Education Zone (15th October 2014)

The apologies were accepted as noted above.

Some members of the committee noted that there were minor spelling and grammatical errors in the previous minutes. Carla apologised on behalf of the note-taker for that meeting. Subject to errors being corrected, the committee approved the minutes.

PGT/PGR Officers (Agenda Point 4) -  The committee noted that there had been no definitive statement from David Mendoza-Wolfson on the membership of Postgraduate (Taught) and Postgraduate (Research) Officers on Education Zone. Sophia noted that if the committee felt they needed more support to represent their PGT/PGR members, they should contact her.

Industrial Action Policy (Agenda Point 5) - Sophia confirmed that the Industrial Action Policy was approved at the Annual General Meeting. The approved policy can be found here: http://blogs.susu.org/policy/2014/05/21/industrial-action-by-university-staff/ 

Hidden Course Costs (Agenda Point 7) - Sophia confirmed that she wanted to continue this campaign this term. She intended to talk to NUS and other student unions to contextualise our findings. She explained she would launch it during course rep training. 

The committee noted, that in some cases, staff were not always prompt in cooperating with academic representatives. Sophia advised them to read the Academic Representation Policy document produced by the university - this can be found online, and will be emailed to the committee by Sophia. 

The committee discussed methods of ensuring that staff cooperate closely with students. Sophia invited the committee to contact her if they required more guidance. 

Carla noted that there had been 350 nominations for course rep positions in the current elections. The committee felt, overall, that engagement from students was lower than expected, given how much work Academic Presidents and Faculty Officers had put in to publicising the elections. 

The committee suggested that the process of writing a manifesto may intimidate students. Shruti suggested that an anonymous nomination section on the SUSU website might encourage students to run. Carla noted that during Spring Elections, SUSU has a 'Suggest A Friend' mechanism: students can suggest people who they think should run and SUSU passes this on to the nominee. The committee agreed that this could work for course reps.

The committee were happy with the plan, overall. Rhys suggested that milestone 1.3 ('Nominees to use Opportunity Profiles to better prepare them for their role')  needed some means of measuring. Carla confirmed that SUSU can measure how many people have downloaded the opportunity profiles. Sophia agreed to get the numbers from CMT.

The committee noted that the Staff lead would need to be changed on the plans to reflect Carla's role. 

Sophia noted that all Officers would be expected to present their three goals for the year to the next Education Zone Committee. 

On the topic of elections (Goal 1) the committee noted that as this was a major milestone, planning needs to begin for Summer Elections. Carla and Sophia agreed to liaise with Democracy with regards to this.

On the topic of budgets (6.1: 'Application to be made to the Education Enhancement Fund for 2014-2015. At least 70% of allocated budgets to be spent by Academic Presidents and Faculty Officers') Giles explained that he had begun working on the bid, but had heard that the University were unlikely to provide funding. He was therefore going to submit a bid to the Fund in January, and requested that Carla change the date on the plan accordingly. Carla explained that there may be scope for the budget to come from SUSU. However, this would not be decided until at least March.

Sophia outlined the content of the Student Written submission.

Willaim Cable had to leave to attend a lecture (3.45pm).

As the meeting was overruning, Rhys confirmed that he was happy for this to be discussed at the next meeting.

Sophia informed the committee that a meeting with Marketa (the project lead for Evasys) was scheduled in for Friday 17th October and asked officers to attend if they were able.

The committee noted that they had been contacted regarding a lunch on Wednesday 26th November at 1pm to meet with  the Education and Student Experience Manager to discuss what iSolutions should be prioritising to help students.

Sophia advised the committee to confirm by emailing Robert Price (r.l.price@soton.ac.uk). She noted that iSolutions have been proactive in seeking out and acting on students' opinions, and that this would be a useful opportunity. 

Emails - Giles noted that he had heard from several officers that they were not receving some emails from Carla. Carla confirmed that she used the same mailing list each time she sent out an email. Giles suggested that it may be an issue with SUSU's email server. Sophia noted that this needed to be resolved to ensure academic representatives were able to fulfil their role.

Sophia noted that the December meeting will need to be scheduled around Union Council.. Carla confirmed that she would send round a Doodlepoll to confirm the date of the next meeting.