Toby Wordie is a third year Psychology student running unopposed for the volunteer role of Housing Officer. He is focusing on lowering rents and creating more accessible, high quality, and affordable housing on campus.
The role of the housing officer is centred around overseeing the University of Stirling students’ issues relating to public and private housing.
Brig spoke to Toby about their manifesto and plans if he gets the role.
Toby’s campaign starts with a bang, with their manifesto slogan reading “Sh*t’s tough”.
“I figured I’d do the slogan after I’d done the manifesto because it’s meant to sum up the campaign and as I was going through like the issues and what I’m going to aim to do, I was like, this is brutal I was like, sh*t’s rough.”
They detail in their manifesto that they do not think the University does enough for adequate accommodation for students raising issues about insects, mould, charging for bedding, and ignoring the need for accessible housing.
Toby is a part of the Stirling Solidarity Space, a society that fights for the demarketisation of education and a large part of this recently has been trying to improve student housing. The current housing officer, Justine Perdussel, is also a part of the Solspa, and Toby has already worked alongside her this year, canvassing and protesting.
“She’s done a lot of data collection with the surveys, hearing what students have to say.
“I’d like to keep that relationship with students going because it’s very important that I’m able to speak for them and talk to senior management and give them the actual issues because they’re not on the ground. I want to continue doing that and use the stats she’s worked on.”
Toby’s work in the Solidarity space includes helping organise the Solidarity Space’s rally and petition over the nine per cent price increase in rent as well as doing work on the upcoming rally on February 27 about a potential rent increase.
“A big part of our work at Solidarity Space is housing, making it accessible and good for students so they can actually get a good education.”
It is not just the Solidarity Space that Toby contributes to in the student body as he is also an active member in the LGBTQ+ Society as the asexual representative.
“With the LGBTQ+ committee, it’s working as part of a team every week outreaching to members. As the asexual rep, I have to be present so that people that need me know I’m there. There is a fair amount of admin work there too.”
The main focus of Toby’s manifesto is helping students with rising rents and increased cost of living, highlighting that this disproportionately affects international, disabled and LGBTQ+ students.
“There are a lot of international students in this University, and I know they don’t have much of a voice because of senior management as well as LGBT students across the board face a lot of discrimination. As a queer person myself it’s very close to my heart. People need good housing to be able to get an education and live a good life, get a good job.”
Wordie is running unopposed for the position but they are not letting up.
“It has made it less stressful but I’m still doing all the campaigning, I’m getting my face out there and my name and talking to students. As well as this the Solidarity Space is running a slate and it has given me more time to support my fellow candidates.”
This includes Justine Pedussel running for VP Communities, Aaron Caulfield for VP Education, and Ben Alker for Co-Curricular.
Find out more about the elections and read Toby Wordie’s manifesto here.
Voting opens on Tuesday, February 27 at 10am.
Featured image credit – Toby Wordie, Stirling University
Film, Media and Journalism student who writes about things that catch her interest. Instagram @charlsutcliffe
