ICU Elections: Meet your new Officer Trustees

Imperial College Union's Leadership Elections have come to a close, with a turnout of 30.97% across both Leadership and CSP elections, a marginal increase on last year, when the figure stood at 30.42%.

In this article, we take a look at the Officer Trustees elected to serve the student body for the 2024/25 academic year.

The Officer Trustees are a team of five students – the Union President and four deputies – who take a year out of their studies to lead Imperial College Union (ICU). They each earn a salary of roughly £38,000 pro rata and work to improve the student experience. Under UK law, they can serve for a maximum of two years at ICU.

This year, three of the five Officer Trustees stood for re-election, and all three of them won second terms.

Camille Boutrolle, Union President

Camille Boutrolle was one of the three incumbents to secure re-election, alongside Christian Cooper and Stephanie Yeung.

She promised to lobby for more money for postgraduates, create module exchange opportunities, and provide more spaces for students to gather on campus.

A motion passed at last month’s session of Union Council already mandates the Union President to lobby for an increase to the UKRI London allowance – the stipend paid to support London-based PhD students with their living costs.

But Boutrolle made this a central part of her campaign this year, saying she would lobby for a £3,000 increase to the allowance.

Christian Cooper, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies)

Christian Cooper won a second term as DPCS with 57% of the vote, beating a single competitor to the role.

He promised to reduce response times for CSP event and trip proposals, increase support for the students running them, and make the annual CSP budgeting process more equitable and accessible.

Building on a pledge from last year to reduce barriers to CSP participation, Cooper said he would increase the number of students who can access the Union’s Student Experience Fund, which was launched this academic year.

At present, the fund is open to Home students on an Imperial Bursary, with a household income below £60,000.

Emina Hogas, Deputy President (Education)

Emina Hogas won the role of DPE this year.

In stark contrast to last year when five candidates entered the race and the incumbent was defeated, Hogas was the only candidate to run for DPE.

She won 87% of the vote, with the remainder going to RON (Re-Open Nominations).

Hogas, standing for the first time, promised to standardise the mitigating circumstances application process and ensure that the elibility criteria are inclusive, ‘focusing on mental wellbeing’.

She also said she would ‘lobby for Master’s students to have the option to retake exams in the same academic year rather than default resits to the next.’

Stephanie Yeung, Deputy President (Finance & Services)

Like her colleagues Boutrolle and Cooper, Stephanie Yeung secured a second term as DPFS, winning 57% of the vote.

She pledged to ‘continue improving the student experience’ in the same four areas she highlighted in her first-term manifesto: sustainability, community, accessibility, and accessibility.

Yeung said that she will ‘continue pushing for student-friendly prices’ across all Union services, embed sustainability into ‘all aspects across the Union’, and ‘develop safe and inclusive events led by students’.

Nico Henry, Deputy President (Welfare)

Nico Henry won the race for DPW with a campaign that drew upon his personal experiences as a student with a ‘rare congenital disability’ who had to balance ‘employment and studies through the cost of living crisis’.

He said he would launch an ‘Imperial Food Circle to provide discounted food offers to channel surplus food to students’, and lobby for the College to become accredited as a Living Wage Employer.

Henry promised to lobby Imperial to ‘sign the government-backed pledge to prohibit the use of NDAs against victims of sexual misconduct, discrimination, or bullying.’

In a novel turn for the role of DPW, Henry listed a number of sustainability-based initiatives including a ‘Cycle to Uni scheme’, explaining that he sees welfare as ‘our shared duty to the environment’.

Four of the five Officer Trustees for 2024 mentioned sustainability in their campaigns.