Lead LUU
Nominations for Lead LUU 2025 are open!
LeadLUU 2025 is now open!
Get involved by nominating yourself or a friend, supporting a candidate, or voting!
Take the future of LUU in your hands
Lead LUU is the annual Leadership Programme to find LUU’s leaders. It is one of the LUU’s elections which allows students to develop their leadership and campaigning skills, and gives them an opportunity to be empowered, have their voice heard, and make a difference.
LUU exists with students at the heart of every decision, which is why it is essential that you get involved and share your voice about who should represent you and what issues and ideas matter to you the most.
- Nominations open | 18 November
- Nominations close | 31 January
- Exec 1-1 meetings | 20 January – 31 January
- Candidate Academy | 6 – 7 February (required training – attendance is compulsory)
- Creation Week | 10 – 14 February
- Campaigning opens | 10 February
- Voting | 10am, 17 February – 2pm, 20 February
- Results Night | 21 February
Are you a candidate?
By nominating yourself to join the Lead LUU leadership race, you will receive the support and training needed to lead a successful campaign, and you’ll win the role through gaining votes from other students. If you win the election, you will become one of the Executive Officers at LUU, which is a paid (£22,976 – as of April 2024), full-time, one-year role, with all training provided. The University of Leeds can provide you a visa during your year working as an Executive Officer, if you require one.
As an Executive Officer, you will be handling negotiations between the University, the Union and the student body, and leading empowering, supportive and fun campaigns. You will gain employability skills, networking opportunities, and the chance to improve the student experience.
“The Lead LUU election experience was not easy but the most fun, thrilling and crazy opportunity I have ever had! The campaign was such a great opportunity to meet with students and discuss the change they would like to see across Leeds. It was fun exploring creative ways of campaigning and really helped me with my confidence!” – Lucy, Union Affairs & Communications Officer 2024-25
Are you a voter?
University of Leeds is a community of students with a wide variety of backgrounds, circumstances, interests and challenges. For LUU to represent and support this diverse community, it is important that we get to hear from as many students as possible. By getting to know the candidates, supporting their campaigns and voting, you are participating in shaping the future of LUU. Your voice matters.
What are the roles?
The collective duties of the Student Executive are:
- To be Trustees in the capacity of Officer Trustees on the Board of Trustees (subject to the terms of the Articles of Association).
- To campaign and consult members on their views, and speak on their behalf.
- To promote, defend and extend the rights of members.
- To interpret, implement and uphold Union policy.
- To be responsible for, and accountable to, the Student Executive as a whole.
- To ensure Union members are kept up to date on the actions of the Student Executive.
- To fulfil their roles as outlined in the Student Executive portfolio descriptions and to support, where appropriate, other student representatives in the fulfilment of their roles.
- To liaise with external organisations appropriate to individual roles.
- To steer the strategies and policies of LUU ensuring the Union works for students.
- To act as the spokespersons for the Union.
Ensures your social life thrives at Uni – whether that’s getting the right funding for your favourite clubs and societies, tackling the cost of sport, or making sure our co-curricular activities are the best in the country.
The Activities and Opportunities Officer will:
- Ensure that clubs and societies are both relevant to students and help them to feel happy, healthy and develop as people
- Ensure University sports and co-curricular activities are well supported to meet the needs of students
- Ensure that members have access to development opportunities
This year’s Activities and Opportunities Officer is Lydia Shale; if you would like to speak to her about the role please contact her on l.shale@leeds.ac.uk
Changes things up for the better so that the University is always providing students with the best academic experience, helping them to get the most out of their degree.
The Education Officer will:
- Help undergraduate students run the University in partnership with staff; shaping how the institution works
- Represent student to the University and work with other representatives to make sure that education at The University of Leeds is shaped by students and meets their expectations
This year’s Education Officer is Shivani Gug; if you would like to speak to her about the role please contact her on s.gug@leeds.ac.uk
Ensures the Union, University and further afield are accessible and inclusive for everyone. They fight to make your time at Leeds fair.
The Equality and Liberation Officer will:
- Ensure that the University takes reasonable steps to adapt their services to suit every student
- Ensure that all members have the opportunity to input into University and LUU decisions so that students get the experience they want at University
- Work with the University and LUU to remove systematic and structural barriers impacting liberation groups
This year’s Equality & Liberation Officer is Amara Relf; if you would like to speak to her about the role please contact her on a.relf@leeds.ac.uk
Represents our diverse international and postgraduate community, creating opportunities to share cultures and experiences, and ensuring that these groups are fully represented.
The International and Postgraduate Officer will:
- Ensure the University and LUU recognise and support the needs of members who are not categorised as ‘home’ or ‘undergraduate’ students
- Encourage a diverse University community with opportunities for representation, sharing culture and views, so that students have an international experiences whilst studying at the University of Leeds
- Represent students studying at postgraduate level, helping them to shape the institution and their learning and research experience
This year’s International & Postgraduate Officer is Felix Ejessu; if you would like to speak to him about the role please contact him on f.emotu@leeds.ac.uk
Focuses on the governance, democracy and finance of the Union. Keeping it up and running, and fair for you, and helping to govern the University to make sure it reflects your views.
- Chair the Board of Trustees, and alongside other Board members, hold the CEO to account and oversee Union finances to make sure LUU works for students
- Help govern the University [Undertake the role of University Governor] and ensure that students can make LUU, the University and the city of Leeds better through LUU’s democratic system
- Lead communications from LUU and ensure that LUU and the University are accountable to members
- Uphold sustainable values at LUU and promote sustainable practices at the University
This year’s Union Affairs and Communication Officer is Lucy Hart; if you would like to speak to her about the role please contact her on l.hart@leeds.ac.uk
Focuses on your health and happiness at Leeds. They’re focused on making sure students have access to any help and support they might need whilst at University.
The Wellbeing Officer will:
- Ensure LUU and the University help students identify and deal with their problems so that they can enjoy their time at University.
- Support and lead wellbeing campaigns to ensure students are as happy as healthy as possible
- Support and raise awareness of crime reduction initiatives to help students feel and stay safe and to ensure public services meet their needs
This year this role is currently vacant; if you would like to speak to someone about this role please contact either Lukas Winterburn, l.winterburn@leeds.ac.uk or Amara Relf, a.relf@leeds.ac.uk.
Heads up the student newspaper and brings you informative and interesting news about university life.
It is the role of the Gryphon Editor to ensure that the newspaper is published on time each month (during term time), working with the relevant departments to ensure content is appealing, relevant and factual.
Whilst this is an elected role, the successful candidate should have experience of:
- Writing and editing articles for printed and online publications, websites and/or other media outlet
- Managing or supervising a budget
They should be familiar with style guides and writing and editing to an editorial tone of voice and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) code. A good understanding of English, Communications or Journalism would be advantageous, as would have strong personal communication skills.
Additionally they should have a good understanding of:
- Photoshop
- Online media and digital publishing tools
- Advertising
The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate creativity, problem solving and knowledge of a broad range of topics.
The Editor should have an understanding of the financial and legal elements of journalism and publishing.
This year’s Gryphon Editor is Mia Stapleton; if you would like to speak to her about the role please contact her on editor@thegryphon.co.uk
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