Co-led by Victor Haymann and Sebastian Schramm in Madrid and Segovia respectively, the Black Team running for Student Government for the 2020-2021 academic year consists of Diego Ortiz as the Community Development Officer, Mayssa Else Hadife as the Segovia Academics Officer, Muhammed Fatih Öztürk as the Madrid Academic Officer, and Maria Alarcon as the Communications Officer. Their campaign focuses on some interesting but difficult proposals to improve the standing of the Student Government for years to come.
Notably, they would like to give current students a say in the admission process for future students. Called a “students consultancy admission office,” they claim that “students, knowing the high school’s reputation, as well as the diplomas, would be helpful to recruit newcomers.” They should expect harsh pushback on part of the administration on this proposal, something no other Student Government has attempted.
They also propose a Student Government Money Fund, aiming to “raise 20,000 Euros and spend it on you.” This money would exist outside the administration-mandated budget, so the government would have much more leeway in how to spend it.
In terms of community development, Team Black looks to increase the participation of freshers in sporting events and to seek sponsors for IE sporting teams. “all the teams should have the adequate number of involved players to never be lacking people on game days nor training,” says Haymann. They look to set up a large sporting competition between IE Segovia and Madrid, bringing the two campuses into the competition. They also propose boosting the number of activities during freshers week and expanding it to both the fall and winter.
To monitor IE’s academic standards, Team Black proposes “Degree Boards,” where class reps, professors, and IE administrators sit down together to find ways to improve existing degrees. “There are new Bachelors programs created every year at IE, we believe that although it is a good initiative, we believe we should make our existing degrees reach excellence before creating new ones,” says Haymann on the topic. This would empower class representatives and grant them more power to negotiate with the administration.
Many of Team Black’s proposals rest on the idea of partnership with private businesses. To help ease tensions with the Segovia community, they seek to partner with locally-owned bars and restaurants, as they had “[negotiated] deals with bars on plaza even before the coronavirus situation.” Additionally, they seek to partner with an NGO for a business competition, in which the winner would receive a 6-month internship at the given NGO.
“We aim to provide the students with a dozen of special deals for them in Madrid and Segovia,” says Haymann, “We even had short discussions with Uber Eats to offer all IE Students a discount during the campaign.” When in power, they would seek to use their position to implement new partnerships.
They also propose to further entrench the divide between the Madrid and Segovia campus through the usage of two instagrams rather than one. “We are one university but two campuses,” they claim, “We believe each campus should have its specific content to better involve the students.” This opposes many other teams’ proposals to lessen the divide between the two campuses.
Team Black chose the slogan “once you go black, you never go back” as their campaign slogan, pointing towards their goals for a “stable Student Government,” and their mission “to be this middle step along the process.” You can follow Team Black at @ieublackteam on Instagram.
