JCR statement on welfare provision

In response to data on College investment in student welfare published by The Tab, the St Catharine’s JCR Committee provided the following comment:

Archie McCann, the Men's and Non-Binary Welfare Officer for the St Catharine's JCR Committee, said, “Our main advantage at Catz is the fairly recent existence of a Welfare Officer staff member (currently Mary Simuyandi), who has the role of looking after staff and student welfare. She works with our JCR and MCR officers, our Chaplain, and with the rest of the College, which makes everyone’s lives immensely easier. There is also the sense that there are people under the guise of “College” who do really care about people’s welfare, even in the horrible circumstances in which we find ourselves. Of course, as with everywhere else in Cambridge (and I suspect most other unis), there are the usual forces of time, money and academic rigour which tend not to be conducive to good student welfare. But from what I hear from other colleges, Catz seems to do as well or better than the rest, and is always open to change and feedback. Catz seems to be quite a socially liberal college too, such as being the first college to fly a Pride flag, and one of the few colleges signing up to the Care+ scheme, which I feel improves welfare not just for our LGBTQ+ members but for everybody. In essence: while there is still lots of work to do to improve people’s welfare at Catz, in particular those of marginalised groups, Catz seems to have a positive and helpful attitude towards doing that work, which other colleges seem to miss. I’m amazed (and thankful) that we had the highest expenditure of any Cambridge college last year, in such a difficult year for so many students, when we’re not a particularly large college.”

Find out more about welfare and wellbeing support for St Catharine’s students.