Newman Students Union

Student Forum Officer report

Name / Luke Amos
Position / Academic Officer
Student Forum Date / Tuesday 6rd December 2016

Completed Projects

Project Name / Brief Description / Deadline / Progress / Comments
NUS HE Lead & Change 2016 / NUS annual conference for Education SU Officers. / N/A / N/A
HEADstart, HEADspace and HEADsup+ / This surrounded NSU’s and its Officer’s involvement in promoting awareness to the early-starting students about NSU and its services. / Early September 2016 / This was an overall success and an evaluation and improvement paper for further involvement and handover will be produced by July 2017.
Quality Managers and Students' Union Networking / This was a conference in London regarding how Quality Managers and SU's can work effectively together, which is already being fostered well at Newman. / Mid-September 2016 / This has been completed and NSU is consistently working with the Quality Office at Newman to review its processes and ensure that there is effective student voice and input with regards to university democratic processes.
OneCity / This is a Birmingham SU wide initiative for Unions across the city to come together and work on improving the student experience across Birmingham as a whole. / The OneCity intiative is ongoing.
The OneCity Rep Conference will be complete by late-November 2016. / Collaboration with the other Birmingham Unions as part of the organisation for the OneCity Rep Conference has been going well and all developments are on-track. The Rep Conference has now been delivered.

Ongoing Projects

Birmingham Digital Student and Staff Networking / This is a Birmingham-wide universities initiative to analyse how projects can be demonstrated at improving the student experience in the city. / Ongoing / The projects which can be put forward for this project and the conference surrounding this are yet TBC, but will be in later meetings scheduled for late-November and early-2017.
Course Reps / This is the academic representation system at Newman, overseen by NSU Officers for course and curriculum developments. / Ongoing / The system has been re-developed for 2016/17 and has taken off to a good start and is being consistently developed.
TEF, NUS Motion 201 & NSS / Analysing how government and NUS provisions will affect Newman students. / NUS Motion 201 & National Ballot:December 2016
NSS Paper: Early Semester 2 / Work is being carried out surrounding this but paperwork has yet to be begun and written.
Lecture Capture / This is the recording of lectures across campus (specifically the current trial) and how NSU can help to positively promote this campus wide. / Ongoing / This is currently being worked on via Course Reps and in partnership with Academic Practice and Student Services and as part of Disabled Liberation.
Disabled Liberation / This is a group of Student Support staff and NSU Officers who would like to raise awareness about issues facing disabled students. It is intended for this to expand to other students and their identities also. / Ongoing / This has got off to a good start and progress is going well. More meetings for the decisive purpose and aims and events/awareness raising of the group are to be identified in due course.
Student Engagement / This is an idea to work in partnership with the university to develop student engagement with the various student groups across campus. For example,part-time and evening students, etc. and how their academic needs can be better addressed across campus. This also intends to engage them in new activities. / Not yet set / This has yet to be begun and has originated from a student engagement meeting with a partner small and specialised institution, Bishop Grossteste. Such a project will involve cross Officer collaboration, as well as that of the university’s various services and will also link to internal projects within Newman Students’ Union.
Any Other Comments
I have also helped/will be helping the rest of the Executive Committee with:
Completed:
  • Freshers’ Week in September and the period around Freshers’.
  • DAMSA: Disability and Austerity conference at the University of Birmingham.
  • Promoting and supporting various events across campus such as the re-opening and viewing refurbishments of the Chapel and Macmillan Coffee Mornings.
Ongoing:
  • Christmas bar crawl planning.
  • Refreshers’ planning.
  • Events planning.
  • NewSense newspaper articles and planning.
  • Academic Societies – History, Psychotic Therapists, Think Out (Entrepreneurs)
  • Excellence Awards initial planning.