About Me

Hi, I’m Joshie, your VP Education! 

So, where the hell did I come from?* I started at Southampton on a four-year integrated Mathematics MSc and ended up becoming one of those students who got really distracted having fun doing nearly everything but my actual course… I spent two years on the Student Council, I loved being an ambassador for Open Days, and later on I delivered some of the welcome talks! I gained a massive passion for all things student voice and representation; delivering two years of my school’s Buddy Scheme, and spending a year as Course Rep, then a year as School President, giving me some fab experience and a lot of determination to deliver better student support and to ensure student voices are heard! Gotta also give some love to SUMS, my beloved Maths Society, which was the first things that got me involved with all things SUSU! 

I’m a massive nerd at heart; a few things I like are puzzles, Rubik’s cubes, dice, playing cards, board games, and lots of mathsy things! My favourite shows are “Dr Who”**, “Inside No. 9”, Victoria Wood’s “Dinnerladies”, and basically anything with detectives (I’m excitedly awaiting the second season of “Ludwig”!). My favourite author is either Juno Dawson, Douglas Adams, Lisa Williamson, or Terry Pratchett, depending on who I’ve read most recently… I think the best Alex Rider book is “Russian Roulette” and will die on that hill any day! 

I prefer to take notes and write coursework in pencil because my handwriting is REALLY messy when I use pen, and right now there are a total of sixteen Helix Oxford HB Pencils on my desk, along with a rainbow rubber duck, a plush rabbit, a monkey mascot (from a famous brand of tea), some shapes (a wooden cube and two marble cuboctahedrons), three elephants, a crab, an abacus, and a mug containing all the spare biros that I’m desperately trying to give away. 

*Sussex, technically. 

**For anyone who immediately wanted to know, my favourite Doctor is Peter Capaldi. 

What do you do as VP Education

The Sabbs all do a million and one different things, but my focus is on all things Student Voice. This means working with your Presidents and your Course Reps, supporting them throughout the year, and bringing students’ views to higher-level university projects. It also means I massively encourage any student to email me (vpeducation@soton.ac.uk) with feedback, views, questions, or requests they might have for changes, be that across the wider University or just within your school. 

I’m also the Sabb that’s here to support everything related to PGR voice and representation, I’m here to support our Academic Societies, and I’m open to dropping by to support absolutely any projects you want me to get involved in! 

What I’m working on

During Semester 1 this year I’ve got a big campaign on the way – one where we collectively feedback our preferences and needs to make a consistent and final decision for which week in Semester 1 should become a university-wide reading week for the academic year after this one! 

I want to work even closer with my wonderful Sabbatical Officer Team, collaborating with our Union President Krzysztof on work to improve Study Spaces, looking at availability and booking, power and lighting. 

I want to work closely with our VP Inclusion Annie on continuing improvements to the quality of lecture recordings, the accessibility of study spaces, the digital accessibility of platforms like BlackBoard and Banner, plus I’m hoping I can stay involved with some of our campaigns and deliver Ace Awareness Week again! 

And I’m pushing the whole Sabb team to collaborate on greater transparency and democracy for every student – with a fortnightly poll, question, or survey built into every single Sabbs Fortnightly email, we’re gonna make your voices heard on more decisions than ever before! 

Finally – I have some big new plans around assessment, currently working on assessment brief templates, standardising the information that should be available at the start of every module, and introducing a consistent layout for the rubric on every exam paper. Education needs to be as clear, as accessible, and as available as possible, and that’s my biggest goal for this year! 

University meetings I attend

There’s a ludicrous number of things in my calendar, so here’s a snapshot: 

• Education and Student Experience Committee – The ESEC is where all the educational policy is set, and where we receive reports from all across the University to keep track of the education being delivered. Student voice is SUPER important here as this is where the big work around your student experiences happens! I am joined in ESEC by the VP Inclusion and Union President! 

• Academic Quality Standards Subcommittee – At AQSS, we are making sure teaching, assessment, and administrative processes are all up to scratch! 

• Education Partnerships Subcommittee – The EPSC has the role of monitoring and managing the connections we have with other institutions, companies, and groups. 

• Doctoral College Committee – This is the leadership body for the Doctoral College, with oversight of PGR Students and Research. I am joined at the DCC by one of our PGR Faculty Officers! 

• University Senate – This is the top governing body for debating matters and approving changes around education, assessment, admissions, and much more! I attend Senate with the Union President and five of our senior student reps, one from each faculty! 

• Regular meetings with the University’s Vice-President (Education and Student Experience), catchups with staff in iSolutions and in the Library Team,  

• There’s a lot more, and if there’s anything you wanna see more about on this page or in the Sabbs fortnightly emails, drop me a message and I’ll add it!