Your VP for Postgraduate Experience candidates: Tobi-Temple Obaremo

Julliette Moisan 9 March 2021

Image by: Tobi-Temple Obaremo

Tobi-Temple Obaremo is running for VP of postgraduate experience.

He is currently finishing his Master’s in International Relations and International Law and working to become a lawyer.

When talking about how lockdown is going, Tobi-Temple said that he doesn’t necessarily want to bring change for the sake of being different from the previous administration.

Instead, he wants to “build upon their successes” and “improve what has already been done”.

Tobi-Temple said he feels he might be lacking in experience, since he never worked with KU and felt very disengaged from the Uni in his first years here, and that this could prove his biggest weakness in the election.

He explained that he wants to make up for it by receiving input from different persons, in order to synthesize what is being said and represent the largest number: “I want to create a network where everyone can share what they need”.

A major part of his campaign focuses on students of faith: Tobi feels that they are amongst those the most harshly impacted by the pandemic, as their places of worship often closed, and they’ve lost the sense of community that is “very integral for me and other students of faith”.

He feels that there is a big gap between practising faith during Lockdown at the national level, where places of worships were allowed to stay open and receive people, and the university level, where students of faith “were left to themselves without knowing where to turn”.

Concerns were also raised by leaders of faith groups on the campuses, and Tobi said he wants to be able to amplify their voices if elected.

The other aspect Tobi-Temple has put a lot of emphasis on in his campaign is employability.

According to him, students are often not sufficiently aware of how the uni’s Employability scheme and the employability points work.

Moreover, a lot of people are now pursuing Masters degrees simply because they didn’t find a job after graduation.

If elected, Tobi-Temple wants to focus on something postgraduate students can turn to in order to receive advice when needed, as well as “work to increase the employability of students when they graduate”.

When talking about the current situation and how things had been handled by the current administration, he said that, considering everything, it was obvious “a lot of effort has been done” and that he was “happy with the steps taken.”

However, he also added that more could have been done, especially on the communication aspect – Tobi said that a lot of students were unaware of the support the Union could provide during the pandemic.

Finally, he concluded by saying that although this was definitely “a step in a different direction” for him, he is looking forward to the election result.

Analysis

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of InQuire Media

Tobi-Temple seems like a very capable person, who would work to represent the students as well as he can. He is motivated for the role and competent, although lacking a bit in experience in working with KU.

The fact that he has communicated a lot with Pat, the current VP of postgraduate experience, is interesting, as it could make for a rather smooth transition. However, it could also mean that nothing new is implemented and no change at all is seen. This year especially, there is a dire need for innovation to deal with the current situation and hopefully pave the way for a return to normalcy.

Finally, it would benefit students of faith, often forgotten, to be represented and I think Tobi-Temple could prove a very good candidate to speak for them. However, students for whom faith isn’t as important might feel a bit overlooked in the policies he chooses to prioritize.