Union Council (3rd December 2025)

The chair of council introduced themselves and explained their own role and those of the Sabbatical Officers and SUSU staff in attendance.

Read and approved.

None raised.

The VP Education presented their plan and report as per the attached presentation. The following questions were raised:

- Why has the issue of Student Discipline been listed as a low-priority item? This was part of VP Inclusion's responsibilities which are still in the process of being divided among the remaining Sabbs. While the issue of Student Discipline is absolutely a priority, how much of the project work VP Inclusion was doing ends up in the VP Education remit is still to be determined.
- Is there any plan to standardise the giving of feedback, as a counterpart to standardising information given pre-assessment? University is working to standardise rules around this and also to enforce the standards that are currently in place. Difficult to standardise as assessment types and taught content varies widely across the uni.
- Can it be ensured that lecturers provide example exam papers where modules or assessment types have changed? This is already university policy, so if there are any areas where this isn't happening please let VP Education know and they can follow up with the relevant staff.
- What provision is there for PGR Reps covering PGR students who are studying off-campus, part-time, or otherwise separately from the main student body? Currently working with the Representation Team to ensure those reps have a full picture of who they're representing. Also reviewing the rep structures to ensure these have kept pace with changes to study groups. If there are any areas where this isn't working, please let us know - we want to ensure all PGR students feel included! 

The VP Sports presented their plan and report as per the attached presentation. The following questions were raised:

- How can we ensure clubs run non-drinking socials, to ensure non-drinkers feel included? This is a big part of the inclusivity work – one of the badges requires clubs & socs to run non-drinking socials. Improving the visibility of these so students can easily see which clubs are most welcoming to non-drinkers.

- What can be done to ensure people who are struggling financially can get into sports? SUSU has funds to cover membership fees for low-income students. IM teams also generally have lower membership fees. We are looking at what other unis do to inform what else we can offer here.

- How do you plan to identify which groups of students struggle to participate? Speaking to committees, using surveys and social media campaigns to reach out to students. We have data on *which* students aren’t taking part, but the reasons why aren’t as clear.
- Would you consider creating guides/videos on the sports facilities at Southampton so that students can easily find out how to get to and use the facilities? Yes, that sounds like a great idea!

- What are the desired outcomes of the Sabbs on Tour events? The aim is to provide opportunities for students to ask questions and suggest ideas to Sabbs.

The VP Communities presented their plan and report as per the attached presentation. The following questions were raised:

- Scam awareness games – what will the prizes for taking part in these be? On campus awareness tours we have given out non-alcoholic drinks and sweets.

- Reliable online resources to identify common scams – can we create an easily understandable database? Yes, can make bilingual videos and share personal experiences.

- Societies currently make heavy use of Whatsapp, can we encourage students to use existing channels rather than creating new ones? Not expecting societies to create new accounts but we (SUSU) can use these other platforms to share information.

- How can we ensure that SUSU’s communication on Red Book is trusted? Taking time to research how other SUs use this. Need to ensure only appropriate data collected and risks understood.

- Other international students are facing language barriers – how can we ensure we reach people whose 1st language isn’t English or Mandarin? We can reach out to these populations to understand barriers they are facing and could conduct a survey to see which languages students would like to see used.

- Could society committees make use of automatic cross-posting & translation tools to reach these other platforms? This is easier on Meta-owned platforms but will look at how this could be facilitated for societies.

The Union President presented their plan and report as per the attached presentation. The following questions were raised:

- There are multiple buses going through Portswood, but lots of students live in Polygon & Hill Lane and/or work in Shirley. Could a future route include these areas? We would need to collect data to demonstrate that students live/work in these areas to present to UniLink as they are very evidence-driven. But sounds like a good idea!

- Bus timings are important. How frequently will new buses run? This is demand-driven. U1 is so frequent as lots of students use it, U6 is less frequent as not as many students use it. Reverse is also true – more frequent buses are more useful and will be used more, so will fight for increased frequency.

- Could we make changes to the existing MySouthampton app to improve safety features? Editing existing app would Travis sits on the student app board. Editing the iSolutions app

- Is there a more concerted effort to funnel students to the advice centre? Improving signposting in B40 and social media push (“come with me to the advice centre”)to ensure students feel comfortable coming into the advice centre.

• VP Education - 12 Approve, 0 Abstain, 0 Reject (Approved)
• VP Sports - 12 Approve, 0 Abstain, 0 Reject (Approved)
• VP Communities 10 Approve, 2 Abstain, 0 Reject (Approved)
• Union President 12 Approve, 0 Abstain, 0 Reject (Approved)