Past Campaigns

What is Love SUs? Love SUs is a campaign about the great work that SUs up and down the country do to support students. Students' Unions are charities that work really hard to ensure that students are represented, supported and given opportunities to develop themselves, make friends and love their time at Uni. But we know that our student members face a number of difficulties as students. Maybe it's being priced out of decent accommodation, not being able to access mental health services or even not being able to find somewhere to sit in the library. Students' Unions have a proud history of wins for students but we know that public opinion on Students' Unions and the work that they do can often be misinformed and influenced by a sensationalist media. Love SUs is a campaign to help inform you about the work that your Students' Union does for you, and to focus on the amazing things our students do such as volunteering, engaging in sport with Team Keele and driving academic excellence as Student Voice Reps! You can find out more at our Love SUs campaign page.

What have we done to improve library access? Initially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the library had to close as part of the lockdown. We recognise the important of the library as both a study space and a source of vital resources for your degrees, and so we worked with the library and senior university staff to increase availability of the library while still ensuring it was a safe place to study in line with social-distancing requirments.
Prior to the pandemic, we have also seen the library increase the number of silent and group study spaces, with booking available during the busiest periods of use as well as reserved space in other buildings that can be used to study.
Library staff can also be texted so that you can anonymously report noise, including excessive noise in group student areas.
Some of you may remember having to renew books to avoid fines; this is no longer the case! Books are renewed automatically for you, unless they are requested by another student. You'll receive a notification if this is the case so that you can return the book on time. Short loans are also now three days instead of one day, with fines set to the same as other categories (and with automatic renewal in place). You can find out more at our Library page and if you have any other ways you'd like to see the library experience improve, why not Have Your Say?

What is Speak Week? Speak Week was an engagement survey that took place in 2019, and that will hopefully return covid-permitting in 2022, that collected feedback from the general student population at Keele. We gathered over 500 responses from students to the question 'If you were in charge of the University/Union, what would you change?'. This was used to inform both student campaigns and priorities at the SU, but also to back up our efforts to improve the student experience at the university. You can find out more, including the finished report at our Speak Week page.

Why promote vaccinations? In a Union General Meeting in 2019, students voted for their SU to take a proactive approach to promoting vaccinations - so this campaign actually came before the pandemic! Vaccinations have helped large numbers of general diseases to disappear from the UK, and so we want you to stay up-to-date on the vaccinations you need. If you're studying abroad during your degree, we also want you to make sure you get the required vaccinations ahead of your travel, which you can do so by visiting Travel Vaccinations. You can find out more at our Vaccinations and You page.

What's Veganuary? Apart from a wordplay, Veganuary is an annual challenge created in 2014 to encourage people to take up veganism for the month of January. Their mission is ‘to inspire and support people to try vegan, drive corporate change, and create a global mass movement championing compassionate food choices with the aim of ending animal farming, protecting the planet and improving human health.’ You can find out more, including reasons to go vegan and helpful resources, at our Veganuary page.

What is Lecture Capture? Lecture Capture is a tool that records lectures properly - not just slides, but the content being delivered by your lecturer as well, to ensure that after lectures you can still revisit content ahead of assessments and exams. While not suitable for replacing attending lectures directly, it took some persuading the university to fully implement this across all schools, and our Education Officer 2019-21, Mari Chappell, worked on this as part of her Education Campaign to improve and regulate academic provisions for students. You can find out more at our Education Campaign page.

How does racial inequality appear in mental health issues? Although mental health issues can affect anyone, black people in the UK are disproportionately more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis, and detained under the Mental Health act than white people. In addition, issues such as racism and discrimination, socio-economic inequalities and stigma about mental health can affect black people and other people of colour. In collaboration with the Start to Success project and Race Equality Charter team, we've developed guides on supporting the mental health of black people. You can find these resources and more information at our Mental Health and Racial Inequality page.

What does Be Better Do Better mean? Our 2020-21 Officer Team ran the Be Better Do Better campaign to ensure an ongoing campaign to focus on racial discrimination, that saw our work continue beyond single events such as Black History Month, and to recognise that it is not enough to simply 'not be racist'. Insead, we must actively work as allies to ensure that racial discrimination everywhere is challenged, from an academic setting to wider society. You can find more about this Officer Priority Campaign at our Mental Health and Racial Inequality page.