Episode 3: The voice of 50,000 students
UCL President and Provost Michael Spence speaks to Goksu Danaci, who was President of UCL’s Students' Union during the academic year 2024/2025, about student leadership, democracy, and community.
Goksu oversaw a huge operation – from student representation and campus services to clubs, societies, and welfare support. Working alongside her sabbatical team, she had to get used to what leadership in action can mean, with some people agreeing with her and others disagreeing. She had to balance being both a student advocate and a UCL trustee, as a crucial link between the Union and the university. UCL has held the UK's biggest student elections for three years running, with over 20,000 students voting.
Goksu came to the UK from Turkey for boarding school, before choosing UCL. The moment she saw the Portico on the iconic Wilkins Building in the UCL Quad in Bloomsbury, she knew she belonged. As a former president of the Turkish Student Society, she built community whilst sharing her culture, meeting friends she says she’d never have encountered back home.
UCL successfully brings together students from 160 countries with vastly different perspectives, but how does that happen? Goksu's answer from her perspective as their Union representative: "just being nice." But there's more – the Uni's intercultural programmes, Impartial Chair training, and its "Disagreeing Well" initiatives help create space for diverse voices to coexist.
As UCL approaches its 200th anniversary, Goksu hopes the university will preserve its founding principle of pluralism – that special ability to bring people together across radical differences whilst maintaining a strong community ethos.
Credits:
Presenter: Dr Michael Spence, UCL President & Provost
Guest: Goksu Danaci, former President of Students' Union UCL during the academic year 2024/2025.
Produced by UCL Communications and UCL Educational Media
Creators and Guests
Host
Dr Michael Spence
Dr Michael Spence has been UCL’s President and Provost since January 2021. He is a long-standing champion of universities as crucibles for debate and dialogue, and an established voice on fostering constructive discussion around challenging issues. Recognised internationally as a leader in the field of intellectual property theory, he holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford and has a BA with first-class honours in English, Italian and Law from the University of Sydney.
