Staff/Student Committee Minutes - Friday 31St March 2017

Staff/Student Committee Minutes - Friday 31st March 2017

Present: Yonatan Shemmer, Rosanna Keefe, Chris Bennett, Dominic Gregory, Anne-Marie Frisby,
Joanne Renshaw [Staff]

Ben Dugher [Chair], Jake Smith, Ruby Bird, Beatriz Perez Garcia, Hannah Ludlam, Temi Ayodeji,[Student]

Apologies: Leah Patel, Samson Oyedoku, Grace Chesney, Aysha Harris, Tymiah Ford, Saixi Liu, Jessica Pearce, David Maclachlan

Issues raised by the student reps:

·  Mappin Building – inconveniently situated and lecture theatres shabby. AMF commented that lecture theatres would only be used in Mappin Building for 1 more year until the refurb was finalised, after that there would be no teaching in that building. Apologies were made for the inconvenience of the teaching etc, but unfortunately there was very little the department could do to improve the situation. 2 hour lectures would be linked for the coming academic session and hopefully lectures will be in the same LT for the full 2 hours.

·  Online submission of work, was it possible to standardise all essay submissions to online only, most tutors preferred to mark hard copies however, this was being reviewed by the department and would be considered at the next departmental meeting.

·  Lack of feedback on Global Justice module & general feedback issues – this module was marked online, YS commented that if the department decided to move to online grading then the standardisation of this may take a little while and may not be attractive to all tutors, but plans will be considered for the future.

·  REL module deadlines more clarity required – All REL deadlines are advertised on the relevant MOLE pages AND in the module outline booklet of which there is one downloadable on every course page. As there are modules that are taught under the REL programme in History and English department, coursework deadlines for these modules will be administered by the relevant department that the module comes under, ie modules beginning HST will be administered by the History dept.

·  Grading and marking procedures – Transparency – see where students sit amongst others. YS commented that standardisation is not a particularly good idea, as some classes are small and average grades would not be a true reflection of the average grades. The marking criteria is clearly detailed in the booklets, including 2nd marking and clarification. YS suggested the students look at this and advise if more detail is required.

·  Second year essays – too many? The faculty is currently looking into the structure of assessments at 2nd year. The department is fighting against this, and would prefer to keep the workload the same but possibly the division different? [past scholars at Oxford claimed 1 essay per week was required]
The departmental meeting earlier this year considered reducing the number of essays, many of the staff objected, essays provide lots of practice pedagogically, there was a mention of possibly introducing shorter essays more frequently, this has yet to be reviewed.
The department also realises that each tutor should make their own decision on written assessments, and some modules already run a non-assessed essay and an assessed one, however the department doesn't agree that all modules should be standardised and writing essays is also good practice for Level 3!!

·  Can personal advisers have office hours – All personal tutors have office hours and will also be happy to make separate appointments if necessary. Temi commented that he thinks Compulsory Meetings should be schedules 1 per month to check progress as per other departments. This will be discussed at the next departmental meeting, however YS commented that students frequently do not turn up for meetings with personal tutors.

·  Module choice options for Religion/Theology students – due to more varied choice the module choice for Philosophy students has been done earlier than usual, as RTB students have less modules to choose from and therefore less chance of not obtaining their first choice modules, their module choice meetings will take place AFTER the Easter break. This will be widely advertised on social media and by email.

·  Access to Philosophy UG online – every student at every UG level now has access to this organisation.

·  Extenuating Circumstances – students asked personal questions when requesting extensions etc, sometimes with DDSS learning plans. AMF replied that some extenuating circumstances that are completed at UHS don’t always get copied to the department and therefore we have to ask for another copy for office purposes. Students who feel that they don't want to discuss their issues, are certainly not made to discuss anything they are uncomfortable with and extensions can be requested by email without even visiting the department. The department is in the process of reviewing some of its' extenuating circumstances information in UG booklets, a draft of this was given to students to take away and review and report back to YS

·  Careers rescources – Ruby commented that Biology timetable careers talks into the level 3 student timetable and invite different visiting speakers. YS commented that we had tried EVERY way possible to encourage students to attend Careers talks, with very little attendance and interest shown by the level 3 students. YS asked for any suggestions to be brought to the next meeting.
This meeting was then brought to a close at 11am

Teaching Committee Meeting – Chair, Yonatan Shemmer
Recommendations from the last meeting for discussion:

·  Re-evaluate the effectiveness of the membership of the Learning & Teaching Committee, agreed that this committee is effective and should continue, more input from student reps required.

·  Seek to create more inclusive environment for RTB students – the department is aware of the RTB students concerns and has endeavoured to try and make the RTB students feel more of a part of the department. YS suggested a focus group to include students from the RTB programme so discuss how better to improve the situation.

·  Recognizing the departments commitment to listening to the Student Voice – the student reps mentioned that there was not much engagement between the students and the reps. They were having to seek out students and encourage them to give feedback/matters to arise for this meeting. Recruitment of Student reps was always a problem, YS suggested that maybe the involvement of PhilSoc would be helpful?

·  Building existing good practice – communication with students. The Reps said that 'lecture shout-outs' were the most effective way to communicate announcements to students. The department will still continue to advertise on social media [facebook/twitter] and by email/MOLE.

·  The latest teaching evaluation scores were shared with the Student reps.

·  UG conference was not well attended. YS to arrange Focus Group to discuss.
Actions:

·  Put periodic review report on Staff/student committee webpages

·  Arrange for suggestion box to be put in departmental reception

·  Focus group on interaction of RTB students

·  Focus group on UG Conference

·  Library – the library have introduced an automated booking system, fully computerised and accessible via their web page/MUSE.
The Diamond Library will be moving to the IC over the Easter holidays, the book pick up and drop off facility will remain.

·  Extenuating Circumstances – YS handed out the draft document changing the wording in the UG booklets and hopefully simplifying the process. The students were asked to review and advise YS of any comments.

·  Online Exams – 3 modules had been chosen to partake in an online exam, the modules affected are PHI227, PHI325 and PHI367. Report will be made at the next meeting of this committee on how the online exams were received.

·  Lecture recording – this will be 'opt-out' from September 2017, the tutor will make the decision on whether he/she wants their lectures recorded.

·  There is a program level teaching review taking place at the moment, establishing what is going on at which level. The teaching committee will report to this meeting once this review is complete.

·  Feedback – this is an ongoing project, the department are discussion lots of difference ways of achieving great feedback, i.e. optional essays, shorter exam questions and non-essays all responses will be discussed at this meeting in the future.

·  Consistency in MOLE – the department is happy that each module has a different style and MOLE pages are standardised as much as possible, but are not all the same. The content is down to the individual tutor.
Meeting closed at 12 noon