University of Exeter Students’ Guild

Exeter pick up their Academic Representation Award

Exeter pick up their Academic Representation Award


NEW-NUS-Awards-2014-winner

Academic Representation
Exeter Students’ Guild

“This year has been simply the best year of Academic Representation that the University of Exeter Students’ Guild has ever had. It’s been a year of transformation, in which we implemented a completely new democratic election process, set our localised Visions for the Future of Education, and for the first time genuinely supported the development of cultures of partnership in every discipline, on every campus, as our students challenged us on what could be achieved.

Problem Solving
At the start of the year, the Academic Representation system faced a significant issue. As a legacy of a bygone period of financial instability, the democratic processes of representative elections had never been fully centralised or monitored in every discipline. This year we had two fully centralised elections of academic representatives each incorporating over 300 elected positions. We supported our partners at Falmouth and Exeter Union (FXU) with their elections through exactly the same system, to bridge the physical divide between our students, whilst clarifying and celebrating the different student identities on both campuses. Over 75% of these reps were trained this year, in comparison to the 48% trained in 2011/12 and student engagement staff in every college of the University assisted this process.

The reps have gone on to make a staggering number of changes. From anonymous marking in Mining, to extra power points in libraries, a £40000 hidden course cost elimination through printing credit, and International student led group work guidelines in Business, our reps have been incredible. They’ve also been innovative, live tweeting Student-Staff Liaison Committees and developing podcasts for new student module fairs.

Innovation
It’s these student volunteers in every discipline who have led our partnership agenda this year. This delegated empowerment has started to enagage those who have traditionally been unengaged. Their efforts campaigning with chocolates, Facebook and Twitter meant that our 2014 Teaching Awards received 2601 nominations of over 250000 words for teaching and professional staff. This spread of engagement has been linked across the Students’ Guild; with a pilot project linking Academic Societies and reps. This has spurred an explosion of discipline-based volunteering projects, with 14 separate projects beginning this year alone.

Spin off Teaching Awards ceremonies have sprung up in colleges and disciplines, and we’re delighted to help these grow. The local communities of partnership have allowed reps to stretch staff to refurbish facilities, co-create NSS action courses, recreate feedback mechanisms and develop a community of learning where everyone is genuinely a colleague. Our colleges even extended their funding for representation clothing to £3000 this year.
Senior University recognition of students as partners is vital too. As part of the ‘Mirror’ shadowing scheme, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Steve Smith spent a day in a Sport and Health Sciences Student Staff Liaison Committee and working as a member of student staff whilst his shadow, Anna Collin, attended a variety of high level meetings. Twenty-four pairs of staff and students have taken part in the scheme to date. Additionally, reps have rewritten the University Education Strategy, with the Students’ Guild making up 25% of the writing committee.

Outstanding Impact
We’ve been able to challenge the traditional Exeter belief that because we have a Budget Scrutiny Group for University finances and we joint fund a University student engagement post, that we have a fantastic partnership culture. This year, partnership has been embedded into the colleges, and our 7 college Visions for the Future of Education have used all the available data to explore 10 key areas our students have identified as priorities. Brand new college officers have also led on quality assurance and have taken part in Academic Misconduct panels, ensuring that every grievance receives a fair perspective.

The NUS Postgraduate Teaching Survey in 2012 also taught us what issues Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs) face. Rather than treating PGRs as a footnote to our taught student provision, we’ve developed an innovative new Postgraduate Research Liaison Forum representation system, which reflects the unique demands of a research degree. In their second year, the PGRLFs continue to strengthen with attendance increased from 26 reps in the old system, to 140 in term one alone. This new system has already resulted in a fantastic new code of conduct for Postgraduate Teaching Assistants which has guaranteed fair pay, conditions and recruitment processes; replacing old favoritism selections of staff and perceived unfair pay.

These forums have also accelerated the development of a new ‘research commons’ PGR specific study centre, as well as countless specific wins regarding inter-library loans, researcher development a PGR specific ‘freshers’ welcome’ and PGR specific employability provision. The unit also recently secured funding for a new Postgraduate Research Fellows scheme which will employ PGRs to find innovative solutions to student experience issues.

This year we also worked together on the Research Uncovered project, to challenge the assumption that students simply don’t care what goes on outside of contact time. 1197 votes were cast for 75 academics, to recognise and share the very best research across the University. 750 people attended the subsequent open lectures on campus and in the centre of Exeter. The sense of partnership in Exeter goes beyond the traditional divide of teaching and research and this will only continue to develop over the coming years. The Research Uncovered website is attached as our supporting document.

Successful Year
We believe that this demonstrates an impact which has taken student engagement with academic representation to a new level this year with the support of only one permanent member of Students’ Guild staff, representing the collective working attitude that has developed. This has been led by student reps, with support from the entire Students’ Guild, the senior management of the University and staff within every discipline, alongside a sabbatical officer team committed to ensuring there is further growth in the coming years.

For this step change provision, we hope that the Students’ Guild can be recognised for the Academic Representation award.”

Nominated by Becky Williamson, Students’ Union Staff

What some of the judges said…

“Exeter deserves to win this award, because they have pushed beyond systems, transforming how we think about representation and student voice. They have worked to develop localised cultures of partnership across every discipline, creating the space for students and staff to come together to challenge the status quo in education. Exeter SU have empowered reps at a local level, meaningfully devolving power, enabling and engaging students previously hard to reach. The students’ union have challenged what the university believe and set out as partnership, regaining some ownership over the future development of representation. They deserve a special mention for their work on developing a unique postgraduate research student representation system, creating real changes for those students and almost more importantly helping them to see that the students’ union not only understand their problems, but gives them the space and resource to change those issues.”
Rachel Wenstone, Vice President Higher Education

“This is a very detailed entry setting out some major successes. I particularly liked the emphasis on social media, on involving the Vice Chancellor and other university staff, postgraduate issues and those of partners (Falmouth and Exeter collaboration).” Andy Westwood, GuildHE

Some comments from the night…