UNION NEWS Hannah Jones- Vice President Student Activities To all the Freshers starting this year, can you explain your role within the university? “My name is Hannah and I am the Vice President of Student Activities which basically means that I represent students from sports, societies and those involved in RAG which stands for ‘Raise and Give’. Every year we elect 4 charities that we raise money for through exciting events. We have about 50 sports clubs and 104 societies so there is a lot of extracurricular activity for freshers to get involved in. As vice president, I act mainly as a voice for students and lead on campaigns and issues that affect students at Brunel to enhance their student experience at university and increase their employability by offering them opportunities to get involved in extracurricular activities, such as being a member of a society or being involved in the student led media group. Can you give us a breakdown of your aims and what you plan to bring to the University as student activities vice president? PHOTO CREDIT: UNION OF BRUNEL STUDENTS Marcus Stein - Vice President Academic Representation To all the Freshers starting this year, can you explain your role within the university? “I’m here to represent the academic needs of the student body when talking to members of University staff, and to ensure that your voices are heard on major academic and employability issues.” Can you give us a breakdown of your aims and what you plan to bring to the University as Vice President Academic Representation? “One of my aims is to address the effectiveness of our reps; I want to break down the social barriers between students and their reps by making reps easier to identify, and by increasing their involvement in academic societies’ events, as these represent key opportunities to engage with students. I’m also looking at ways to improve the training and support we provide our reps, and would like to increase the extent to which we recognise and reward their hard work.” “Another one of my aims is to increase support and awareness for academic societies; I think that they’re a useful resource for gauging how students feel about their course, and identifying areas that need improvement. I also believe that they can be used to create a greater sense of community when it comes to academia, by encouraging peer-based learning and getting more students to think of their lecturers as partners in their learning.” “Space is also quite an issue for students, particularly during exams; I’m looking to assess how study space is used throughout the university, and to subsequently promote their existence to students, because a lot
of the time you find these spaces are underused whilst the library is packed!” “I also want to expand on the work of our previous VPAR, and ensure that the academic support provided for dissertations is made accessible to all final year students, including those with earlier deadlines. As a former biosciences student with a dissertation deadline in January, I can’t describe how valuable this support would have been in term 1!” “I’m also aiming to make online submission and assessment prevalent this year; I’ve already made significant progress with this over the past couple of months as part of a working group.” “I also want to increase our library resources, with a particular focus on electronic copies of textbooks, so that students can find the information they need more readily.” Do you have any academic advice or thoughts for our new students? •Join academic societies, especially those relevant to your course - they’re a great way to meet students on your course who can help you out if you get stuck! •Get to know your lecturers! A lot of them are very friendly and keen to help you learn and succeed. •Find out who your course reps are! -Same goes for your personal tutor; if you encounter any problems with your module, course, or department, they’re your first point of contact! Reps are also there to push for positive changes that will improve life at Brunel. Think you have what it takes to be a rep? Visit brunelstudents. com/reps to find out more! (Hurry, nominations close October 3rd!)
What changes can you see happening in the coming academic year? “I’m anticipating a lot of changes behind-the-scenes that will benefit Brunel’s students, but will go largely unnoticed by them! One example of this includes a lot more sharing of good academic and administrative (appeals, mitigating circumstances etc.) practice between departments as a result of the University’s Transformational Change Project (TxP).” Is there a new project or event you are really excited about in this coming year? “Well I’m really intrigued by Leon’s Cook Shop project. I’m excited to see how that develops over the coming year because it’s something completely new; it’s never been done before (to my knowledge!) and I think it has the potential to really push healthy, affordable eating at Brunel.”
“I was elected this year on a set of manifesto points and I plan to see them all through! In terms of sport, we are looking at making it easier to run clubs by providing more support structures and training whilst reducing the amount of paperwork clubs have to go through in order to run. Also to provide clubs with priority booking over external bookings for training times which is important when we want to improve our performance and provide proper training.” “Secondly I am looking to establish links within the community and other local sports clubs to form a pathway to increase participation and give opportunities for coaching, facility assistance and membership. I’m having meetings to discuss improving the criteria for both sports performance programme and sports scholarships and making it accessible to our students.” “We are also working to put together an intramural programme to allow individuals who want to play sport recreationally and socially. Students won’t have to commit to a club and
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past. When we raise money for each charity we never see what happens so we would like to make sure we see the changes that happen with the money we raise. Kate Taylor [RAG Chair] would like to see academic and skills related RAG events going on during the year and not just sports events, an example would be things like fashion shows. We would like RAG to have a continuous presence all year round to raise money for charities that we choose as a union!” “We are putting together a support structure for academic societies and how we can integrate them into the student rep structure. This is so that we get more of the student voice into the courses and how they are run and we plan to trial this through a select number of societies. A big feature on the Societies Guild Chair’s [Ali Milani] manifesto is getting funding for all societies. We have a number of free societies and then those that have membership and we are looking at how we can support all societies financially. Another major issue about societies is the limited amount of storage space they have which we intend to improve by doing a storage audit to see how spaces can be used better to benefit societies.” What changes can you see happening in the coming academic year? “The main change is that the University is changing from 8 schools to 3 colleges. All of the structures of the schools are therefore going to change and we as a union have had to accommodate these changes and will be changing our governance to fit in with this new structure. Each of the vice presidents will be representing each college throughout the year. As an officer team we want to be more transparent and have open office hours for students.” If you could tell your ‘fresher’ self one thing what would it be? “As a fresher I was very keen and always got involved. In first year I volunteered, became a student rep and was part of the hockey committee. I’d say to myself; spend my money wisely and budget, make friends and HAVE FUN!” How can we contact you if we have any queries?
How can we contact you if we have any queries? “You can reach me between 9am5pm on 01895 267603, or via my email: vp.academicrep@brunel.ac.uk I’m happy to help with any queries you may have, but if your query is course-related then try speaking to your reps or personal tutors first; if they do their job properly, you won’t need to contact me!” If you could tell your ‘fresher’ self one thing what would it be? “Be brave and try more things. You will never have more chances to try new things and meet new people than you do in your first year of University! And as you progress through University you’ll have increasingly less free time (and sleep!), so make the most of it!”
PLEASE RECYCLE
PHOTO CREDIT: UNION OF BRUNEL STUDENTS can turn up with their friends and play some sport and have fun. We aim to trial this programme with a selection of sports.” “I want to see more sports and societies raising money for RAG. We want to support our local charities this year more than we have done in the
“I am on Facebook – VP Student Activities (Hannah Jones), or you can find me on Twitter @UBSVPSA, my email is VP.Activities@brunel.ac.uk and my office phone number is 01895266622.” “Also look out for a blue t-shirt and blonde hair during freshers’ week!”