Combined Honours Student Staff Committee

Annual report 2009/10

Membership

ChairGrace Cooper

SecretaryAimee Philipson

Student Representatives: Chris Barnes, Golriz Bayat, Ioana Pescaru, Johnathan Wade, Gina Collings, Marie Louise Hvidt, Rachael Pennington, Laura Bell, Stephanie Burgess, Francesca Green

Staff FacilitatorColin Bryson

Meetings

The committee met formally on six occasions; 7/10/09; 2/12/09; 27/1/10; 24/2/21/4/10 and 12/5/10. There were two informal meetings in November and March. In addition there were meetings of Student Forums (to which all CH students were invited) on the single theme issues: In October on ‘degree review and structure’ and in March on ‘assessment feedback’. Both were attended by about 25 students.

Procedures

Newcastle University’s new Student Representation Policy was followed (a year before implementation in the rest of the university). The Chair and Secretary were elected before the end of last academic year by the SSC student members. Therefore the committee has been student led this year and new Constitution adopted. Recruitment of new reps was completed by September 30th – we had the exact number of reps as places –

Next year we resolve to delay this process slightly to ensure as many students apply for these positions as possible in order to ensure a competitive election.
It was resolved to elect 12 representatives next year so that the Chair and Secretary did not have take on this role in addition.
It was resolved that representatives next year – after being elected – would take responsibility for particular subject grouping constituencies.
It was resolved that the chair and Secretary do need to have served as representatives on the CH SSC previously but that could be for any year in the previous three years. They are eligible for re-election.
During the year we amended the SSC to add a standing invitation to the Combined Honours Society so that one of their officers could report on social events and the society executive recent meetings and decisions.

Meetings were made quicker and smoother by the implementation of an ‘action point checklist’ in which the main actions from the last meeting were collated in a table highlighting the action, the person responsible for carrying out the action and a tick box for whether the action had been completed. This meant that we could avoid very long agendas by using the action point checklist to bypass items which didn’t need a full discussion but to which it was important to acknowledge action had been taken for.

All the student reps attended the Union Society’s student rep training sessions and found them useful however there was a feeling that a lot of their advice and tips were not relevant for CH reps as contacting constituents is more difficult. In response to reps’ feelings about the training, the chair, secretary and Colin Bryson met with the Union Society’s Democracy and Representation officer Yoshiko Stokoe to give her some ideas about a possible training session for next year which was specifically for CH reps. She will put this session in place for the reps in 2010/2011.

To become more representative of Combined Honours (CH) students and to feedback more effectively about what the SSC are working on, we endeavoured to enhance the methods of communication between the student representatives (reps) and the students. We placed a suggestion box in the CH common room so that students could put questions and comments to the committee in a very simple way and anonymously if they wanted to.

We also created a set of ‘student’ minutes for each meeting (as well as the formal one) which were simple bullet points of the main issues discussed and the main decisions made at the SSC meeting so that the students weren’t put off reading the formal minutes and still received all the important information. We also had a regular editorial slot in the CH bi-termly newsletter in which we published the actions and tasks being worked on by the SSC.

To make it easier for reps themselves to contact each other, we created a Facebook group which was useful in some ways but only if the reps checked it regularly.

Main substantive issues addressed and good practices adopted

We responded to students call for a more intimate common room and completed the makeover of the CH common room which began last year, by providing a book swap system for the students (and plenty of books!) and by choosing magazines and newspapers to subscribe to. We also oversaw the installation of a television screen, wall art and plants. The common room is well used by the students now at lunchtimes and for working in throughout the day which is a great improvement!
In order to deal with all the ideas we had in the first few meetings, we decided to split ourselves into groups or ‘working parties’ for each project. We organised three working parties; one for the creation of a new third year module, one for the CH awards night and one to help create a resource about personal tutoring. (see below for more details on these projects) We found this was a really effective and efficient way to get things done and to delegate responsibility. It also meant that each rep felt that they had something to work on and they had a responsibility to the students and other reps to complete their part of the project. Each working party was set new deadlines in the SSC meetings and they had to report what had been done since the last SSC meeting.
One working party was set the task of working with Colin Bryson (the DPD) to create a new module for final year students who couldn’t do a dissertation due to their subject choices or the weighting of their subjects. The reps were involved at every stage from the structure of the module, the content of the lectures and seminars and how the module would be assessed and it was great for the reps to really get involved in the educational side of the Union and University. The new module was available for pre-registration in April and ten students have signed up to it. NB. this approach to student partnership and involving students directly in curriculum designed was selected by the NUS as a case study and featured at the National Cross Sector Student Engagement Group to UUK, HEFCE, QAA inter alia as an exemplar.
Another working party worked on the structure and organisation of an awards night to reward CH students who had really achieved a lot this year. The awards were to focus on extracurricular acitivities rather than academic achievements and they had a budget of £300. From the budget they could give monetary prizes, hire a venue, buy food or drink for the night or any other ideas they had. This party was not as successful as a team but elements of it worked with other student reps to create a fantastic night that will hopefully be repeated every year. It was held at Mr Lynch’s bar in Jesmond and there were six prizes, Mentor of the year, Rep of the year, Best role model to other students, Combiner of the year, society member of the year and Best contribution to the degree. Each prize had varying amounts of money awarded with it and a certificate. The team managed to get the venue for free and put on food although overspending their budget!
The final working party was created to help produce a resource for students about the personal tutor scheme at the University. Unfortunately with changes within the tutor system and changes to what exactly we wanted to create, the personal tutor resource proved harder to create than first anticipated. However the working party finally came up with the idea of a flyer with all the important information in a very accessible form. It would highlight all the main points of contact and where you should go depending on what your problem was. Their ideas and designs will be used to create a resource in the next academic year.
One of the biggest issues we have had to deal with this year has been the faculty PVC’s proposals to close down the degree programme and restructure the CH Centre. In response to his proposals, the reps created an open letter to send to him as well as Heads of Schools and the VC, took the issue to Union Council to get their support and backing, contacted all CH students to ask for responses to why CH should be kept open and created a petition which all CH students could sign to support the rejection of the proposals.
The SSC assisted with the analysis and action points arising out of two cohort surveys conducted during the academic year. There was stage1 survey in December and a stage 2 survey in February. These were conducted on-line and achieved excellent response rates of 60%. The results have guided the subsequent agenda of the SSC with the intention of demonstrating responsiveness to student issues and taking decisive actions.
The Chair and Secretary produced a guide for their roles which the Union Society wishes to promote for the rolling out of the new policy.
The Chair and Secretary for 2010-11 have been elected by the SSC. Chair: Angela Lillis; Secretary Marie Louise Hvidt

Overall the reps have really engaged with the new student led SSC and it was great to see people putting themselves forward to be chair and secretary next year which proved how successful this year’s reps and chair and secretary had been at making the process interesting, fun and efficient. The working parties were crucial to the efficacy of the SSC this year as was the action point checklists which made sure meetings were shorter. We also believe that the improved contact we had with students over the whole year meant that more were animated in supporting the SSC in rejecting the PVC’s proposals.

Aimee Philipson

SSC Secretary

Comments by Staff Facilitator

I have been privileged to participate in such an active and excellent SSC this year. This is a wonderful example of student-staff partnership in action and it was a pleasure to work such engaged and competent representatives. They have contributed in very major part to improving the educational and overall student experience in Combined Honours. They have made my role as DPD so much easier and so much more enjoyable. I commend this model to the rest of the University