 We're here today at DC's Glass-Nevin campus to talk to this year's VP at Academic Affairs candidate Callahan Commons. Callahan is running uncontested for the election and we talked to him today about his manifesto and what he will do if he reaches the required number of votes. Hi Cal, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Hello. So just reading through your manifesto and I saw a couple of points which I found very interesting about your campaign and the first one I saw was your wish to improve careers week. One was by introducing skills workshops such as a barista training to make you more attractable to employers. So would students expect it to be something that would be free or something heavily subsidized that they would expect to pay a small fee for if it was to happen? I would be hoping that it would be free. I'd be hoping my best to get it free if it happened. I wouldn't actually know if it was a fee to value of it, but what would happen would I hope that it would be free? If it is, I imagine it won't cost very much for a bit of fiber, but I do think there will be skills that would be beneficial to you. Anyway, if it did cost fiber, I feel like the long run it will be helpful for students. Especially for part-time jobs while you're in college to fund yourself. So that's the kind of idea of going with careers week term. The careers week is for, at the moment, kind of aimed at when you leave college. But when you're in college, you still also need to be able to fund yourself as well with part-time jobs. And that could also potentially go on to a career. You might even have to, once you leave college, go into your field. Mine doesn't go straight into it, so you might need to have a part-time job before that. So I feel like if you have skills that will work well, so even after all this small thing, I feel like it will be beneficial, but I'd be hoping that they would be free. So you just kind of want to concentrate on improving it in the current situation for students so that they can grow their skills now, whether they're doing it later, like when they leave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have skills where you can rewrite to go and when you're in college. So both of them, perfect. And another thing I saw, which really stands out to a lot of students, is the issue of a 24-hour library during exam season. Yeah. A lot of people have tried bringing it in, like, it's been a failure time and time over again, but it's something that students really want to see. So how do you plan on going about it? How are you going to lobby for a 24-hour library during the exam season? I think what the main aim there is, I think it's an overall, it will be graduating. So hopefully I want to see, if I can't get a 24-hour library this year, I want to see it kept going. Anyway, whoever takes it on then after me, but I want to see it graduate improvements. So at the moment, the minimum I want 24-hour library is that it's open during and repeats, opposed to during the repeats you and the library is only open up until about five p.m. every day. So if it's open for 24 hours during the exam, it should be open for 24 hours at least then as well. And that'll be the minimum I want. But overall, I want to work with the library, see what the feasibility is of it. If it's a thing where they don't have the money for funding of this, they'll have to keep it open and see what money we can move around or what we can do about it. But the minimum I want is to have it open during repeats, if not 24 hours all the time. And another one I saw, which was like it's a big issue for a lot of students is the CA feedback. You were saying, which is true, that a lot of students get their feedback when they go on to their next CA and how much of a priority is this for you to make sure that they get this feedback quicker? I think it's so important. I find this myself and my classmates said to me as well that a lot of are we inside the lab reports. So if you spend one lab report and we're talking to you in a second one, you start with the first one back. So that means your first two could be completely wrong. So I think it's really important to work with lecturers and PhD students who are correct in a lot of time to see what point we could get the process to be set up, that we can get them back for you further, because my main passion there are access and quality of education, and the quality of education can only improve by closing the feedback loop. So I think that's so important. And I have to say, I've already discussed this with as this year has been inside the Faculty Lab, I've been on a meeting with lecturers and it has been something that I brought up this year, and I think there has been a few more improvements on it. They've been working on it. It was here and the students want them quicker, has kind of encouraged them to do it. So I think it's making that a cross-sport. So I kind of made the start with science, but I want to make a cross-sport to all the faculties. And just finally, the impression I got from your manifesto is that you want to bring the idea of this progressive university forward. Whether that be true, your idea of a book sale or swap, reaching out to students who plan to drop out and show them other options. And just a general kind of like reaching out to students and making it more progressive. Do you plan to work with other, if you get the position, do you plan to work with other VPs and other members of the SU? Would this be a priority to make it a progressive college? I think so. I think one thing this year I've seen, maybe progressive but engaging students as well, giving students what they want, not just what the student thinks they want. Maybe either things, I know my manifesto is what my classmates have said to me or people I know, they're like, this is what I want to see done. And that's what the student should be doing. And this would be a great campaign or a great idea. But it may not be, it might be great in a minority of people who actually need that, but things that will affect all the students over. Obviously, you do need to have one campaign for the minority as well. And it may make everyone kind of equal. But I think it needs to be something done for everyone. So like the book sale, everyone has five books or some. So if you do book shop, they're helping every student. So that would be something I want to do. And as you said, they work more than VPs. One of the things on my manifesto was having like well-being workshops around exam times. So that would be in close cooperation with the VP for welfare and quality. And there's other stuff as well, placement is very much an educational one, so working with the VP for placement and education there. So yeah. Perfect. Well, that's all the questions I have today. So thanks for a million for coming in to talk to us. No problem. Thank you. So that's it from this year's VP Academic Affairs candidate, Callen Commons. Make sure to follow DCU TV News to keep up to date with this year's 2018 DCU-SU elections. And don't forget to vote from Wednesday, the 7th of March to Friday, the 9th of March. Call McCauhey DCU TV News.