students and in desperate need of brave new thinking.