By Heleen Heijungs
Esmee Camille Attema is a 4th semester student from Brabant, majoring in literature, history, and art history. She is currently the chair of LitCo and is running for the position of Campus Elder of Koestraat.
Esmee was Floor Elder of the 1st floor in Koestraat last year and enjoyed that a lot. She has always been very involved in improving things and finding practical solutions to any issues that came up. She loves living in Koestraat, and wants to make sure all residents feel comfortable in the place they live. She describes herself as caring and open, and wants to be the person students can approach whenever they need to.
When asked if she had any specific improvements in mind, she mentioned that she wants to create a cleaner, safer environment in Koestraat. Furthermore, she wants to create a solid evacuation plan. Recently the building had to be evacuated, a stressful and chaotic situation. To avoid this, she suggested creating a phone tree or setting up a buddy system to make sure everyone gets out safely.
Another improvement that she suggested was the relationship between the students and the non-students living in Koestraat. The ground floor is inhabited by people who don’t study at UCR, and there have been some tensions between them and the students. Esmee has already met many of them, and says they are willing to work together to make Koestraat safer, cleaner and more comfortable for everyone.
Whenever someone has any complaints, she will do everything she can to ensure it gets solved as soon as possible. She hopes to improve the relationship with Villex and make everything run more smoothly and efficiently, and is willing to make calls whenever necessary.
Aside from improving the whole campus location, she wants to work with people on an individual level. She wants it to be clear that students can always approach her with any issue, and that she tries to respond as soon as possible, no matter the time.
Heleen Heijungs, Class of 2018, Major in Political Science, Linguistics and Law, From Leiden.
