Reppery

This committee is where staff and students from the Faculties of Science and Life Sciences come together to discuss issues of importance to both groups.

Most of the discussion was around having subject-specific resource rooms (or mini-libraries) in each school or department in addition to the main library in order to be closer to students and offer more specialist materials not generally available in the library.

Most students and staff agreed that this was a good idea, but that funding and staffing would need to be discussed before any decisions were made. Visit invitations from departments already having resource rooms were extended to all members of the committee.

Another item of interest was the trial extended library opening hours. For the first seven weeks of the summer term, the library will now stay open until midnight from Monday-Thursday, retaining existing opening hours at all other times. However, from 7:30pm to midnight, reduced staffing will be in effect. A representative from the library assured the committee that the results of this trial would be taken into account when deciding whether to permanently extend hours. Issues of funding would also need to be discussed.

Most of the rest of the meeting was concerned with accepting minutes and reports from other committees and boards.

As a surprise to most members, parts of the committee in session were recorded as part of a new university short film on student representation. As chair of the committee on the day, I was interviewed along with the sub-dean of the Joint Faculty and a student member of the committee.

This meeting was yesterday and it discussed a variety of issues ranging from the state of the toilets in HumSS to the rebuilding of halls and even the status of the forum itself.

There were a few items of general interest which I’ll go through here:

Firstly, the Vice-Chancellor agreed that something had to be done about the state of the toilets in the HumSS building. Since the building itself is planned to be extensively refurbished in the next few years, there is no point in spending too much money at the moment. However, he promised to look into the matter and make sure that something is done.

Secondly, the future of paths and crossings near the Pepper Lane entrance was discussed. Some students who use the area regularly commented that the crossings were somewhat hidden and therefore could not be seen by drivers, especially on wet days. The forum resolved to look into the matter, including the possibility of installing beacons and moving the traffic control box to improve visibility.

Finally, the status of the forum itself was discussed, prompted by a report from RUSU. Some members discussed the possibility of shutting it down due to all parties being represented in other committees and all discussion matters already being discussed elsewhere. However, the final majority view was that the forum acted as a “backstop” for matters which could not be resolved elsewhere and therefore should be kept.

Yeah, this was another one of those meetings with the rediculously long names!

The JfBTL brings together the Directors of Teaching and Learning for all departments and schools in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Faculty of Science. It’s job it to look at ways of improving teaching and learning facilities and delivery across all of the applicable courses.

Most of the meeting would not be applicable to students, but there was one point I raised that I believe merits further discussion, and it’s probably something that every student has complained about or at least experienced before: lots of coursework being set at the same time and only being handed back weeks after the deadline.

It was bought to my attention by some StARs (and it happened to me too) that some lecturers were taking an inordinate amount of time to mark and return coursework (even after taking into account their other commitments, such as research, teaching and personal tutor work). Also, it seems that there is a general lack of co-ordination with regards to coursework being handed out at the same time.

The arguments coming back from the other members were generally sympathetic, although there were a couple of dissenting voices who believed that surprise setting of work and lack of co-ordination would prepare students for the world of work! The general feeling was that more could be done to inform students of relevant coursework deadlines, content and deadlines for feedback in the first weeks of a module. The board resolved to promote this to lecturers, although it stopped short of making it compulsory.

On the issue of staggering work, several members said that due to the university policy of allowing mix-and-match modules from different schools within the two faculties, it would be impractical to co-ordinate between so many module combinations and lecturers. However, most members agreed that more could be done to make the situation better, and that work on this was already being carried out.

Finally, regarding the handing back of work and feedback, the point was raised that timely feedback is now a university rule and that lectures not giving out feedback on time are actually flouting this rule. Therefore, any of you who know about lecturers that do this are recommended to see your Senior Tutor or Director of Teaching and Learning for your school to report it. If you could also contact me and tell me about it, it would be great since concrete examples are what I need to be able to show the board that this practise is ongoing.

It’s sort of half way through my tenure as Education Rep and I thought it would be a good time to go through my manifesto pledges, looking to see what I’ve done, what’s happened, and what’s left to do by the time I finish in the summer. Granted, I can’t take credit for everything, but nevertheless it’s good to reflect.

More “social spaces”

Working at the Careers Advisory Service means that I knew about this a little before everybody else, but now that the Carrington Building is open, there’s a lovely social space inside just to the left of the reception building, equipped with PCs and wireless access. It’s open whenever the building is and can be used by anybody, just like the wireless zone in HumSS. Now that the library makeover has finished, there’s another social space there with the new Cafe Libro which seems to be well used.

Improvements to the library

As above, the library has now completely reopened with some stunning new features on the ground floor. IT help is now on the first floor along with S@iL and a new scanner station. Cafe Libro (run by central catering, the same people who run Cedars) serves fairtrade food and drinks all day long and is a great place to meet.

Improvements to the Personal Tutor system

This is something that still needs to be worked on. I am quite lucky to have a good personal tutor who always sets up meetings and records everything. However, I do realise that not all personal tutors are the same. I’ll be working on this in the coming months.

Improved teaching of career management skills

CMS is run by the Careers Advisory Service so I was in a position to feed back to the careers advisers about the relevance of the course and what could be improved after taking it myself. The careers advisers assured me that the course had changed significantly since last year, and they also took my views along with those of others taking the course this year in order to improve CMS for upcoming students.

Listening to you

This isn’t so much of a target as something continuous. I’m proud of my listening record but to date not many people have approached me about stuff to do. I’m also in contact with StARs across the Faculty of Science, and some of them are feeding back great things to me, but again, lots of StARs aren’t responding, so if you know your StAR isn’t responding then why not give them a little push?

As always, everybody’s always welcome to contact me for anything!

The Students’ Union elections are coming up in Week 7 and in the run-up to this, you’ll probably see lots of people campaigning on campus for various candidates to all the Sabbatical and other positions. While nearly everybody knows of the President and Sabbatical Officers, there are another group of volunteers who work in the background making sure everything goes to plan - the Student Trustees.

Since the Union is run like a charity (and will soon officially become one), trustees are needed to manage the overall administration and financing of the Union as well as setting and checking its direction and how well it is responding to students.

As you all know, I’ve been Education Representative for the Faculty of Science since last year, and I hope that you will agree that overall, it’s been a productive year, with lots still to come. Overseeing the QAA audit, Student Written Submission and another round of meetings at faculty level will all take up time, but this is time that I feel is worthwhile in giving something back to the student community at the University who voted me in!

At the moment, my activites are mainly confined to the Faculty of Science, but with the elections, I hope to be able to build on my achievements here to help adapt the Union for the 21st century. There have already been a number of high-profile changes made under the leadership of Sally Pearman (who I think has been a great President!), but there is still some way to go.

This is why today I’m standing as a candidate for one of the three Student Trustees who will be elected later this term. It’ll be our job to work with the President and Sabbatical Officers to make sure the Union is run well. As well as that, we’ll be listening to your views and letting those define the future direction of the Union and all that it does for students. I hope that my record as Education Rep will stand me in good stead for this!

Please visit my Facebook campaign group and show your support. Also, if you’d like to become an officer or help out with the campaign, then please contact me, either through this website or using any of the methods listed on Facebook.

Thanks for your time!