Aaron Caulfield is final-year LLB, chair of the Labour Society, and multi-year incumbent on the Communities Zone Executive Committee. He has fought for students in various ways throughout his time at Stirling. Caulfield is running for this year’s VP Education in the Students Union Elections.
Brig sat down with Caulfield to discuss his manifesto.
AI and Proofreading
“I feel particularly as we move forward dealing with large language models in further education, we need to be a lot clearer about in what circumstances AI can be used. The University’s guidance is very broad and there can be cases where quoting from AI is acceptable. But due to the non-repeatable nature of AI answers, it is probably difficult to ever show the same again for the sake of quotation,” Caulfield said.
“The fact we rely on tools such as TurnItIn to determine whether something is AI is very poor. TurnItIn software does not allow students to see their AI generated ranking, it is entirely proprietary to the university. The paper which I’ve cited in my manifesto highlights that there is discrepancy in this system. This can’t be a tool which could lead to people being unable to complete their degree programme.
“The use of peer review in study is healthy, and while the university doesn’t include it in their new guidance. There shouldn’t be shame put on this very common method. Proof-reading is an acceptable and common practice,” he said.
Brig asked about expectations on lecturers in regards to attendance.
Caulfield replied: “The workload on lecturers being used as an extension of the Home Office – it’s sad that academics have been reduced to administrative assistants for the Home Office and then there is are a lot of lecturers whom disagree with the way the Home Office manages attendance.
“To be forced into the position of having a mandated reporting duty doesn’t encourage academics to stay in the United Kingdom.”
Access to Education
Caulfield finds access to education a very personal and important topic. He believes housing is currently one of the major issues for student access.
“Personally, when I joined the university in 2019, for reasons related to disciplinary acquisition to which I was acquitted, the university did make me homeless. After this, I’ve been entirely committed to campaigning for better housing in Stirling. The housing situation just continues to get worse. Now we’ve came to 2024, rather than 2019, and the situation IS worse than ever,” Caulfield said.
“Stirling Council maintains its ban on new HMO’s that are not purpose-built student accommodation above a certain percentage. Even though the council has made decisions for purpose-built student accommodation, these are all private developments that are entirely unaffordable to people who aren’t exceptionally wealthy. Hundreds of pounds a week is not sustainable for the average home student and majority of international students. It’s absolute extortion. Many students are having to live elsewhere.
“The conditions people are having to live in, both in private and in university-owned accommodation, is palpably awful. Firm action from the Union and the university to freeze rent and build more housing stock for the university is necessary. Or, [the university must] not accept the disproportionate amount of students [that they] want to accept in order to meet their financial wishes of simply increasing the marketisation of education in Scotland.
“I had to commute one and a half hours on Scotrail each way at one point, which led to me attending no societies. And while I sat on various Union committees, I had to attend meetings online which was detrimental and affected my ability to engage with them. My attendance in classes was basically non-existent out with mandated ones. It’s unsustainable to expect someone to travel from anywhere further than five or so miles to come for classes,” Caulfield explained.
“People who don’t live in Stirling are excluded from our community. Therefore, it’s my aim if I’m elected to ensure we don’t have students forced away from the university and forth valley due to university greed,” he said.
Support for all degree programmes
Brig asked about his last manifesto point.
He said: “We’ve seen in Aberdeen how language programmes are getting cut and we’re seeing it in the UK government where they are knocking out degrees seen as less valuable. All degrees are inherently valuable. There is a world of academia that must be contributed to in the future.
Caulfield promises to campaign for students in order for cuts to Scottish home degrees to be reconsidered, with over 1,200 university places currently set to be unavailable to freshers next year.
“There are more and more [cuts] expected to come in the next few years. The government has said this will affect poorer students. I commit to working with the national union of students and other students’ unions to ensure that we do not receive these cuts to Scottish home degrees,” he said.
Voting opens on Tuesday, February 27 at 10am.
Featured Image Credit: Stirling Students Union
He/Him
Arts Editor 24/25
Press email: arts@brignews.com
