Student Representative Forum 24th November 2021 – Microsoft Teams
1. Apologies: Harriet Dryden (President Activities), Rebecca Gilling (President Education), Madhu Bethina (President Welfare)
In Attendance: Kainat Nasir (Chair), Kristy Weegram (SU), Maisie Craven (SU), Darren Poole (SSSHL), Chisolu Obumneke-Okeke (SSSHL), Alex Kemp-Hall (TUIBS), Rachel Burrows (MIMA), Jay Bunch (SCEDT), Lewis Korir (SCEDT), Rodrigo Roldan-Romero (SCEDT), Laura Edwards (SHLS), Jess Snaith (SHLS), Craig Anderson (SHLS), Alison Smith-Paul (MIMA), Sarah Jackson (TUIBS), Martha Bona (TUIBS), Tracy Goddard (SSSHL), Colette Senior (SCEDT), Sarah Bishop (COVID-19 Wellbeing Manager), Ben Bone (Student Success Team)
2. Review of last meeting’s minutes
- Accuracy of minutes from last meeting was agreed.
3. Covid Wellbeing Manager Updates – Sarah Bishop
- SB explained that the pandemic is still with us even though life has returned to a standard of normality. She acknowledged that mask wearing is no longer compulsory but asked if the School Reps could still encourage students to wear them across the university to protect each other.
- SB explained the updated government guidance on LFT’s as it is no longer recommended to test twice a week, only if you are visiting crowded spaces or a vulnerable person. As they are likely to be in a crowded indoor space in lectures, she recommends that students still test twice per week. Students can still pick up free LFT kits from the University. They are available in the Tower reception every day of the week, except Tuesday from 10am- 12:30pm and 1:30pm-4pm.
- The University are looking to promote a ‘test before you travel’, an initiative to get students to test themselves before they travel home for the winter break. The University are hoping to deliver LFT kits to students living in halls of residence so they can choose if they wish to take part before they go home. They are also recommending people take a test before they return in January however, this is not mandated.
- SB explained the long Covid support service that was launched in March 2021. It is not a clinical service, but it does help support students, particularly those who may now have difficulties with concentration which could lead to problems with completing assignments etc. Any student who is suffering from symptoms of long Covid can call into SLS and get some support put in place to help them with their studies. Over 50 students have used the service so far and they have received good feedback. They also, have a group chat function where students can speak to other students suffering with long Covid. SB asked if the reps would promote this service out to other students. Kainat (SHLS) asked if there was an email address for students wishing to contact the service. SB asked students to email student wellbeing as there are currently some glitches with the Covid email address.
- SB asked the reps to remind students to report any cases of Covid so that the University can monitor cases and make sure that they are on top of what is happening in the town and the university with the local public health teams. The
more the University know, the easier it is to provide support to students. SB gave reps email address for cases.
4. Student Success Team – Ben Bone
- BB explained that the Student Success Team are currently organising some focus groups on communication and emails and they have asked if the reps would push that out to other students. Reps are also welcomed to attend. There will be two sessions: Tuesday 7th December 11am-12pm and Wednesday 8th December 2pm3pm. There will be free pizza for students too. BB to send the reps a blurb to post out on social media. BB also asked if the reps would come to the Creator Lab and do an Instagram post etc. with the success team.
- The success team have been inundated with students in the service and they have been able to support and signpost them. BB thanked the reps for their work in pushing out the service to students and what they offer.
- They also have some areas they are working on at the moment that they will speak to the reps about in due course as they may wish to be involved. BB pointed out that they would like the student success space to be a place for societies, such as the new mature students’ society, to meet up and use the space.
- The team have moved offices now and are based on the 4th floor of Middlesbrough Tower and students are welcome to visit them there.
5.
School Updates
- SCEDT: Jay Bunch began by introducing the new SCEDT team member, Colette Senior, second year programming student. The SCEDT team held a course rep drop-in session. Jay explained that they had course reps in attendance, and they gathered largely positive feedback. Jay is going to upload this feedback onto the spreadsheet on Teams. Jay then went on to say that the team will be attending the Talk to TUSU in the Athena building on November 25, 2021. The team have also attended a Student Voice Forum – Spotlight meeting. However, there were only 15 students in attendance and 4 of those were the SCEDT school representatives. Jay created a survey that the SCEDT team sent out to gather feedback from students regarding current lectures and modules. Jay explained that they had worked with Rebecca Gilling on this as she has received similar feedback from students. Jay is going to contact the SCEDT associate dean once they are back from annual leave to help circulate the survey to gather more student feedback.
- SHLS: Kainat Nasir explained that the SHLS team had set up a WhatsApp group to engage with course representatives. The team have had feedback from the course representatives about issues they would like to raise. Jess Snaith then says that the WhatsApp group has been a useful tool to engage with other students and is now able to connect with course representatives on campus. Jess has explained to the course representatives that if they are approached with school wide issues, they can pass these on to the SHLS school reps. Kainat added that she has entered the feedback into the spreadsheet for the school representatives to access. Jess suggested that feedback forms could be made more specific so that students can offer direct feedback instead of being asked for broad feedback as this gets less responses.
- SSSHL: Darren Poole started the update by explaining that the SSSHL representatives held a stall in the school to gather feedback from students. The team received 45 responses from students and Darren is going to upload the feedback onto the spreadsheet. Tracy Goddard has contacted the course representatives from SSSHL and had 50 responses. The team will set up an online drop-in and a face-to-face drop-in session with the course representatives. The SSSHL team are also hosting a Q&A session with their heads of departments, associate dean and students to gather feedback. Tracy is attending student the voice forum November 25, 2021 and Chisolu Obumneke-Okeke has already attending the student voice forum spotlight meeting for his course.
- TUBS: Alex Kemp-Hall gave the update for TUIBS. He started by saying that the team are happy with the course representative engagement following a drop-in session that the TUIBS team held. One of the major issues brought to the TUIBS reps was that some lecturers were uploading resources onto blackboard as late as midnight the day before a lecture. Alex advised the course representatives to speak to the relevant academic staff and keep the school reps informed if this does not improve in future. The TUIBS team are individually hosting drop-in sessions that will be made available to all students within their school. Sarah (TUIBS) held a meeting with Noel Dennis regarding media and marketing. The TUIBS school representatives will also be able to use the screens around the schools to promote materials that are approved by Noel. Alex and the other TUIBS school reps are restarting the ‘you said, we did’ program which ensures students receive feedback for any issues raised. The academic of the month award was well received this month in the school. The MBA students created a PowerPoint for the award. The TUIBS school reps will look to use these as a template going forward for the award. The team have recognised that students do not know who the TUIBS senior management team are. Therefore, they are starting a ‘roadshow’ in January where they do an introduction to the reps and the senior management team during lectures in semester 2. TUIBS received a 50% response rate for the recent module surveys. This is the highest response rate that the school have ever had.
- MIMA: Rachel Burrows explained that MIMA do not currently have any major concerns. Their Student Voice Forum coming up and they are looking to collect feedback from that meeting. Following this, Rachel mentioned that many students purchase textbooks that are needed for their course but find that they have no use for them later. She has discussed this with staff and thought that it would be useful to hold a book sale or recycling event for students. Jay Bunch suggested that Rachel contacts the library to discuss ways that students can recycle their textbooks. Sarah Bishop explained that she can discuss this with the library staff on behalf of the MIMA school representatives. Sarah Jackson also mentioned that there is a Facebook group set up for students to resell their unwanted textbooks.
6. Officer Updates
7.
- Rebecca Gilling (President Education): No officer updates, apologies sent.
- Madhu Bethina (President Welfare): No officer updates, apologies sent.
- Harriet Dryden (President Activities): No officer updates, apologies sent
AOB (Any other Business)
Sarah Bishop (Covid wellbeing manager) started by the Northumberland roving vaccination bus will be back on campus 10th December. It will be between TUIBS and water house 10am-4pm and first, second, booster jabs and flu vaccinations will be available for those who are eligible. Craig Anderson discussed the promotion of safety on campus following concerns from students. Craig suggested the school representatives look to promote the SafeZone app to all students. He then proposed the idea of using the feedback forms to ask students to voice their safety concerns. Kristy Weegram offered to send the school representatives, the details of the PCSO that visits the university. She reminded the teams that there is a beat surgery twice a week that all students can attend. She suggested it may be useful to hold a meeting with security, who can explain the services they offer to students. Rachel added that she has had feedback from students who do not feel comfortable in using the security teams if they only feel unsafe. She is looking into doing some promotion work around the SafeZone app and campus security. Sarah Bishop clarified that if students ring security, they will come out to you and walk you back to your vehicle and there is no need for students to walk to security they only need to ring them to ask for assistance. Jay asked if there was opportunity to work with Madhu and Kristy let them know that Madhu will be holding a student safety day January 27, 2022. Jay then spoke about the attendance emails that students are receiving. They say that there is a template used so everyone receives the same email regarding attendance once they have missed a certain number of sessions. The emails are there as a check-in with students to see if the university can provide any support for students with their attendance. Jay explained the email is perceived negatively and students feel that they will have to leave university because of their attendance. Jay wants to work with the staff to create a more student friendly attendance email. Alex said that he thinks this is something that Rebecca is already looking into, but the school representatives have not had an update. Lewis added that the finance department are sending similar emails to students.
8. Tasks: