Helena Kelynack (She/Her)
Intention
Creating a more balanced lifestyle for all students to alleviate challenges and create more manageable workloads.
Interventions
Work with College Deans to assess the viability of reading/consolidation weeks, including providing clear data on the appetite for this from students.
Explore different timetable scheduling mechanisms to reduce overload and schedule conflicts in partnership with the Vice Chancellors Executive.
Advocate for Wednesday afternoons to be kept free to foster a sense of belonging to support continuation of studies.
Connect the academic societies at the SU to academics in the relevant programmes for better connection to social and academic elements of their programme.
Investigate current policies for scheduling assessments and Wed afternoon exceptions
Provide more recognition of students and more awareness of systems in place to support all students, no matter their programme or background.
In collaboration with Disability Services, review the student journey in engaging with Disability Services to ensure easy for students to use and is supportive of their academic journey. (remove multiple applications for support)
Explore the additional capabilities of Blackboard to include anonymous questions (padlet) relating to the course specific module as standard practice.
Add additional Student Rep awards to include Green and Inclusive Reps to recognise Student Reps who demonstrate further engagement.
Raising awareness of current disabled student services
Work with the University to enhance Touchpoint communication to include celebratory language and to be backed by data highlighting that higher engagement creates better employability.
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Ensure everyone isn't just heard, but acknowledged, promoting inclusivity and engagement.
Introduce a ‘Rep of the Month’ award to recognise Student Reps who have made a positive impact both within and outside of their course.
Include signposting information into The Student Rep Resources to support students find the information most relevant
Utilising LSRs to monitor SRSF and feedback opportunities at the Student Rep level
Enabling consistent marking to ensure students' degree classification reflects their efforts.
Advocate for consistent anonymous peer review processes completed individually to ensure grades assigned are reflective of the work, not impacted by social pressure.
Discuss with academic staff about assigning group allocations based on levels of engagement.
Improve feedback quality by requiring specificity so students can improve future work.
Lobby against group and single-output grades, so all students are judged on their individual efforts.
Support student employability and future initiatives to improve career opportunities for UWE's graduates.
Create a Student Rep Masterclass plan that focusses on upskilling students and providing them with tools for employability for student leaders.
Reviewing the Student Rep Handover to include a reflection on the skills identified as a Student Rep to support in matching to personal specifications for job adverts
Work with the careers team and programme leaders to embed employability/ job hunting session into consolidation week (job application walkthrough)
Signpost students to the UWE Careers Fair and advocate for sharing of contacts to then further their skill building
Work with the Careers team to signpost students to opportunities that are already created but are underutilised
vpeducation@uwe.ac.uk /VPEducationatUWE @VPEducation @thesuatuwe_vped