International Relations Society: President

My name is Adam Charef, i am a first year student in International Social and Political Studies, majoring in International Relations. As a potential President I know I already have some key guidelines for our society : 

• Diversity in our events would be something i value. I would work to organise various events with speakers from all political backgrounds, to broaden our perspectives as a whole and avoid biases in the complex world of international relations.
• To broaden the range of our events, by inviting speakers and guests of all spectrums of the geopolitical word. We would organise events ranging from public health, to security.

As a knowledge development director for impact initiative, I learned what it takes to work inside a UCL committee, while conforming to the Student union’s needs. Being president, demands to be committed to the society as a whole, and to represent and unite every member, not only the committee. My experience with that stretches from being secretary general of my high school UN society, to president of my city’s youth environmental society. As such I humbly position myself to represent all of you, in an effort to make next year, one to remember.

I believe in providing greater emphasis on strengthening member-committee communication to ensure each and every member is provided an active voice and ability to provide input throughout the year. To this end, I will work towards tailoring our events to members’ interests through enabling members to propose ideas/topics for future events. 

I plan on launching an ‘In Conversation with…’ speaker series, where we host global leaders - practitioners and academics - in the realm of IR. As part of this series, I aim to provide a greater interdisciplinary approach to events and event topics, engaging an audience across UCL’s various departments. Such a focus is key in helping IRS' stature within UCL grow and enable greater networking opportunities for students.

I want to ensure this speaker series consists not of talks per-se but interpersonal conversations; to ensure greater member-speaker interaction, I propose hosting, in addition to traditional talks, smaller dinner events with speakers, to provide members with opportunities to discuss and network with leading academics and practitioners.

I plan to build on Afek and Jeremy’s brilliant work on the Circum Mundum journal through launching a termly publication - available in print and online.

I believe my position as an Academic Events Officer of IRS this year provides me with the necessary understanding of the inner-workings of the society to ensure we can actualize these goals.