School of Philosophy and Art History

UNDERGRADUATE STAFF/STUDENT LIAISON COMMITTEE MEETING

16 November 2016
13.00-14.00 in 3.108

Minutes

Present: Dr Fiona Hughes (Chair – UG Director, Philosophy), Dr Diana Presciutti (UG Director, Art History), Sarah Mumford (Deputy School Administrator), Marie Gribbin (UG Administrator), Laura Wright (Student Engagement Intern), Patrick Yates (2nd Year Philosophy),UgnėRevinskaitė (1st Year Philosophy and Politics), IulianaSambotin (2nd Year Philosophy and Politics), HenrikkeTeian (2nd Year Philosophy (IYA), JoshuaMitchell (1st Year Art History), Stif Lazarov (1st Year Art History)

Apologies: Fred Lenox-Conyngham (1st Year Philosophy (IYA).

No. / Minute / Action
Introduction of Committee Members
The members of staff and the Course Reps introduced themselves.
Minutes of the meeting held on 24 February 2016
The minutes were accepted by the meeting.
Matters arising from the Minutes
There were no matters arising from the minutes.
Nomination of Course Rep to attend School Meetings and School Education Committees:
a)School Meeting
It was agreed that Joshua Mitchell and Patrick Yates will attend our School Meetings, set for the following dates from 2pm: 14 December, 8 February, 3 May & 28 June.If neither are available to attendother reps may be required to be there.
b)School Education Committee
It was agreed that Henrikke Teian and Iuliana Sambotin will attend School Education Committees. Future dates are set for weeks 17 & 35 (exact dates TBC). It was also agreed that if neither student was available for these dates, reps may be required to attend instead
a)Issues raised by Course Reps, including comments posted in the School’s Comment Boxes
b)
a)There was a reminder that there had been no update on the request for more power sockets/extension leads in Thomas’ Room. Students would like to charge laptops/mobile phones whilst working in there.
ACTION: This is ongoing. Sarah Mumford is currently liaising with Estatesabout this provision.
b)Module Feedback:
  1. PY400 – the students were very happy with this module – the notes they have been provided with post-lecture were welcomed.
  2. PY430 –there was some concern that students were not given enough preparation time for their weekly reading test especially in the first week of teaching. This was exacerbated (in some cases) by the position of the class and lecture within the students’ timetables. They also said that they found the reading material very heavy and that they were spending more time than the lecturer advised on reading the content. It was advised that the assessments were decided before the timetable was set and that this could be looked at next year.
  3. PY408–students commented that they had weekly reading quizzes also, but these were not started until week 3. They also said that they had multiple choice tests in seminars which they enjoyed
  4. AR115 students reported thatthey enjoyed the weekly reading summaries. The students thought this was an effective way of reinforcing their learning and knowledge and a good motivational tool and would like this method used in other modules. DPB reported that these are also used in AR119 which are helpful in preparation for essay writing, but only if they can be marked and turned around within the week and this would therefore not translate to modules that had a large number of students.
  5. PY429–there was some concerns about the availability (from the library)of the correct volume of a book needed for the module. It was made clear that particular versions of texts were recommended to students to make sure that bad translations were not used.
  6. PY111– students were concerned about a suggestion that the essay outline assessment would be zero weighted instead of being 10% as originally advised. This has been resolved.
c)Students asked about the provision of Sample essaysand whether sample essays would be made available to them. The essays would be of an exemplary standard and will have been written by previous students. The hope is that these would serve as examples of best practice to future students. Students responded to say that access to model essays was already available for some modules, including the University skills module, and it was felt that it was not necessary to supplement this with further examples.
Although the practice could be seen as beneficial to new and current students there are concerns that these could be to prescriptive and would lead the student to focus too heavily on the marks of the essay and not the creative way of answering the assessment question. AR113 will have a writing workshop which will use samples that are not Art History examples and so would allow the students to focus on the structure etc and not the content. Other ideas would be to address the best practice of essay writing in classroom discussions along with the marking criteria. (Students were reminded that the marking criteria was on Moodle pages and within the Undergraduate Handbook and that they had all been emailed with a document to guide them on how to write Philosophical Essays.)
ACTION: Students would like this emailed to them earlier in the Academicyear. / SM
SM/MG
2015/16 Feedback on SAMT (Student Assessment of Modules and Teaching),
Students were asked to provide feedback on the papers that was provided in the meeting and as the meeting ran out of time, they were asked to send any comments to the Chair.
2015/16 NSS/SSS results and the draft Annual Review of Courses.
Students were asked to provide feedback on the paper that was provided in the meeting and as the meeting ran out of time, they were asked to send any comments to the Chair. In particular, they were asked to provide any ideas on how things could be improved namely, the enthusiasm of the tutors and the explanations provided by the tutors which had both achieved a lower score than previous years.
2015/16 ARC Report
Students were asked to provide feedback on the paper that was provided in the meeting and as the meeting ran out of time, they were asked to send any comments to the Chair.
2015/16 External Examiners’ reports
Students were asked to provide feedback on the paper that was provided in the meeting and as the meeting ran out of time, they were asked to send any comments to the Chair.
News and Revised Programme/Curriculum Developments
Students were asked to provide feedback on the paper that was provided in the meeting and as the meeting ran out of time, they were asked to send any comments to the Chair.
SPAH common rooms
Students were asked to email Sarah Mumford with ideas of how best to use the common rooms.
Discussion about UG Handbook
Students were asked to email Sarah Mumford with comments about the UG Handbook.
Any other Business
There was no other business.
Date of future Meetings
Week 22 – w/c 27 February 2017 date TBC
Week 31 – w/c 1May 2017 date TBC