Alex Fairfax-Cholmley

I have been at Exeter since 2014 and I made a permanent switch to 0.6 FTE in 2022 so I can spend more time with my young family. Beyond the Archaeology & History corridors, some of you may know me from my current role as Exeter UCU’s Communications Officer.

Why am I seeking election to Senate? Because UoE governance can always be improved and Senate offers the opportunity to do so via its input into university decision-making on academic matters. If elected, I would like to help Senate ensure that future strategic decisions improve the working lives of academics and PS staff here at Exeter – with timely and meaningful staff consultation a basic requirement. I will work to connect the broadest possible range of colleagues into Senate discussion and decisions, especially those colleagues on insecure contracts and with the most challenging student-facing roles (whether academic or PS). In the current challenging HE environment, I am very aware of the responsibilities my election would bring in terms of representing the interests of staff and ensuring that UoE strategy is building an academic institution we can enjoy and of which we can proud.

Brian Rappert

These are turbulent times in Higher Education in the UK.  It is my experience, that universities and other organisations are able to weather uncertainties and difficulties best when they enable widespread participation in decision making.  In my 20+ years at our university, I have sought to work toward this end.  I have done that in department leadership role such as during my times as Head of Department.  At a university-wide level, through my work as caseworker, department rep, Secretary and President of the Exeter UCU Branch, I have sought to represent and defend the views of academic and professional services staff over many years.  As a senator, one of my main priorities would be ensuring that the many academic communities at our university play active roles in shaping our collective future research and teaching strategy.

Laura Salisbury

I am a Professor of Modern Literature and Medical Humanities working in the Department of English and Creative Writing and the Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health. I came to Exeter in 2013. Before that, I worked for many years at Birkbeck, where I sat on committees for the AUT and then UCU. Across my career, I have worked in FE and HE, including many years of precarious employment in pre and post 92 sectors.

My interdisciplinary research in the medical humanities concentrates on the relationship between time and care and I want to bring these perspectives, including critical thinking on crisis, emergency, and waiting, to Senate’s work on governance and strategy. As colleagues and students experience their lives as increasingly ‘time poor’, with considerable impacts on health and wellbeing, I believe that Senate has a key role in scrutinising the university’s use of resources, including people’s time, to ensure fair, just, and sustainable conditions for teaching, learning, and research. I am also passionate about representing the university as a diverse community of expertise and practice, whose knowledge and experience can and should be central to shaping the strategy and structures of the institution.

Birgul Yilmaz

I am a passionate Sociolinguist and Applied linguist who loves languages, cultures, and intercultural communication. Challenging social inequalities, that emerge from gender, race, class, and migration are at the heart of my research and teaching. Here at the University of Exeter, my empirical work aims to make a direct contribution to the University Strategy: transforming health, wellbeing and creating a socially just society. As a scholar from a minoritised background, combined with my fieldwork experience gained from humanitarian settings, working with vulnerable populations such as refugees living in camps in Greece, I will be very excited to be part of the senate to contribute to decisions, future plans and learn from other colleagues. I will be delighted to have the opportunity to be directly involved in the University governance and be part of the discussions and decisions that have an impact on research and teaching.