Monday 20-03-2023 - 11:46

 

January article

Hi everyone! Here is another update on some of the projects myself and the team I have been up to in January. As always, if you have any questions on this or anything else, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me via email at Emma.Barlow@law.ac.uk 

 

Cost of Living

An ongoing project within the team is looking at how best we can support students throughout these difficult times with the cost of living crisis. I have started pulling together resources and an information pack in order to hold a focus group amongst our student pool to gather insight and further understanding of how ULaw students, in particular, are being affected. This is to review the effectiveness of measures implemented so far and to make sure additional measures we're looking at introducing target the needs of our student body. 

Along with this internal work, I've also been involved in research work nationally with other sabbatical officers from Student Unions. I attended a roundtable event to look at how students were impacted across the sector. This included idea sharing for initiatives we could implement internally, along with collaborative action we could be a part of nationally. 

 

Campus Chat

This month saw the launch of the 'Campus Chat' function on the SU website. This was part of my manifesto pledge to create an online platform where students could connect with their peers outside of their workshops groups on campus. It was quite a long process to have it up and running, but it's great to see it finally be launched to coincide with our January starts, along with the engagement and interest we've had so far. By signing up to campus chat, you'll be part of a group chat of students on your campus, which includes students on not only your course but also different courses too. You can find out more information about the function and how to get involved here: Campus Chat @ University of Law Students' Union

 

Board of Directors Presentation

On behalf and Pedram and the wider Students' Union, I was invited to deliver a presentation to the University's Board of Directors about our ongoing work. Along with the invitation itself, the engagement I had on the day signals the strong commitment the University has to continually improve the student experience for students as well as working collaboratively with the Students' Union to achieve this. 

 

TEF

Another longstanding project which finalised this month was the Student Submission as part of the University's Teaching and Excellence Framework award. Although it was quite a time consuming piece of work (the final submission was just under 6500 words) it was an incredibly valuable piece of work to deepen my understanding of the academic experiences across our diverse student body as well as having the opportunity to voice these to those within the University. Although the next submission is not for another four years, the research and insight gained has highlighted the areas for collaborative efforts between the Students' Union and the University in the interim. 

 

Re-freshers events

This month we welcomed over 500 new students across our UK campuses. As part of the induction process, we've been planning our SU welcome events and information sessions. For our 5 largest campuses (Bloomsbury, Moorgate, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester) we've collaborated with the Student Info Teams to hold in person welcome events. Alongside these we've also hosted online events specific to our online campus and for our smaller and satellite campuses. 

 

University Mental Health Day

University mental health day is a national campaign day across England taking place in March. On this day, Universities across the country organise different activities and events all with the purpose of raising awareness and promoting the importance of mental health support. It's the biggest day of the year for student mental health, bringing together the university community to make mental health a university-wide priority and to create ongoing change to the future of student mental health. With this is mind, I've begun planning what we can do on this day across our student and staff community to support an important cause. Watch this space for further updates, and in the meantime, you can read more about the national event by looking at their campaign website: UMHD - Home (unimentalhealthday.co.uk)

 

Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) project

Further work took place this month on this ongoing project. We met as working group to review the finalised code of conduct, agenda and minute template. Following approval of these, they have now been circulated to all three subject schools (Law, Business and Science) at a variety of campuses for trialling. In the next couple of months, we will hopefully have some feedback which can be implemented before the project hopefully gets rolled out across all programmes and campuses. 

 

Co-President Accountability Panel

Pedram and I held our second accountability panel of our term this month. The purpose of these sessions is for our Student Parliament reps to hold us accountable for the work we're doing – to ensure we're making progress on our manifesto goals and projects, along with making sure our work is aligned to making changes that students' value. These sessions involve Pedram and I detailing the work we've been carrying out and for our Student Parliament rep attendees to ask us any questions. These sessions are recorded and you can access a copy of the minutes by contacting our Student Engagement Coordinator Gary Knight at Gary.Knight@law.ac.uk 

 

Student Union Governing Board

I also attended the second SU Governing Board of my term. The primary function of the Board is to ensure the SU is run effectively by complying with its governing documents, having a sound strategic plan which is tailored to meet the needs of our student body and is solvent. With that in mind, we discussed an array of important issues, including welcoming our student panel members to their first meeting. 

 

ULaw Leagues Planning

With ULaw Leagues happening early next month, the final planning meetings and follow up work took place to make sure the event was ready to go. We're really excited to be launching this new cross-campus event as it'll be a great way for you to meet new people across your course and across other campuses all while having fun and potentially having the chance to win some prize money. Due to resources, sadly we're only able to host it at our six largest on-site campuses. If you'd like to find out more about the event, including how to sign up, please click here: ULaw Leagues @ University of Law Students' Union

 

Outside of these specific projects, it was business as usual in terms of representing the student voice in various committee and University department meetings. Which nicely brings to a conclusion this month's update – look forward to catching up next month!