A young Milford man has thrown his hat into the ring in a bid to become President of the Ulster Unveristy Students’ Union.
Lee Doran is currently the Vice-President of the Students’ Union at Magee University in Derry.
But now he hopes to step up and take over the overall role, becoming an active voice for all 27,000 students across the University of Ulster’s three campuses.
And, if successful, while still based at Magee, it is a role to which he pledges a full commitment, spending time too at Coleraine and Belfast to offer maximum representation.
Lee has been at university for three years now and last year graduated in Business Computing; he has been a vocal Vice-President and is now actively campaigning to make students heard on a higher and wider level, setting his sights on the overall Presidential placing.
The 22-year-old is no stranger to the good folk of Armagh; he has a “massive interest in football, soccer and Gaelic” and had lined out regularly for his local sides.
“I played for Armagh City for years and Madden was my club, but obviously coming to uni I wasn’t probably playing as much as I hoped to, but I’m playing flat out up here still, just for the wee local teams in Derry. I’m making the most of it,” he told Armagh I.
And Lee certainly isn’t taking his eye off the ball when it comes to what’s happening on the ground…
“I’ve a real passion for the student movement up here,” he said. “There’s a great wee community vibe in Magee and I’d love to bring that across to Coleraine and Belfast where there’s not just as much of that.”
He knows what the role entails and is firmly focussed, hoping to advocate further – and more widely – on issues in which he has been proactively involved at Magee.
Said Lee: “At the moment I feel like we’re in a current position where the student movement’s not very awake. We’re just getting burdened at the moment by landlords taking the mick out of us in regards to extortionate prices, really long contract lengths, and that’s something I’ve been advocating on up here in Magee, but I’d be advocating across all three campuses if I was in the President’s role.
“I suppose I would just be bringing a lot more activism to the student movement and kind of showing the discontent that students have, because there’s a lot of apathy at the moment. Students just accept it, they put their head down, there’s that feeling like, ‘well, this is just what it is’, but I don’t feel like our voices are out there just as much as they should be.”
The Presidential candidate knows what makes students tick and what they want; he sees what they need, will listen to what they have to say and give them a voice if elected.
When asked what his priorities are if returned, number one, he emphatically replies, is “renters’ rights”, signalling his intent to continue “lobbying on the extortionate fees we’re paying”.
Lee elaborated: “I did a survey there and the average student’s paying £560 per month in rent, and there could be five students in that house, so the landlord’s walking away with over two-and-a-half grand a month for a house. It’s colossal at the moment.
“That would be my main number one priority; we’ve been working on it this year and would be bringing it forward next year.”
Student fees is also another major area of concern, with Lee of the belief that these should effectively be frozen.
“We should be trying to maintain our current rate,” he said. “We’re in a completely different situation to the mainland UK. Even economically, it’s completely different, and I feel that what we’re paying now is reasonable for the standard of education and what we have available here.”
Lee is also a keen advocate for the Irish language and would continue in his quest to bring about further improvements and recognition.
He explained: “We’ve done great movement as a Students’ Union in getting signage up in our Students’ Union spaces. I know it seems trivial, but that was almost a 10-year long battle and we finally managed that.
“Now we’re trying to establish part-time job roles so that our Irish language students will have some work. And beyond that as well, it’ll help us to be able to translate a lot of the social media content that we do and on the website to Irish, so that there’s a visible presence of the language from us so then we can lobby the university to show we’re doing the best practice. This is what is needed and wanted by the student body as well.”
Of course, nothing is written in stone when it comes to representing student needs. Lee is one who is prepared to step in, then step up and not back down.
“I’m all for the students and whatever they bring to me is an issue,” he added. “As much as I have my priorities set there, I’ll direct the Students’ Union to lobby on whatever they want as well. I’m not a closed book. We’ll take on any student. I’ll be about all three campuses all the time and relaying what students want on the ground and that’s the kind of direct action we do as a Students’ Union as well.”
And what for Coleraine and Belfast if the Magee man is appointed?
“I just want to bring that community feel that we have here in Magee right across Belfast and Coleraine as well, with better events that students actually want during times that suits them,” said Lee.
“We haven’t had a Magee President in about six or seven years, so I think it’s about time we got someone based up there just to put a bit more focus there at the moment, when everything’s happened with the Magee expansion and just the development of the city as a whole.
“I would plan to base myself in Magee but I’ll obviously have to be across all three campuses and a lot of the staff is concentrated in Belfast, so I’d be there a considerable amount too.”
Voting for the President of the UU Students’ Union opens on Tuesday, March 3, and closes on Thursday, March 5. The ballot is conducted online – at www.uusu.org – and all students are eligible to vote, including those on part-time courses.
The results are expected to be confirmed later on Thursday evening and Lee’s friends and family – mum Gemma-Kay Rice, dad Karl Doran, and younger brothers Danny and Tom Barry Maguire – are rallying round and keeping their fingers firmly crossed.
Three candidates are in the running in this Presidential election, with the Milford man up against Rimsha Lali and Emily Roberts.
For Lee, he already dedicates much of his time to the student movement he loves and, if returned, insists he is fully prepared to continue with that passion and drive.
“As it is, I’m already sitting in that office from nine to seven o’clock,” he said. “I’m fully dedicated to the role and to the movement as a whole. If I got the role I wouldn’t let up; if anything, I’d be there even more.”
