Hi there everyone,
I hope you are all well and have been making your way through this term comfortably; to the students who just joined us this January, I understand adjusting to the lifestyle at this University is full of its twists and turns. As a student once myself, I found it quite challenging in my first few months of university getting used to a new academic lifestyle (especially since it was during a pandemic…). In reflecting on that period, I wish I had made myself more aware of the support services available to me as a student here – whether that was the plethora of support offered by the Wellbeing, Skills and Diversity team, the various feedback channels offered to students or advice from the Students’ Union.
The Students’ Union should be seen as an approachable team of elected representatives & full-time staff that can offer support to students should they need it, or to point them in the direction of who can help them with specific issues. In my time as President of the Students’ Union so far, I have been focusing towards supporting students that approach us with their concerns or grievances with their University life – continuing to build the need for a future “Students’ Union Advice Centre”.
For the first time, Tolu (Vice President of Student Voice) will be overseeing and chairing the upcoming Student Representative Council meeting – a meeting of Academic Representatives elected by students who will be giving feedback on the quality of teaching and learning in each faculty. The feedback collected from these meetings is highly valuable to us, as is discussed and planned upon afterwards. With Tolu now in charge of these, I am very confident as to the effectiveness of Student Representative Council. Once the by-elections have completed, I will be making sure all academic representatives are displayed within the Students’ Union Website, so that students can clearly see who the representative is for their course.
Speaking of the website, all our SU executive team meeting minutes are available to view on the Student Voice tab. The executive team have been working effectively with one another and continue to grow together as a team, and I am happy with all the projects that are currently being worked on by each of them. By the end of March, we will have elected three brand new PTO positions, that being Environmental and Ethical Officer, Buckingham Campus Officer and Mature Students officer. These positions being filled will have nothing but a positive impact on the amount of work the SU executive is able to do, with more opportunities for collaboration opening, and the ability to reach out to even more students. Nominations are currently open so please, if you haven’t already – check out the elections and see if you’d like to become a part of the Student Union Executive Team, even if you aren’t interested, I encourage you to please make your voice heard when the voting begins on the 22nd of March.
You may have recently seen our statement on the most recent fireside chat guest, who came into the University to give a talk on the 6th of March, George Galloway. If you wish to read the statement, you can find it on our website in the Student Voice tab.
With that, as I stated previously in this address, the union is an approachable team that is here to support you throughout your university experience. Please check out the What’s On page on the website to see the various events we’ve got coming up that you can take part in; if you have any questions about anything the Students’ Union is doing, please email myself or any of the other officers that you can see on the front page of the website! Thank you for your time.