My Experience Running for My Course Union
As a third-year Creative Industries student who only has one year left in their program, I’ve been reflecting on my years at our university. The time has flown by and I’ve had nothing but good experiences at our university, but I always wish I’d been more involved in student life. I hadn’t joined many student organizations during my time here, and I thought it was time to change this. Recently, the Creative Industries Course Union (external link, opens in new window) (CICU) held elections for their executive positions for the 2022-2023 academic year and I decided to run for Vice President (VP) Communications.
There were a few reasons why I decided to run for this position. I had always wanted to be more involved at our university, specifically within my program. I had also thought about running for the CICU in the past, but never acted on it. I wanted to meet as many of my peers as possible in the last year of my program because there are some pretty cool people in Creative Industries. When I saw the CICU advertising the open positions on their Instagram account (external link, opens in new window) , I knew I had to run, specifically for VP Communications. I have experience working in communications and am open to working in the field in the future, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some more experience on my resumé.
One of the social media campaign posts I made.
To begin the process of running for the CICU, I had to attend an information session with a current member of the organization. It was a one-on-one session where I chatted with the current VP Communications. They went over all of the roles, their responsibilities, the time commitment each role requires and the CICU in general. The session was about 20 minutes in length and was very informative in terms of what being in the CICU would look like. It was mandatory for me to attend this session if I wanted to run in the upcoming elections.
After the information session, I needed to gather at least five nominations from my Creative Industries colleagues, nominating me for VP Communications. I reached out to my friends from the program, as well as Creative Industries students I’m currently working with in various group projects from this semester. They submitted their nomination and I waited until the campaign officially began.
Before the campaign officially started, I took the time to create some campaign materials. These consisted of social media posts where I introduced myself and shared why I thought I would be a great fit for the position. I shared my communications experience and the skills I had gained through work and school that would help me excel as VP Communications. I made all of my campaign materials using Canva (external link, opens in new window) ! I honestly had so much fun working on the social media posts — it was definitely a highlight of my experience running for the CICU.
An “About Me” post I made for my social media campaign.
Now, I just needed to wait for the official go-ahead from the Chief Returning Officer for the CICU elections. Their role is to ensure that the election runs smoothly and fairly. On March 24, 2022, all candidates got the email saying the campaign had begun! From here, I made an Instagram account dedicated to my campaign where I posted the aforementioned social media posts. I followed all of my friends and colleagues from the Creative Industries program.
Now, you are probably expecting some wild campaign story where I rose above all the other candidates and had some epic moment where I dramatically shared why I was the best pick. Well, when we received the email giving us the go-ahead for the campaign I also found out I was the only person running for VP Communications. This means that the position was acclaimed and I would be the VP Communications of the CICU for the 2022-2023 school year! Sorry to be so anti-climatic, but I was very okay with the results of the election.
A social media campaign post I made sharing why I wanted to be the VP Communications for the CICU.
I had a really great time running to be VP Communications of the CICU, and I’m looking forward to fulfilling the role next year! I wish I had run for a position sooner in my undergraduate career, but I’m going to take full advantage of this opportunity. If you’re looking for ways to get involved, I definitely recommend checking out your course union (external link, opens in new window) and other student organizations. Also take a moment and read Carly’s blog about her student leadership experience!