Biological, Biomedical and Analytical Sciences- Frenchay
SU Forum Unconfirmed Minutes
Minutes of the meeting held on: Friday 6th February at 1:00pm in 4B021
Present:Jessica Trigg (FS, 2nd), Kerryann Page (FS, 2nd), Alex Vernon (BmS), Alexia Balatsoukas (IWC, 3rd), Francesca Lockie (BS), Sophie Evans (BS, 3rd), Megan Kenny (FS, 3rd), Corsiande Evans (FS, 3rd), Steph Riddell (FS, 3rd).
In Attendance:Sarah Hickie (Secretary)
Apologies: Paul Anstey, Jack Davis, Michael Ryan, Jessica Tegg,
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022/1415Welcome and introductions
022.01As the usual Chair Megan Kenny was running late Sophie Evans, Deputy Chair stepped in to Chair the meeting. She welcomed Reps to the final SU Forum of the Academic Year.
023/1415Minutes of the previous meeting
023.01These were agreed.
024/1415Matters arising from the previous meeting
024.01Chair explained that VP Education had compiled all the student feedback gathered from across SU Forums and taken this to Deputy Vice
Chancellor Jane Harrington and the Pro Vice-Chancellor Jo
Midgley.They were grateful for the feedback and it was decided that VP Education would author a discussion paper. This work is ongoing.
024.02In relation to 014.01 Chair was not present during matters arising to confirm if anyone had emailed her further feedback on this matter. However Reps present provided some comment. Rep from Integrated Wildlife Conservation 3rdyr commented that they have fairly limited module choice anyway.
024.03In relation to 014.02 again Chair was not present during matters arising to confirm if anyone had emailed her further feedback on this matter.
024.04There weren’t any Reps present able to comment on 17.04.
024.05In relation to 020.01 Secretary confirmed this feedback had been raised by VP Education at the Study Spaces Working Group.
024.06In relation to 020.02 Secretary provided the link the in action chart sent out after the last meeting, but the link is
025/1415Report from Departmental Committee
026/1415Report from SRC and ASQC
026.01Deputy Student Chair of Department gave a brief report on SRC which she attended.
025.02In relation to SRC she explained that Derek Norris (Deputy Director - Strategic Business Engagement, ITS) had attended to give an update to students on developments to UWE IT in response to student feedback. These included reducing planned maintenance weekends from two a year to four and making these outside of main term time, rolling out Wi-Fi to all rooms on all campuses and the move away from thin client PCs through replacing all to thick clients. He agreed more and more timely promotion of free Microsoft 365 download was needed. She explained a need for staff to be well trained in IT in order to make good use of blackboard, lecture capture etc.
She also explained that reading student dissertations was discussed in light of the fact better comms around the fact students could read these and a clear way to access them was needed.
025.03Deputy Chair explained she had made a summary of the SRC in the form of a picture of post it notes and this had been shared on both the Department of Applied Sciences Feedback Page and Student Reps Page on Facebook. She asked those present if they were in the group and had seen this. Some had not heard not the Facebook group so she explained the function of it and offered to give them the link to it at the end of the meeting.
Action:Deputy Chair to email this link to all Student Reps in BBAS.
027/1415Student Communications and Information Provision
027.01Masters Biomedical Science international students are going to Reps as they face a language barrier when it comes to communications about support services sent by the University. Deputy Chair explained the role of Global PAL within the University and suggested that this might be a good support system for these students. The Rep went on to say that the international students are facing particular issues with finance. Secretary explained the role of UWE Financial Advisors and offered to send the link to the Rep so that he could share with students with concerns.
Action:Rep to raise Global PAL to programme staff.
Action:Secretary to email Rep link to UWE Financial Advisors.
027.023rdyr of Integrated Wildlife Conservation students had problems with infopoint staff not knowing where to signpost them to about issues specific to the nature of their course and the fact they do the first 2 years of their BSC at Bristol Zoo. They were sending students to incorrect places and to different places.
Action:Secretary to email Rep to gather more detail on this.
Action:Secretary to then email Information Point Team Manager.
027.03Rep from Biomedical Science Masters felt that key information for support services should be included on the back of students main UWE ID card. This was because students carry this daily and will not loose or bin it, whereas a paper card is often lost or binned even if wallet sized.
Action:VP Community and Welfare to consider.
Action:Secretary to pass feedback to Communications Officer.
027.04Reps were all in agreement that a good idea would be for Academic Staff to email out a key list of support services, brief info about them and webpages/contact details to their cohorts at the start of each semester. They felt that students read emails from their lecturing staff/programme managers but do not necessarily read emails from other UWE teams. Deputy Chair also felt this list should be included in programme handbooks. Deputy Chair asked if students had read yourUWE student newsletter (sent via email) but no one present really had. She explained some info about support services had been included in this recently but Reps present generally felt that info was hard to find within a newsletter that is very general, and they don’t necessarily take time to read it.
Action:Secretary to pass feedback to Communications Officer.
028/1415Reflecting on the Student Rep role
028.01Reps present from Forensic Science said they felt they were lucky as had been really supported in their role by Academic staff. Staff had introduce them to the cohort and explained their role. T
028.02They felt the main barrier they faced in the Rep role was getting fellow students to engage with them and the process of giving feedback. All other Reps echoed this, with one saying a particular challenge was getting positive feedback. One Rep commented often feedback is raised but students don’t provide suggested solutions to their problem or what they want the university or staff to do differently.
028.03Rep from Integrated Wildlife Conservation commented that her biggest success was helping to get students additional time for a particularly challenging assignment with a long word count that students had to balance alongside their dissertation and other assignments. She did this by raising feedback at SRSF.
Action:VP Education and Student Reps team to consider all feedback on the role and recommendations made at SU Forum.
029/1415Student Rep Awards & Student Led Teaching Awards
029.01The secretary informed Reps present of the forthcoming Student Rep Conference. All Reps are invited to this year’s Conference, which will be held on Friday 27th February in the ECC on Frenchay Campus. The day will last from 11:00 - 16:00 (although Reps can just attend the morning or the afternoon) and a free buffet lunch will be provided! There is a choice of 3 workshops to attend. This day provides a wonderful opportunity to enhance Reps skills and share their experiences of the year so far. Reps can find more information Secretary briefly explained these workshops.
030/1415Student Rep Notices
The Secretary ran through the rest of the Student Rep Notices…
030.01Nominations for the Student Rep and Student Led Teaching awards are still open. Nominations can be made on the Student Rep webpage, along with full details of criteria for each category.
030.02 The National Student Survey (NSS, for final year undergraduates) and Student Experience Survey (SES, for all other years) are now open. All students are encouraged to fill in their survey and have their voice heard. In addition to this, there are prize draws for iPad Minis for those who complete their relevant survey plus the Students’ Union will receive £1 per completed survey for your new SU building.
030.03Secretary explained that myUWE announcement training had been offered and drop in type sessions run across campuses with mixed success and attendance. She explained that for next year the team hoped to launch this training sooner or incorporate within fundamental Rep training. She asked if this was something Reps would still be interested in and if there was a need for further sessions. There was limited interest due to the timing of the year.
030.04 UWESU Elections are now open! Any student can run for one of the full time sabbatical positions or one of the part time office positions in the forthcoming UWESU Elections. Full details about each role and the nomination process are on Nominations opened on 3rd February and close 26th February.
031/1415Student Matters
031.01Students on Integrated Wildlife Conservation have had problems with council tax. Although they were on an FSDC their intention was always for this to become a BSC through doing their third year with the University. However, despite no gap in their studies students are being charged council tax for their whole house for the summer period.
Action:Secretary to raise with SU President.
Action: SU President to raise with local councils in Bristol.
031.01Students on Biomedical Science Masters are submitting work to staff that are created and saved on recent versions of Microsoft word. When staff are going to open these they are opening them on older university versions of Microsoft word that haven’t been updated to the latest version. This is causing some students files to appear scrambled and badly formatted and these students are losing marks for presentation Deputy Chair pointed out that perhaps students needed to be informed they needed to save in a format suited to all versions of word – ‘universal word’. Reps felt university should also use the most up to date version and not dock marks. Either way communications around this haven’t been clear enough.
Action:Deputy Chair to raise at Departmental Committee.
Action:VP Education to raise with ITS.
031.02Students on Biomedical Science Masters are struggling with assignment deadline bunching, they have twice now had multiple assignments to hand in back to back and these are often significant in word count.
Action:Rep to raise to Programme Manager.
031.03Students on Biomedical Science Masters are struggling to get replies to their emails from academic staff. They notice huge differences between their teaching staff with some emailing back within two days and others taking over a month or not replying at all and needing chasing. Rep has been told that staff are allowed to take up to 4 working days to reply to an email. Rep feels that if delays are happening students need to be informed as to why, as keeping students in the loop if academics are particularly busy is important.
Action: Rep to raise at SRSF.
031.04Students in Biomedical Science Masters have to ring a bell and ask for a temporary access swipe card for the labs they use daily. They feel that they should be able to access these labs through using their usual UWE ID swipe card. They feel that they are not trusted enough to do so, despite having experience of using labs and find waiting for someone to grant them access is sometimes and inconvenience, if there is not someone there when they wish to use it. Rep commented that there is a general feeling on the masters that students experiences aren’t that different to that of the undergraduate students and that they aren’t treated any differently. The course doesn’t always feel like a step up.
Action:Rep to raise at SRSF.
Action:Deputy Chair to raise at Departmental Committee.
031.05Students in Integrated Wildlife Conservation also have problems with assignment bunching. They would ideally like more exams in January and less exams at the end of the academic year. They feel they will face a lot of pressure at the June exam time. Deputy Chair reported concerns had been raised at Departmental Committee about this more generally across the Department. Deputy Chair also signposted Rep to PAL sessions.
Action:Rep to raise at SRSF.
Action:Deputy Chair to raise at Departmental Committee.
Action:As raised in number of Programmes VP Education to consider.
032/1415Time and date of next meeting
032.01Secretary reminded Reps that this was the last meeting of the Academic Year and explained that she will provide follows up to actions and ask for them from Reps via email moving forward. Reps can also email with any feedback and queries –
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Biological, Biomedical and Analytical Sciences - SU Forum Unconfirmed Minutes.