My name and role:
Jonathon Crotty – Representative for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
What made you want to be part of our Student Leadership Team?
What drew me to the Student Leadership Team is the opportunity to make sure students' experiences genuinely shape the decisions that affect them.
As a Politics, Philosophy, and Economics student within FASS, I know that studying remotely brings unique opportunities, but also unique challenges. Sometimes students can feel disconnected from decision-making or unsure whether their feedback leads to real change. The Student Leadership Team offers this, but also appeals to me because it offers the chance to work collaboratively with other student leaders, University staff, and the Student Union. The best outcomes come from building positive relationships and finding practical solutions, and that's the approach I bring to the role.
What are you hoping to achieve in the 2026–2028 term?
My main priorities are as follows:
- Many students at the OU are unaware of Open SU – I myself was unaware in my first few years of study. I would seek to make Open SU more visible, and easier to access for OU students.
- I would ensure that students can clearly see that their voices make a difference. Too often, students provide feedback but never hear what happens afterwards. I would work to strengthen that feedback loop by communicating regularly about the issues being raised, the discussions taking place, and the outcomes that have been achieved.
- Improving how we hear from students in the first place. The OU student body is huge and varied, especially in FASS, so I’d want to make it easier for quieter or less engaged voices to be heard, not just the usual contributors.
- I want to work with FASS and the SLT to turn common issues into practical improvements. For example, things like assessment clarity, clearer and more accessible course materials, and better communication and feedback.
Tell us some fun facts about yourself!
My main hobby is to read – from high-fantasy to hard-boiled detective fiction, to dry books about Weimer-era German politics or less-dry hydropolitics of Central Asia. I have over a thousand books at home, which means I can define my house as a library.
Outside of reading, I love to watch and review films and theatre shows as an amateur critic, and keep up with the political world (useful for my course) – and the most important fact about myself is that I have a hamster called Flash Gordon.
And finally – what do you love about the OU?
What I love about the OU is how genuinely accessible it is for people with very different lives, and it allows people to achieve their dreams via remote studying. It doesn’t expect everyone to fit a single mould. It meets students where they are, whether that’s working full-time, raising a family, or studying in short bursts between everything else they may have going on.
I also really value the diversity of the student community. You end up studying alongside people you’d probably never otherwise cross paths with, and that brings a lot of different perspectives into discussions and feedback. I met one of my closest friends in my 2nd year, and we've been besties ever since.
How to contact me:
Email me
Please note that a handful of Open SU staff team members have access to this mailbox.