1st Student Parliament

11th May 2018 – EBS 1.1

Attendees

OFFICERS
Name / Role
Zoe Garshong / President and Chair
Tancrede Chartier / VP Services & Comms / Pres. elect
Edmund Walker / VP Education / VP Ed. elect
Sam Miles / VP Activities
Vimbai Mufunde / BAME officer
Ellie Grace / Disabilities officer
Louisa Futcher / Disabilities officer elect
Liam Gilbert / PG officer
Patrick Davey / Mature students’ officer
Joshua Pike / Union Chair elect
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES
Name / Role
Abdulfettah Al-Badar / Essex Blades
Ain Amalin Mahadi / V Team
Alex Kemp / Rebel
Anis Rezaei / Women
Antonia Hyacinth / BAME
Becky Owen / Mature
Callum Marshall / Retail
Eleanor Goldberg / Commuting students
Eva Kalb / Rebel
Garv Sethi / ISA
Jess Fure / Lead Course Reps
Laura Robinson / Societies Guild
Maria Dede / Lead Course Reps
Mark Kiley / Rebel
Marvin Cudjoe / Individual
Matthew Dillon / Essex Blades
Matthew McIntee / Individual
Neely Sumaria-Shah / Individual
Nupoor Singh / ISA
Raymond Gbore / Individual
Rebecca Asadu / BAME
Rebecca Caffery / Women
Sam Lodge / Individual
Shayan Duberry / Individual
Stella Matsouka / vTeam
Tazi Amey / Societies Guild
Trisha Sarkar / ISA
Zaid Khagal / Venues

STAFF MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE

Steve Haugh / Director of Marketing and Strategy
Chrissie Lewis / Engagement Manager
Keith Rowland / Deputy Director of Engagement and Development
Neil Bamber / Educational Experience Coordinator
Sadie Lake / Project Assistant
Michelle Harris / Shaping Tools Manager

Meeting Minutes

WelcomeSU President, Zoe Garshong

  • Why create a Student Parliament?
  • Bring power back to the students in deciding what gets done and what is prioritised
  • Past methods have ended up cancelling each other out or making it impossible for Sabbs to do their jobs properly (mandating student voice)
  • What is the goal of Student Parliament?
  • Representatives will be able to reach out to wider communities and get feedback, creating a domino effect and thus hopefully reaching all 15,000 students

How the Student Parliament WorksSU President, Zoe Garshong

  • Aim to meet twice a term
  • Create and discuss a year plan
  • Reach out to communities and come back with action plans
  • As Parliament we’re responsible for the success of the plan
  • If one person fails, everyone fails
  • The officers will deliver a majority of the work
  • Parliament will be supported by the officers, but the officers will also be supported by Parliament
  • It is the responsibility of the Student Parliament to hold officers to account and make sure that there is responsibility and ownership
  • Bring questions to officers and feed the answers back to wider communities
  • Expectations of Parliament members:
  • Focus on solutions, not merely complaints
  • Respect others’ opinions – everyone thinks differently and it is the role of Parliament to ensure that everyone is respected and disciplined as necessary
  • Speak up, ask questions, and voice your community’s opinions – you are here to represent them
  • Discrimination-free zone (no tolerance policy)
  • Structure of Parliament:
  • 3 representatives from the student communities
  • Democratically elected
  • Always think “what does my community think about this?”
  • Breakdown of numbers
  • Societies representing 3200 students
  • Sports representing 4200 students
  • VTeam representing 1100 students
  • Course reps representing 600 students
  • BAME representing 5000 students
  • ISA representing 5000students
  • Individuals represent everyone who doesn’t identify with those groups
  • Sabbs are not allowed to vote in Parliament
  • As Trustees there are possible conflicts and they will be held accountable, present what they have been doing, and answer any questions.
  • Part Time Officers(PTO)may vote

Year Plan DiscussionPresident Elect, Tancrede Chartier

  • Phase 1: Understanding student priorities
  • What are the three most important issues for students in the year ahead?
  • All student email, social media, face to face, SU website
  • 1050 individual responses
  • Context and possible solutions also captured
  • Phase 2: Shortlisting the priorities
  • Survey answers grouped into 12 most common themes
  • Students asked to vote on their top 4 priorities
  • Voting took place on square 3, face to face around campus and online
  • More than 1300 students took part over three days
  • 5 ideas students chose:
  • Cost of living 814 votes
  • My course 667 votes
  • Accommodation 555 votes
  • Study space 530 votes
  • Mental health 497 votes
  • Questions and concerns regarding postgraduates:
  • My course has nothing to do with postgraduates
  • Confused about level of representation (what if you are representing more than one group of students)
  • 86% undergrad and 14% postgraduates –PG students are always an afterthought and don’t feel that they are part of the SU
  • Little to no representation - perhaps due to the fact that they are not here for very long, and for reasons above
  • Focus is on undergraduate and not postgraduate courses in terms of finding solutions
  • Graduate Teaching Assistants are a student group who should be represented in parliament
  • How can postgraduates hold Sabbs to account if they’re only here for a year?

VotePresident Elect, Tancrede Chartier

  • Do you agree that the process is sound for this year?

Vote count: Yes 32 |No 2 |Abstain 2

  • Reason for No: majority of the process seems fine, but less than 10% of students are engaging – a problem with underrepresentation
  • Suggested:Mandatory surveys in classes
  • Reason for No: representation is not across the board, would like to see a breakdown before agreeing that the process is sound
  • Info: Southend & Loughton will be having their own Parliament systems forming so that their voices are heard in reference to their own campuses
  • Do you agree that the top 5 issues should form the basis for the SU plan for 2018-19?

Vote Count :Yes 17 | No 8 | Abstain 9

  • Comments:
  • Continuation of postgrad issues from before, inclusivity needs to be a top priority
  • All are important for next year apart from the strikes
  • How are the rest of the issues going to be approached that have not been prioritised?
  • Is there a review mechanism in place in order to ensure that everything is working as it should and that the issues chosen are still most important?
  • Review as a Union for the entire year whether things are working
  • Every PTO next year will have the same process with their community as what exists in Parliament
  • Parliament has the opportunity to raise agenda items and potential votes to the Union Chair before each meeting
  • Some issues are not within SU power to change, such as prices of accommodation in town, etc.
  • Parliament should focus more on what the SU has power to change
  • Comments:
  • If we have voted that the process is sound, why are we then voting if we should change it?
  • Why don’t we encompass several things (cost of living, accommodation, University fees) within one larger header such as ‘University Lifestyle’?
  • A complex system – rather than picking a top 5, shouldn’t we spend a session of Parliament having everything form a part of the plan so that everyone’s voice is heard?
  • ‘Quality of teaching’ needs to be rephrased – this would solve issues of GTA contention and take away a certain amount of qualifying information as not all are on a taught course ( though this was a statement from a student)
  • Should ‘academic stress’ be joined with ‘mental health’ as a larger, more all-encompassing category?

Vote Count :Yes 33 | No 0 | Abstain 1

Group Discussion

  • Aim: To ensure that officers have a solid plan with which to tackle these issues during summer

Cost of Living:

  • Issue: Prices aren’t always equal across shops on campus
  • Solution: At least within SU shops, if the issue is raised, it can be sorted right away. Unsure about University-owned shops.
  • Suggestion: Get more information on what is actually doable and spread information to students
  • Question: How much can SU shops be subsidised? Are they at all?
  • Suggestion: Upscale the SU Store and make it a bit bigger to help increase stock and manage queues
  • Issue: A lot of people are not happy with SPAR being the provider of The Store
  • Suggestion: ‘Cost of printing’, ‘cost of washing/laundrette’, and ‘book fees’ are all something that could be under the ‘cost of living’ category
  • Issue: Cost of transportation
  • Solution proposed: Safety bus should be running further and more often
  • Issue: Study spaces
  • Solutions proposed:
  • Library needs to be open for longer hours over the summer, lots of PG students need access
  • Having classrooms open over summer would be good for study spaces as well
  • More spaces need to be created or open for presentation work – a lot of students sit at available booths on their laptops, thus making it unavailable for others
  • 24 hour library year round
  • Revoke library rule about kids – student parents can’t even bring their child to simply return a book and it’s very difficult to find study spaces
  • Must be more awareness regarding people saving spaces in library and leaving their things behind for hours at a time
  • More awareness of seminar rooms usage – no knowledge of how to find free rooms
  • Electronic board of where seats are available on each floor of the library / how many (like what’s available for the labs)
  • More chairs – people often take them for group projects at the pods, meaning that computers are chairless and thus unusable
  • Ventilation to the PG room in the library – very low quality

Accommodation:

  • Suggestion: Focus working on SU Homes – more logical approach on working with accommodation in terms of prices
  • Suggestion: University accommodation to start incorporating shared rooms at lower prices (like what is seen in the US and Canada)
  • Issue: Social aspect is lacking as there are no common rooms in University accommodation blocks– should be a thing going forward
  • Suggestion: Incorporation of quiet flats, alcohol free floors or townhouses, and gender specific flats to university accommodation
  • Issue: Though there is an advice outlet on campus it’s not publicised well and it’s very difficult to get appointments
  • Issue: After finding a house, SU Homes can’t do a lot about private landlords – particularly communication streams , this aspect of the service needs improvement
  • Issue: Quality of RAs varies quite a bit, and can make an enormous impact on student life
  • Solution: More training and supervision on RAs as well as budget transparency (some seem to have more money than others)
  • Issue: Communication chain with SU Homes is problematic – simple issues take a long time to resolve because of email chains

Mental health:

  • Issue: Unavailability in Student Support – Sometimes tomorrow is too late with mental health issues, but students are often turned away and told to come back
  • Proposed solution: More professional training is needed in how to deal with students with mental health issues
  • Proposed solution: There must be a way of implying that you need an immediate appointment without having to go into detail with receptionists
  • Suggestion: More awareness and prevention to help people help themselves, such as workshops and sessions geared toward everyone, not just those who are currently struggling
  • Suggestion: More promotion of Night Line services and more informal services across the board – there is very little awareness of what is available
  • Issue: Extenuating circumstances – physical disabilities are well recognised but mental health disabilities and disorders are not; a specific diagnosis on the day is not possible or realistic
  • Issue: Summer term is very isolating as campus shuts down after undergrads leave

My course:

  • Issue: Timetable clashes – Enrol is open in May but timetables are not released until September, and as a result all clashes need sorting immediately and it’s a very stressful process
  • Proposed solution: Should be able to build your own timetable like in the US and Canada – pick courses based on when they are held so that clashes can be avoided from the start
  • Issue: Seminars were removed this year and replaced with longer lectures, which made it difficult to ask questions and get extra help from GTAs
  • Issue: For mature students with caring or working responsibilities, timetabling must be precise and so must material distribution
  • Proposed solution: All information must be provided weeks in advance so that students can properly plan their time
  • Issue: Essay questions are set on topics that haven’t been taught yet or are taught the week of the due date
  • Proposed solution: Make sure that all choices in topics are adequately covered in advance
  • Suggestion: Implementation of an electronic chat feature during lecture with anonymous questions that the lecturer can answer at the end of their lecture (minimises disruption and is helpful to those who don’t like to speak up in front of others)
  • Suggestion: Lecturers should have a wider variety of office hours in case students are not able to come in during certain times
  • Issue: Inconsistencies in marking schemes

SU Ideas

This section of the agenda was not addressed due to lack of time. Students were advised to check the website for details if interested.

Next Steps & Action PointsShaping Tools Manager, Michelle Harris

  • Ideally, training should happen before the beginning of the Autumn term so that there are no clashes or difficulties.
  • MH to coordinate potential training dates
  • Dates of next meeting: 25th October, 22nd November
  • MH to confirm times and rooms (most likely 6pm)
  • All involved parties wish to be regularly updated on progress
  • ZG and Sabbs to orchestrate a vote on best method of communication