Union officers and staff, as well as student reps, attend lots of University meetings where we raise issues on your behalf. We thought it would be useful to tell you the main issues that relate to students. We can only raise the issues that you tell us about, so if we have missed anything that really matters to you, let us know – talk to your student rep, grab one of the sabbs in the bar, or call in to the office.

 

Sabbatical officers: President and Academic Affairs Officer

 

Senate is the meeting that makes decisions affecting everthing that happens in the University. Most things that Senate discuss have already been discussed at lower level meetings.

 

Sabbatical officers: Academic Affairs Officer

 

This is the committee that has overall responsibility for learning & teaching across the University. This meeting looked at the Learning, Teaching & Assessment strategies for the various Faculties and noted that the University is looking at e-learning across all subjects.

 

Sabbatical Officers: Student Experience Officer

Student reps: Liz Cracknell, Stephanie Crass, Ineta Galdikaite, Lukas Mlodyskewski, Carrie Potter, Jenny Shepherd

Results: dates when results are likely to be available will be put on E vision. They will vary from Faculty to Faculty, depending on the dates of awards boards.

Email: Some students are having difficulty in accessing old emails (i.e. those using the old style email address) –instructions will be put on E-vision.

Survey results: the University surveys its students each year and acts on the results. It will be no surprise to know that the main areas where students are critical are organisation and management.

These are the committees that run your faculty – they are attended by a sabbatical officer and two student reps.

Sabbatical officer: Student Experience Officer

Latest Meeting:

Exhibitions: students who wish to exhibit their work in Cambridge can do this at no cost, but will have to pay for exhibiting their work in London

Timetabling: Frankie raised the problems of cancelled lectures (no lecturer) and overcrowded rooms. The Board is talking to Registry – who run timetabling – to try and sort this out.

Summer Availability of staff:  members of the Board are concerned that there are not enough staff available over the summer break to support students who need to resubmit. The Faculty will be thinking about ways to address this before next summer.

 

Sabbatical officer: Communications Officer

 

Latest Meeting:

Communication with academic staff: The Faculty suggest that students should contact staff via the WebCT bulletin boards in the first instance, and then use email if there is no response. If staff do not respond to email then it is likely they are out of the office, so students should contact their course administrator for a steer to an appropriate academic. Students should not post personal/sensitive issues on WebCT, just those issues where there is likely to be relevance to the cohort. It was pointed out that it would be necessary to remind all staff to check the bulletin boards daily.

Hand in dates: Students had asked for hand in dates to be included in module guides, because they were being issued very late.  The Faculty investigated whether this is possible, but actual hand in dates are not set by the faculty, but by the Student Information Centre and the SIC does not issue them until after the module guides are printed.

Personal tutors: the Faculty’s new Learning Teaching & Assessment Strategy says that students will have personal tutors.

 

Sabbatical officer: Academic Affairs Officer

 

Latest Meeting:

Reps: Liz Cracknell, Darren Hughes, Carrie Potter

Feedback: With the expansion into Cambridgeshire, it is likely that students may have their work marked by lectures who are geographically distant from them. The Dean is emphatic that students are entitled to good quality feedback, but also says that students must be proactive in contacting staff to request personal feedback, whether by telephone or email.

Cost of printing module guides: students are expected to print out module guides and other associated paperwork and it is very costly. The Board said students are not expected to print out at their own expense, documents that are for completion as part of their coursework/portfolio: members of the Board were under impression that these were being provided to students.

E vision access at Fulbourn & Peterborough: the Faculty are working to ensure this is available.

 

 

Sabbatical officer: Student Experience Officer