We regret to share that Gammorah has taken a decision to step down as President of the Students' Union.
We regret to share that Gammorah has taken a decision to step down as President of the Students' Union, for personal reasons.
We appreciate this may come as a surprise, however, the wellbeing of Officers has and will always remain our top priority as an organisation, and we are supporting Gammorah and the Sabbatical Officer team through these next steps.
As we approach the end of 2024, we thank Gammorah for her work and contributions over the years as an officer and as a member of the SU.
Statement from Gammorah
Over the last three years, first in a position as a Part-Time Officer, then as the education officer, and since last summer as president of the Student Union, I have had the immense privilege of working on behalf of the students of Goldsmiths alongside and in collaboration with the incredible team at the Student Union.
I want to begin this statement with gratitude to those I have worked alongside these past three years, in particular the sabbatical officer teams of both this and last academic year, the staff, and trustees at Goldsmiths Student Union. I have learned so much about teamwork, struggle, and happiness through my comradeships with you. I will always remember the immense support you have given me in the hard times and the joys we have collectively shared in the good times, plus the many occasions on this job when all we could do was laugh.
I am immensely proud of the work I have been involved with and look forward to seeing the successes of the Student Union, in spite of the University and sector-wide circumstances, to win amazing victories for students, foster spaces of political growth and education and protect the most disempowered within our student community.
This is a hard job, that we ultimately do because we want to see change and be a part of empowering ourselves and others to work toward liberation, within a context where these aspirations are often met brutally with a reality of the cold logic of a marketised system of education. It is also a job that I saw when running for an elected position and still now see as inherently political and therefore immensely consuming. It is something you go home with and take with you the next morning. It is ultimately something that, if you want to do with responsibility and care, requires your dedication, commitment, and presence.
And it is regrettably and with great sadness that I have come very gradually and with much consideration to the conclusion that I do not and cannot have enough to give. The truth is that I simply cannot continue. Those who know me personally may have, to varying degrees, noticed that I have not been well for a while.
I do not want to fall into the trap here of individualising or pathologising my mental illness, but to say here that I have struggled with anxiety and depression for a considerable time. I am also a radical disabled trans woman who, in my time at Goldsmiths, has sustained many injuries from the violence of the world around us, some of this within but most outside of the context of Goldsmiths University.
I want to say that throughout all of this, the SU has been supportive of me and has given me opportunities to seek support. There have and always will be tensions in any organising space where people are driven through different paths and experiences into the shared goals of fighting for change. Still, I want to explicitly say that Goldsmiths SU is above all an environment of care and support.
I do not want to give the impression that I view myself and my experiences of violence, mental illness, and pain as above anyone else’s; part of what has made this decision so hard for me is that I recognise the struggles of staff, students, my colleagues and friends and I wish to honour my commitment.
It is in the power of my colleagues at the SU, and other student groups such as Goldsmiths for Palestine, the radical scholarship and workers upkeeping every aspect of the student experience here, that Goldsmiths truly thrives; not executive reports of council. The lack of recognition of what makes this place so vital by management has been one of the specific existential terrors of this role, but a valuable lesson on the limits of institutions and dangers of institutionalisation.
The end of my time at GSU is not the end of my commitment to struggle, something I recognise does not immediately help those I leave behind.
I want to in particular thank and affirm the importance of the work of Luca Di Mambro-Moor, Shada Abdalqader, Nour Matar, who I know will continue to fight for students and hold management to account, and the previous years’ sabbatical officers Isabelle Tarran and Victoria Chwa.
Thanks for everything,
Gammorah
Statement from your current SABB Team
We would like to thank Gammorah for her tremendous work and effort in the past few years in delivering for students. Gammorah has valuably contributed to Goldsmiths previously as a Liberation Officer and Education Officer and as the current President of Goldsmiths Students’ Union. She has been a fantastic colleague and comrade, and we are deeply saddened to see her leave, although we fully respect her decision. We fully support Gammorah through this time.
The environment at Goldsmiths and the Students’ Union is different from that of many other institutions, as we maintain our radical traditions and an engaged student body in the face of widespread institutional changes and challenges. Gammorah’s experience with the role is often a shared experience for anyone working in such an institutional context. We stand with Gammorah, and whilst the composition of the Sabbatical Officer team will be different, with no doubt about the gap left by the departure of our comrade, we want to reassure you that we will maintain our efforts to promote a culture of a critically engaged student body with a focus on social justice and radical pedagogies. We will continue to push for the best interests of our students in critical University decisions. Our focus on students and their experience at the University remains unwavering, guided by our commitment to the transformative and libratory opportunities that, at its best, Higher Education and engagement with the Goldsmiths community can provide.
There is still a significant amount of work to be done to ensure that this vision of the possibilities of Goldsmiths, as imagined by the people who make up our community, is achieved. We share the vision of Goldsmiths Students’ Union as a supportive, equitable, and rewarding organisation. We will be working collaboratively as a Sabbatical Officer team and with our staff team to continue delivering on our commitments to students.
We remain supportive of Gammorah and wish her all the best for the future.
Luca, Shada, Nour