Oxford SU Announces 2025/26 Officer Roles and Democracy Review Outcomes
We are really proud to announce that following the culmination of extensive consultation, data gathering, analysis and reflection, the outcome of our Michaelmas 2024 Democracy Review will see the SU moving towards a ‘Conference of Common Rooms’ structure, and will immediately begin working with stakeholders to establish this model ready for piloting later this academic year. This model reflects the collegiate nature of the University it will serve; the SU’s primary purpose remains representing all students to the University, but this new structure acknowledges that common rooms are the beating heart of student engagement and representation in your colleges, and should therefore play a bigger part in what that looks like. This Hilary term, the student body will elect four Sabbatical Officers, each with a targeted remit:
- Undergraduate Officer
- Postgraduate Officer
- Communities and Common Rooms Officer
- Welfare, Equity and Inclusion Officer
These roles reflect your feedback on the need for focused and supported representation that prioritises advocacy, welfare, and inter-collegiate collaboration. In the first year, these roles will be supporting the development of our new democratic model and bringing students from across the collegiate university together as one strong students’ union. Each role has a distinct group of representatives to work with, paving the way to ensuring that all student voices have a platform to be heard on the issues that matter to them. The SU as an organisation is uniquely placed to bring these groups of students together and provide the infrastructure and support to strengthen the existing representative structures.
In this move towards implementing a Conference of Common Rooms, we recognise that marginalised students may not always feel an affinity to their common room. To better represent marginalised communities, we will continue to provide community resources for these groups, and SU Campaigns will be pivoting to Part-Time Community Officers. These elected volunteers will act as conveners and advocates for their specific communities, and Campaigns will be consulted in due course as to how we move forward with this.
The central tenet of any Students’ Union is that its power lies with student voices and their choices, and so new bye-laws will be developed to give students ownership over this model, implementing robust mechanisms that empower students to make any necessary changes over time. We welcome robust debate, and the fuller set of bye-laws outlining how these changes will be governed and implemented will be presented at an All-Student Meeting on Thursday 27 Feb in Week 6 of Hilary, alongside our updated Articles of Association.
We hope and believe that these changes will address some longstanding challenges, and establish a precedent for a more inclusive and accountable primary purpose. When the SU entered into a period of Transformation in April 2024, it was widely acknowledged that radical change was required to address the systemic organisational issues prevalent across several years.
Transformation was always intended to include a root and branch review of all areas of the SU, including its democratic structures and Sabbatical Officer roles. This is more than an administrative shift—it is a commitment to ensuring that the SU is as dynamic, impactful, student-led and inclusive as the collegiate student body that it serves, and crucially, that we can deliver on our primary purpose of academic representation and support for all students.
The culture of the SU—and its capacity to support its officers, represent marginalised voices, and engage students effectively in its pursuit to shape Oxford—depends on getting the foundations right. We invite all students to join in this Transformation by standing for election in one of these new roles within this newly transformed SU for 2025/26. You can find more information on each of the Officer roles on our Role Description webpage. Nominations open at midnight.
Organisational structure
The new model explained:
In the SU’s new model, we have moved towards having four officers, each with a specific role, remit, and representative structure to work with.
The Student Executive Team are the people who deliver on behalf of students – they’ll take information, insight, and mandates from the student body and translate that into representation to the University and colleges.
The Undergraduate and Postgraduate Officers will be focused on what we call ‘primary purpose’ representation work. Our purpose is laid out in our Articles of Association, but broadly our ‘primary purpose’ is representing students’ academic interests whilst at the University of Oxford. These officers will sit on the highest University committees, directly representing students’ educational experience to senior stakeholders in the University, including the Vice Chancellor and the Pro Vice Chancellor Education. They’ll work with course and Divisional Representatives to deliver quality enhancement projects across the University.
The Welfare, Equity and Inclusion Officer will do similar work, but across both the University and colleges, focused on students from marginalised groups. They’ll be working with RepCom Chairs, Community Officers, and societies that represent marginalised students to ensure that their voices are heard in key committees and working groups. Having a paid officer in this remit removes the representative burden on these students, whilst ensuring that there is a clear line of communication.
The new Communities & Common Rooms Officer will be focused firstly on developing our new SU policy-making structure, with common rooms at the heart. This is a huge task – and at the core of Transformation. They will work with common rooms to develop our new bye-laws, establish what infrastructure support the SU can provide, and begin strengthening the voice of common rooms across the institution. This role will also act as the representative on key college committees.
As a team, these four officers will work with students across the whole institution, acting as the link between the University, Divisions & Departments, Common Rooms, and Conference of Colleges.
To support these officers, the students’ union as a corporate organisation, staffed by professional staff members, will provide long-term structure, advice and guidance- including insight & policy support, governance support & training, and support with coordinating volunteers.
In developing this model, we have been especially conscious of not over-burdening representatives of the student body such as JCR and MCR Presidents and Divisional Representatives, who we know are already at capacity. That’s why built into this structure is infrastructure support for those groups – our staff will be more available to support you with your day-to-day so you can get on with the job at hand.
We’re really excited to start filling in the gaps of this plan with students, and we look forward to building the bye-laws together over the next few months.