Minute4s approved on 20 November 2013
Staff Student Consultative Council (SSCC),
School of Psychology and Neuroscience
Wednesday 16 October at 1pm in the Senate Room
Minutes
Present:
Student Reps: Mary Kempnich, School President (SSCC Chair), Yunkai Li (1st yr Arts), Lennart Spindler, (1st yr Science), Charlotte Poynton (2nd yr Arts), Jacqueline Roepers (2nd yr Science), Rebecca Hjemdahl (3rd yr Arts), Renee Horster (3rd yr Joint), Andrew Mezher (3rd yr Neuroscience), Jeremy Hipps (4th yr Arts), Rebecca Madden (4th yr Science), Alison Holiday (4th yr Neuroscience), Katharina Herborn (MSc), Jenny Daggett (PhD), Rónán Kearney (Psychsoc president).Staff: Peter Foldiak (Exams Officer), Paul Gardner (2nd Yr Course Controller), Mike Oram, Eric Bowman, Dhanraj Vishwanath, Cat Hobaiter, Thomas Otto
Keith Sillar (Head of School as from 1 Nov 2013), Paula Miles (1st Yr Course Controller), Catharine Cross, Akira O’Connor, David Hunter, Ines Jentzsch, Julie Harris, Juan Gomez (Director of Teaching), Veronica Anderson, Colin Bovaird (Librarian).
Mary opened the meeting at 13.10
Appologies: Jamie Ainge, Barbara Dritschel, Gillian Brown, Ailie Corbett (3rd yr Science), Jane Boyd (evening degree), Shannon Morton (4th yr Joint)
1. Introduction round. Mary requested that everyone introduced themselves with their position
2. Minutes of the last Meeting held on Wednesday 27 February 2013 were approved.
3. E-prime/Mat Lab courses
Paul Gardner has proposed an E-Prime course, ideally before students enter their final year so that they can use it for their 4th year project. Akira O’Connor commented he had considered incorporating an element of programming into the 2nd year Methodology course but that this proved to be impossible given the lack of time resources available to do this as well as teaching statistics and SPSS. Mike Oram highlighted that teaching of E-Prime cannot replace teaching of material like SPSS, and an additional optional course involves logistic problems with respect to available computer classrooms.
Action: Paul Gardner to discuss further with rep the possibility of providing a drop-in session for interested students. Note: the first E-prime course is set for Friday 1 November, with one to follow next semester.
4. Academic achievement on webpages
Other universities are listing their staff’s previous universities on the university webpage. This is beneficial for students wishing to attend the same universities or pursue a career there. Mary Kempnich asked if this is something our department would consider doing. No one was opposed to the idea.
Action: Akira O’Connor to contact Jacqueline MacPherson, Director of ICT within the School.
5. 1st year
The 1st years are happy, especially with Juan’s lectures. Some issues arise around the microphones, in that some students sitting at the back of the lecture theatre sometimes cannot hear clearly all the lecture due to malfunction or insufficient volume of the microphone.
Action point: Paula Miles to look at the sound system in Purdie Lecture Theatre A, and Class Rep to contact IT services.
6. 2nd year: tutorial essay guidance
The 2nd years are happy, and give good feedback about Jamie’s module. They enjoyed the brain anatomy class and would like more similar classes.
There have been some complaints about one aspect of the organisation of their tutorials, where some tutors do not arrange for a room booking and instead hold the tutorials in their office. Some students have been sitting on the floor. Students think that the essay instructions are too vague, and would like more structured guidelines in advance.
Juan Gomez replied that the document “how to write an essay” is available to students as part of the Second Year Tutorial Handbook, which all students are asked to read carefully before the tutorials, and this should be discussed and commented on in the first tutorial meeting. According to Paul Gardner, an explicit instruction to discuss this document in the first tutorial is not included in the tutorial structure sent out to the tutors. Paul will include this instruction in future editions of the handbook, although it was suggested that the first tutorial should be used as a way to introduce the essay for the first assignment.
Action: Paul Gardner: the first tutorial should concern the content of the handbook, as a way of making sure that students read and understand “how to write an essay”. He will also contact tutors to remind them of the need to ensure sufficient space is available for the comfortable running of the tutorial.
7. MSc
The students are happy.
8. PhD
Some students have concerns about how Uniprint works and how they are supposed to get their supervisor to put money on their tab. Mike Oram explained that students should contact their supervisor directly to request printer credit. Supervisors will then email IT Service Desk to request that the agreed amount is added. This process only takes a few minutes once a Supervisor has sent the email.
9a. 3rd year: BPS recognition for Joint Degrees
There is some confusion amongst Joint students concerning BPS recognition, especially for joint management/psychology degrees. The course catalogue currently states that you cannot do this with BPS recognition, and at least one student chose not to because of this. Nevertheless, it may be possible in some cases by taking an extra 10 credit module and students should discuss this with their Adviser of Studies. Juan Gomez replied that the Catalogue can not advertise this Degree as conferring BPS recognition because gaining this in this case requires doing more than the 240 credits stipulated by the University and as such BPS recognition can only be obtained under exceptional circumstances. Additionally, Mike Oram noted that all management/psychology students who had been to see their advisor were doing a BPS recognised degree, highlighting the importance of students seeing their advisors of studies.
Renee also brought forward that there seems to be confusion amongst the advisers due to the wide variety of different combination and what works and does not work. Mike seems to know a lot, and it is suggested that he become the main person that the joint honour students could consult. Mike replied that there are some difficulties tied into this, the main one being that if he were in charge of them all, nobody would know what to advise on when he leaves the department sometimes in the far future. As it operates now, they come to see Mike if in doubt, and he is acting as a director of advising.
Action: Mike Oram to revisit the wording in the catalogue issue concerning the Joint Degree and BPS recognition, and send out information specific to cases requiring more than 240 credits to the other advisers.
9b. 3rd year: Clinical Psychology
The students have brought forward that clinical psychology is an important issue, and are concerned that there seem to be few members of staff with this background, as they would like research opportunities and supervisors from the field. The clinical modules are often lectured by someone with a different background, unlike other disciplines where the lecturers are experts in the field they are lecturing in. In addition to having a member of staff with clinical background to contact, it would also be useful for psychology students to visit a psychiatric hospital, like the medics are doing.
Juan Gomez replied that, in their last accreditation review, BPS thought that the department already included enough abnormal psychology, and recommended to increase the coverage of individual differences in typical populations (which was done). 4th year have well taught clinical modules. Ronan Kearney the PsySoc Rep added that such opportunities to visit a psychiatric hospital are already available. The majority of the other class reps did not know this; hence this information needs to be made more available to all students.
Action: Ronan Kearney will email the information to Mary Kempnich, which will in turn distribute it to all the students.
10a. 4th year: feedback (presentations)
4th year is heavily presentation oriented, and the students wish to get feedback on their presentations. Jeremy expressed the wish for all lecturers to have their own discussion points to expand on presentations. The majority of lecturers already do so.
Juan asked if this request concerned the content of the presentation or the presentation skills. It was clarified that it is in relation to presentation skills where the students would like to receive more explicit feedback. This could be done in private by email, where the students are invited to come and further discuss the feedback.
Mary Kempnich commented that according to the National Student Survey, St. Andrews students feel that their confidence in their communication skills when leaving university are not as strong as they want them to be.
Action: Juan Gomez will message those teaching in 3rd and 4th year about feedback on context, presentation skills and discussion skills.
Jeremy commented that last year, in a couple of instances, feedback on CA essays was given after feedback deadline, in one occasion with the lecturer not giving advance notice of the delay. Juan replied that lecturers should not be scared to take the extra time to ensure consistent quality of feedback, but indeed they should ensure advance notice is given if exceeding the deadline. The reps said that in the majority of modules feedback had been prompt, and the cases mentioned were exceptions.
10b Familiarity with one’s slides
Some lecturers sometimes may use another person’s slides to lecture from, without knowing in advance what would be on the slides. This happened 3 times last year for the 3rd years at the time, in lectures that were arranged in advance. It is understandable if this happens in unplanned cases. Students wish that lectures use their own slides, or at least know the content of the other person’s slides. However, reps agreed that the majority of lecturers use their own slides and know them in advance, and that this complaint referred to the previous year and to a particular case that had already been discussed and addressed during the previous year.
Action: Jeremy discuss this further with Gomez in private
11 Any Other Business
Neuroscience students are happy, and Alison Holiday expressed her and her fellow students’ appreciation of the new lab C28. Rebecca Madden commented that some neuroscience students are doing only psychology modules, while some are doing a combination with neuroscience modules. Keith Sillar replied that it should be clear in course catalogue what you can and cannot do.
The students liked Ines Jentzsch’s and Paula Miles’ lectures.
One student needed to be nominated to go to the school council. Mary Kempnich expressed a wish to go, as she had been told by the Director of Representation that the School President should do it and she is happy to do so. It was decided that Mary would go.
Action: Mary Kempnich will attend the school council
The next Meeting will be held on Wednesday 20 November at 13.05.
Meeting closed at 14.00