Education Zone (12th March 2019)

Sam ran through the apologies, and welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Sam to talk with security / send email so that all rooms can be accessed during exams.  

Sam updated the zone – this is still ongoing and is due to meet in the week or so with Security and Estates & Facilities.  Sam to feedback after this meeting.

Recorded lectures in the Business School.

Adrian feed back to the group following discussions with the Business School, students do tend to re-watch certain bits of lecturers if they are available.  However there is no clear consensus for having recorded lecturers.  David also mentioned there is a similar discussion going on in medicine.  Both to update if any there are any changes or progress.    

Promotion of study spaces. 

This is being done currently, and the summer You Are More Than campaign is being promoted including the extra spaces in the SUSU buildings. 

Course Rep working group.

Meeting went ahead, item 7 on the agenda will run through the details. Sam thanked the reps who attended and those who provided feedback in the process so far.

AI Statement. 

The Statement has since been approved by the Zone and will be published on the website in the coming weeks. 

The reports had been circulated prior to the meeting.  Those Officers in attendance were given the chance to run through their report, and the rest of the zone a chance to comment.

JHO – The zone discussed the lack of attendance from JH course reps at the JH forums.  Swathy explained to the group about the roadblock to having a JH mailing list for students across the university.  The group discussed the issues and some potential ideas.  Perhaps when new students start there is a way of collecting this data on banner, or students could self-define.  It was also mentioned that it might be worth looking at the by-law in relation to CRs reporting into the JH Officer.  Swathy to take forward to the JH groups. 

FSS FO- Adrian expressed his disappointment at the attendance of his faculty forum, even though there was a lot of promotion beforehand.   He is planning another one for the end of the month and hopes the attendance is better.  The was also a small discussion on the creation of senior reps in some of the schools.   

All reports received have been uploaded.      

Sam updated on a few PG points, the PGR reps are settling in well, and have attended the Doctoral College Board.  As the roles are new, we will be looking to review them ahead of next year based on feedback from the current reps. 

No updates, just to note that round 3 of grants is now open. 

AI stance has been approved by the zone, and Sam is currently speaking to comms about the release date.   

The group went on to discuss AI and the inconsistency across the faculties with information provided, this also included special considerations.   

Sam explained the new proposal for course reps, which was sent around to the zone. It will also be taken to the Academic Rep Social for consultation and feedback. The group discussed how reps do end up doing more than the standard academic side of the role, and we should be making more use of these keen students.
A few amendments were noted with regard to the bylaw.

ACTION: Sam to set up a google drive for the papers and documents for ease.

The group picked up the discussion on feedback methods again.  A paper has been proposed at Senate with some changes to the You Make Change system.  Evie will be setting up a working group with senators to go through the proposal.  Adrian and Joel will update the group with progress. 

David informed the group the Medsoc and the Faculty of Medicine are working together to promote the ways in which feedback has been listened to, for example a ‘you said, we did’ campaign on the screens in the hospital.  He also mentioned that CRs are being encouraged to update students on facebook pages straight after SSLCs, those who are doing this have received good engagement.

The group then went on to discuss the lack of marketing and promotion of Senate, which meant there was a very poor turn out from students.  Senate is an open meeting for students to attend and have their voice heard in relation to the work our Sabbatical Officers do.  The group felt there needs to be much more promotion of the democratic events that SUSU hold.  Sam informed the group he will make sure that Academic Reps are always informed of these events.  Those in the group then discussed the timing of events such as Senate.  Can they be a Wednesday afternoon, what is the impact of this on sports fixtures?  As right now the events always clash with lectures.

The zone requested that Sam produce a recommendation based on this feedback.  For Democracy to look at the timings of these events, Wednesday afternoon should be considered, as should evenings if this would help increase student engagement in these events.

ACTION: Sam to produce a recommendation on Democratic event scheduling.

As Sam mentioned previously the access concerns to study spaces are being addressed.

Sam informed the group that he has attended some meetings around CLS spaces particularly in reference to South Gower and making sure that there is student input in any future building plans.

Sam also updated the group that the library will be planning some works to ensure consistency across sites.

Adrian (as the zones Education Zone Representative for Senate) asked the group if they would mind him changing the Senate report slightly to better reflect the work the zone does.  All agreed this was a sensible idea as the work that FOs do is so varied. 

It was also raised that during Senate these reports from the zones are never looked at.  Adrian will investigate.

Sam congratulated those in the zone who have been elected into new roles for the next academic year. 

The group then congratulated Sam on his new role sitting on the Office for Students’ Student Panel.

Parth raised a JH issue around accessibility in viewing exams papers with your PAT if the module is from the department that your PAT is not in. 

ACTION: Parth to speak to Swathy in more detail about this issue.

ACTION: Swathy to take issue to the JH group.