HUS President’s Report

Joseph Saxby, President of the Homerton Union of Students

Ifinished my undergraduate degree in mathematics in 2019 and now work for the Homerton Union of Students. As you might guess, when I was elected last year, we had no idea what was just around the corner.

Let me take you back to the end of a fairly usual Lent term: full of essay sessions in the library; successes in sport on the pitches and river; the grand Formals every week in the Great Hall; the bustle of hundreds of students living and socialising as the great big Homerton community.

After most students returned home for the vacation, then the headlines came. The guidance from the University updated over the Easter vacation, as things became more and more serious across the country and the world, and Easter term became remote.

Students found the whole experience very weird to start with: we were Zooming into supervisions, socialising with mates from back gardens and bedrooms, through screens and calls instead of over cups of tea or pints in the Buttery.

The move to home study was difficult for some. The whole system behind Homerton existed inside a screen instead of faces around the hallways. Students became used to seeing the living rooms of their Directors of Studies, and the kitchens of their tutors. Academics and supervisors were trying various exciting ways to teach virtually, showing slides and virtual whiteboards, or just spending hours on end chatting about the subject. Room-booking deadlines became a thing of the past.

The support system at Homerton didn’t go away however. The HUS continued to support students in a variety of ways. We put on social events, we put on virtual yoga. We hosted regular welfare drop-ins for students to come together and share ideas about how to cope with the struggles of juggling the academic workload alongside the issues caused or exacerbated by the pandemic. We supported our black students by unequivocally supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, and have responded as a union in light of this to better represent students from minority backgrounds.

Students also still had plenty of support from the College itself. The College counsellor and nurse went virtual, students kept in close contact with Tutors over email, phone calls and of course Zoom. Regular academic updates from the Senior Tutor reassured students that the University was coming up with plans for the term. The exams that individuals such as myself had to complete at the end of the year were, I feel, communicated clearly to put our minds at rest and the news of a safety net was great relief for students who feared that they had been disadvantaged by the whole situation

It’s not been all bad news, and I hope you’ll celebrate with us the successes of students! Some students used their spare time to give back. Many students across many universities volunteered their time and expertise for the Coronavirus Tutoring Initiative, a nonprofit that asked university students to virtually tutor those who were sadly unable to attend school due to closures. I know that many of our students keenly took part.

Homerton’s May Ball Committee were proud to be involved with the May Week Mega event, that raised over £7,000 for the Against Malaria Foundation, by putting on a huge event to try and make up for the absence of the extravagant May Balls at the end of the year. Back closer to home, the HUS raised £123 for Winter Comfort,

a local charity supporting the homeless, with their #stayingHOM Instagram campaign.

And now we’re looking forward to a brand new Michaelmas term. Students have been arriving from overseas over the past three weeks into quarantine in halls, in preparation for the next academic year. I was asked by College to assemble a team of about eight students to help support those in quarantine. My first achievement was getting the College to sign off on naming it “the Quaranteam”. We’ve been checking in on each student daily, delivering meals from hall, organising grocery deliveries, as well as hosting Zooms in the evenings, giving out arts and crafts and sweets and pizza. We hope that we’ve been able to make what is a rather difficult time of self-isolation as pleasant as possible for students.

Once students are here, we were a bit worried about both the social aspects of university and the welfare of arriving students. The planning for student social events has changed many times over the past couple of months, as guidelines constantly change. We’ve got many events planned virtually for our freshers, but also realise that it’s hard to make friendships over a screen so will be organising amazing in-person opportunities for small groups of students in households – for example we will buy them pizza and give them board games for them to eat together and enjoy as households. We have booked escape rooms in Cambridge for groups of 4–6 so students can go and socialise in households in a Covid-safe way.

We’re very lucky to be in constant communication with students. They understand that things are difficult for everyone and know that we can’t go back to normal. We’re very hopeful and excited for some epic events to occur as soon as this is all over n

A version of this article was delivered as a speech as part of the 2020 Virtual Alumni Reunion Weekend.

A food van serves students at a socially distanced Halloween celebration