Hello! 

Thanks for your submission to You Make Change. 

Over the past 2 weeks, I have been already meeting with various people in the University to gain a better understanding of what the Universities plan is for a no-deal Brexit. I would like to lobby them to put provisions in place to mitigate damage for EU and International Students, and prospective ones too. 

The outcome is (frustratingly) that Universities cannot actually put concrete plans or promises in place, because of the uncertainty of Brexit and also what a no deal actually means. A good example of this is the EU students that we have in our healthcare courses. Currenty under the EU, they have international recognition to use that healthcare degree/qualification anywhere, but Brexit (and a no-deal brexit) throws this into uncertainty, and without a plan or idea of what the government want to do more generally in all sectors, the University cannot make any decisions or promises to current or prospective students. 

SUSU have now got a central role on the No-Deal Brexit Taskforce with the University. This means that we will now be SUSU presence to protect the interests of our students and lobby for them under what SUSU can do. SUSU is here for the academic and other interests of our students, and we value the diverse range of students we have here. 

We are going to be holding a Brexit Forum in the first 2 weeks of November, for people to attend, with various members of the University attending to answer questions. We will then be holding monthly Brexit drop in's for updates and questions. 

If and when we leave on October the 31st, I will aim to lobby the University to make transparent their action plans for this event within the first half of the year. SUSU will commit to providing advice, guidance, updates, and clarification whenever we get the chance.

I hope this helps, and please do feel free to email me at welfare@soton.ac.uk if you would like to be directly involved. 

Thanks

Laura Barr 

VP Welfare and Communities 

30/08/2019