Our second sabbatical candidate, Nicoló Salvatore Sodaro, is his fourth year at Roehampton completing his master in Global Marketing, and is running for the role of Vice President Community & Welfare.

Q) Why have you decided to run in this election, and why for this role?

Nicoló: I have been a student at Roehampton for the past 4 years, I have seen the good times and the hard times that students have experienced. Being at the University for this long has taught me different things and has helped shape who I am today. I want to bring my experience and love for this University a step further and that’s why I feel like the role of Community and Welfare is well suited for me. I feel like I can help support students through having a fun University experience with a positive welfare aspect as this is the main goal for me if elected as Vice President of Community and Welfare.

Q) What is it, in your opinion, that should definitely be improved at this university, and how would you do so?

Nicoló: As I believe there can be many improvements to University experience, I believe improvements towards the welfare services around University will help to make student’s feel more involved and comfortable. Within my Manifesto points, two of my main welfare objectives target Male and Female mental health welfare, which is a continuous situation through each year. Being able to come up with campaigns for this and raising money/doing activities to help support those in need will begin improvements to what I believe can be emphasised on.

Q) Due to the COVID-19 outbreak you are forced to campaign online. Do you think this penalises you compared to the other students who ran in the previous years?

Nicoló: As I do believe the campaigning is always fun and the experience is unique physically, there is a slight disadvantage for this year’s candidates as they are unable to reach a higher percentage of students, especially those who commute and haven’t experienced the campaigning week. However, the experience of running a campaign is exciting and once in a lifetime as it gives a new approach of how to reach different students on a digital aspect. I believe this will give every candidate a chance to meet new people and use modern day social networking to its maximum potential

Q) What are your expectations for this role and job?

Nicoló: If elected into the role, I expect a full maximization in student engagement as student’s satisfactions is something which makes the student’s university life run smoothly. My expectations would be to continue the current VP Community and Welfare’s role with the implementation of my own fresh ideas. The view in my eye is the student’s always come first, without the student’s, there is no Roehampton. My top priority is being able to put the student’s wellbeing first and this will result to a high satisfaction level of the role.