The Student Staff Liaison Committees (SSLC) meeting was a key event of the first week of November 2021. During those meetings, Course Champs presented your feedback which you shared about the 2021/2022 academic year so far.

Here are the general themes that came through:

1. Attendance of some students wasn’t recorded properly at the beginning of this academic year

ARU response: ARU is aware of the attendance issues that students are concerned of and would like to ensure students that no one will be disadvantaged. Attendance bursaries will continue to be paid.

2. Technical issues with delivering lessons via Zoom, including difficulties to maintain equal opportunities for both online and face-to-face students to get feedback for assignment drafts 

ARU response: Lecturers have faced challenges with balancing online and face-to-face teaching – delivering in this manner has been very difficult and attempting to engage in-person and online can be extremely exhausting. Some lecturers have developed successful practices to teach in both environments that will be shared at the staff’s meetings. Meanwhile, ARU stresses that draft feedback can only consist of general verbal feedback and a quick scan of the work – this should be uniform across the board. Lecturers are more than willing to help with questions and worries of students.

3. Positive feedback about being back on campus, amazing and helpful classes, dedicated lecturers

ARU response: Lecturers are trying to teach in a hybrid model as smoothly as possible and keep the delivery of lessons safe and comfortable for everyone’s environment. ARU will continue to undertake each possible step to make students’ experience nothing less than excellent.  

This is what will happen next:

Your reps will get back to you with updates they received at the SSLC. If there is anything else you’d like the University to address or you have general feedback, then please get in touch with your reps in time for the next SSLC meeting, which is planned for February 2022.