Education Zone (9th March 2016)

SV advised committee of those who could not attend: Dan, Zehong, Mark, and Kelechi.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

SV: Nothing to report from those absent.
Frazer: He is working on getting special considerations and academic appeals forms placed outside the Humanities faculty office.
Mike: Post-grads are fun! Held a very successful post-grad event with good turn out, and he would like to do a post-grad welcome after freshers next year similar to this.
SB: Gave update about Solidari-tea event showing support for junior doctors and medical students.

SV: Blog about recorded lectures coming before Friday at 12pm.

About 200 total nominations, which is great, but the spread of nominations was inconsistent across the faculties.
Current awards system will be altered because it does not account for faculties with one or no nominations. Academic Reps will pick one faculty winner and one faculty runner up per category.
Students are being nominated for the wrong categories, including Ph.D.’s. When going through nominations, use common sense to make sure that nominees are in the correct category.
Awards will be announced alphabetically by faculty, alternating between academic awards and teaching awards categories.
Awards this year will be mugs rather than trophies. Fun, informal, and light-hearted.
Date and Time of Academic Awards Night: Thursday, 5th May starting @ 18:00
Winners for Rep awards will be selected by a panel: ES, SB, SV, Ben Franklin, Alex Neill, and Sonia Cottrell.

SV – Creative Industries are doing an employability initiative
Trying to appeal to people who might not think that creative industries is for them, and connect them to employment opportunities in which they may be interested (I.e. working as scientific advisor for film companies). Creative Industries are not just about people on stage.

ES - Remind people to push the Academic Awards and the mini lecture series.

The University is exploring the possibility of monitoring student activity through the use of data from Blackboard, Wi-Fi logins, building entries, etc.
Primary purpose would be to have a means to supports students who may not have people regularly checking in on them.
Students on Tier IV visas are already monitored this way.
SV believes that info must be very carefully guarded; no one should be able to see that info. Should be an alert to personal tutor to follow up with student, then to enabling services.
Consensus that this raises large ethical questions about privacy.
Frazer – What info is collected, who can see it, and how is it protected? Can you opt out of monitoring if you are not a foreign student?

Adam gave overview of the new MEC PolicyMEC officials were unaware that SUSU was electing representatives. This policy seeks to bridge the gap in communication.
MEC is in Education Zone rather than External Eng. because it seeks to support military students through their studies.
This is the replacement for the previous policy pursuant to the last Education Zone Committee meeting.

Discussed the purpose of including a disciplinary provision in the policy

Yousra - Natural Sciences Academic President Policy Proposal

• Natural Sciences do not currently have an academic president, and are not being adequately represented within the faculty because of the variation of the modules.
• Yousra - Staff and students have requested that a position be created for an Academic President of Natural Sciences.
• Discussed whether an Academic Vice-President or an Academic President would be more appropriate for NatSci.
• SV proposed a round-robin vote to either create an Academic Vice-President or Academic President role, or recommend that it is not needed.
• Present voting members unanimously recommended that Natural Sciences be given an Academic President role.

Votes taken: Should Natural Sciences have an Academic Vice-President or Academic President role?
Neither; President/VP role not needed: nil
Vice-President role: nil
President role: Unanimous      
(SV, SB, Frazer, Yousra, Mike. Michael was late and not present for vote)

Faculty Funding SV

• There is a perception amongst students that some faculties subsidize others because equipment is provided for some courses, and not for others.
• SV/SB – Principles that guide how decisions are made should be determined by students, implementation should be determined by Uni. (E.g. Students: Coursework submission costs should be the same for all students. Uni: How do we make that happen?

Mid-semester feedback

• Online feedback forums have actually reduced participation rather than increase it.
• Informal means may get more participation (I.e. post-it notes)
• Purpose of informal system: Students actually see the effects of their feedback while they are still in the course.