Monday 24-10-2022 - 11:00

 

Hello everyone - I hope you’re well and are settling nicely into your studies. I can’t believe how quick this month has gone. It feels like it was only last week that I was writing my last update! It’s been an extremely busy month for myself and the team, so I’ll dive straight into some of the things we’ve been getting up to, as there’s plenty to talk about. 

 

Freshers and campus visits 

A large part of our calendar this month has excitingly been freshers – whether that’s been travelling around to attend the fairs which took place in person, hosting our own freshers event online for our smaller and satellite campuses, as well as creating sessions for the online campus freshers. No matter which campus you’re on, we’ve made sure to incorporate ourselves somewhere into your freshers. 

This month I’ve been to Leeds, London Bloomsbury, Newcastle and Sheffield. By the end of next month, our team would have headed to virtually all our UK campuses for an in-person visit. So, if we’ve not yet been to yours, keep your eyes peeled on your inboxes for the details on when we will be visiting. If it does happen to be me visiting your campus, I’ll be adding another thumbs-up photo of myself to the SU collection! 

Alongside these events, Pedram and I also organised and hosted the online Freshers quiz! It was a lot of fun running the event, and we ended up giving £100 away worth in prizes! We hope those who attended enjoyed it as much as we did, and we’re looking forward to hosting further events in the future.

It’s been great to meet with students both online and in person and get to explain a little bit more about what we do. We know our freshers looks a little different to most universities, so please do give us feedback on what you’d like to see us do in future so we can work on making our presence at next year’s event even better. 

 

 

Clubs and Societies Campus Groups launch 

Excitingly, we launched the “Clubs and Societies Campus Groups” page under the “Opportunities” section of our website! As it currently stands, the Campus Groups page is there to advertise the different events we have running at your campus. With it being relatively new, it is still pretty bare-bones, but it was great to have this launched for freshers to advertise the different freshers’ events running on each of the different campuses.

It also has a form that has been created for you to register your interest in any clubs and societies you’d like to join – we can get you connected with other students from your campus who have also registered a similar interest. 

The golden feature is still yet to come – the chat function. We have been working really hard to try and get this launched but with us being such a small team, sadly we haven’t had this ready in time for freshers. I am currently about to start drafting a Code of Conduct, following its approval this will hopefully be the last step in us being able to launch the page fully!

Either before or alongside this new feature will also see a new name – after realising we have a very similar name to the University ran Facebook group pages we’ve got something new in the works to prevent any future confusion! 

 

Cost of living 

In these increasingly hard times, we’ve also been looking at what we can do to help students through this cost of living crisis. 

The University also has a dedicated ‘Money and Housing’ Team who you can contact about any issue related to money and or housing, including information, advice and signposting on ways to manage your finances and save money. The team work remotely, and you can contact them by emailing: moneyandhousing@law.ac.uk 

The University also provides several hardship funds for students who find themselves in financial hardship can apply for: 

• Financial Assistance fund – this is designed to help with unexpected financial difficulties you many experience during your studies. Details of this scheme and how you can apply can be found HERE 
• Digital Hardship fund – provides help buying essential IT equipment for your course (e.g., laptop, printer, noise cancelling headphone). Details of this scheme, including the eligibility requirements, can be found HERE

Don’t forget by being a University of Law student, you are automatically a member of the Students’ Union. As the Student’s Union is affiliated with NUS you can sign up for a Totum card. Although there is a small cost for purchasing this card, it does entitle you to discounts in lots of different highstreet and online stores so do check this out, so you don’t miss an opportunity to save some money. 

I have also been working on a couple of other projects around this topic, which I shall keep under wraps now whilst they are still in the early stages. However, I’m sure I’ll have more to update you on about these in my next monthly update. 

If you have any feedback or general comments on other things we could be doing to help you during this current cost of living crisis, please do get in touch.

 

International student action 

Following the August and September drop in session we ran, we were receiving a large volume of feedback from international students over problems they were facing, including over the visa and resit process. This month has seen us raising these concerns within the University to try and see if changes can be made. Whilst this is ongoing, we have been working in the collaboration with the Visa Advice team to run an information session for international students, both online and in person, at the end of October. The session will cover a number of important topics, including how to access services and help, what to do if you fail an exam (and how it would affect your visa) and how to apply for work route visas after your studies. After the presentation there will be a Q&A session with the Visa Advice and Student union representatives where you will be able to meet the team and ask any questions you may have. Further details will be released to you via email in the next few weeks – including a link to register your attendance. Spaces at the in-person sessions will be limited so make sure you sign up early to avoid missing out!

 

Governing Board 

This month has also seen some changes to our Governing Board. This committee is made up of the Co-Presidents, students, externals, and university staff to oversee the work of the Students’ Union. Members of staff, as well as the Co-Presidents, submit reports to update them of what we’ve been doing. Governing Board meets four times a year to discuss this work, give feedback and vote on any key constitutional and governance matters which occur. 

The changes we have made is appointing new external panel members to the Board. The externals were previously all University staff, but we wanted to recruit individuals who had direct experience within Students’ Unions to help us develop and grow. Therefore, this month the Co-Presidents’ have been involved in interviewing and appointing three new external governing board panel members. 

Following these appointments, all the new panel members, including Pedram and I, took part in a training day so we could understand our roles and responsibilities. This was especially valuable for myself, who prior to this role had not been a member of a governing board.  

We then ran our first Governing Board meeting of the new academic year with the new appointments, with the exception of our student members who have not yet been elected. Whilst we are due to host an extraordinary governing board meeting in October specifically to discuss a vote on the Students’ Union becoming independent, the next standard governing board meeting before Christmas, will also include our newly elected student panel members from our October rep elections. 

 

 

Extension and Concessions policy 

Following action of our predecessor president Daniel Finlay, the University has been reviewing its current policy in relation to concessions alongside developing a new extension policy for students submitting assessments. Alongside attending a meeting to hear more about the new changes, a copy of this policy was sent to Pedram and I to review this month. Whilst making changes is a very welcome step, we voiced various concerns we had about the policy which we hope have been included in the final draft. This policy currently being taken through academic Board for approval, so hopefully we will have more to update you on about this soon. 

 

Manifesto action 

Due to how busy September has been, unfortunately I have had limited time to give to my other manifesto aims. Once the remaining work is completed to launch ‘Campus Groups’ I will be focusing on these. Namely, researching and writing the proposal for additional exam resources and pushing for clearer communication from the University. 

Over the past month, issues with a lack of clear communication from certain departments within the University have been raised by numerous students. Whilst these have been actioned on a case by case basis, I will be keen to work with the University to review these on a wider scale to try and implement changes for the benefit of all students. 

 

Once again, we have reached the end of another monthly update from me! As always, if you do have any further comments, questions or feedback please just get in touch with me via email at Emma.Barlow@law.ac.uk