Entries For: November 2007

This time last week I promised a blog entry on Tuesday about how I thought OUSU's welfare structures could be improved.  Since then silence.  Apart from being one of the world's worst bloggers (though still streets ahead of my OUSU colleagues), it has been a ridiculously busy week, with the Student Advice Service indicative poll taking up more time than I suspected.  This post is therefore a little later than originally anticipated. 

So, what would I do to improve the Student Advice Service?  What changes to the status quo of VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities, VP Graduates, VP Women, and my own job, VP Access and Academic Affairs would improve OUSU's welfare support, representation and campaigning?  I'll remind you first of the problems with the current structure as I see them, and then outline the solutions, and leave you to judge how good the solutions are.

The two key problems as I see them are the burden of casework and division of responsibilities between the Student Advice Service sabbaticals.  This burden has always been focused on the VP Welfare, VP Graduates and VP Access and Academic Affairs, as the Student Advice Service is visited predominantly by students who are having academic difficulties with their department or college.   This burden of casework affects important aspects of our other responsibilities to represent other students and support campaigning work to improve the student experience.  For example, the VP Welfare is responsible for all our Equal Opportunity work, with the exception of women (in summary, LGBTQ Council, the Anti-Racism Campaign and Students with Disabilities).  The time they can spend supporting these campaigns is largely dictated by their casework burdens, and is generally very low to non-existent.  The VP Graduates is 'nominally responsible' for international students and mature students.  OUSU currently has no support for mature students simply because the VP Graduates does not have time to organise even the seeds of a campaign.  An active international students campaign has only started this year due to the superhuman efforts of Ingrid Frater, the current VP Graduates.  Within my role, Access is best described as a hobby, where I try and do some work whenever I am not snowed under with University meetings or casework.  Target Schools has been so quiet and largely ineffective for a little while now because my predecssors and I do not have time in our already extended days to organise anything.  There is finally an accountability problem, where students who are currently represented by a sabbatical, for example undergraduate international and mature students, or male student parents do not get to vote in the election of their representative.

And the solution?  In an ideal world, we would have the money to create new posts so every single group of students could receive full time help and support.  But it's not an ideal world, and OUSU is barely breaking even at the moment: money for more sabbatical posts is simply not feasible. 

Instead a restructuring of responsibilities is necessary.  My job should be trimmed to become VP Education, responsible for education policy, to support campaigns for further improvements to the educational experience of students at Oxford and be on hand for academic related casework.  VP Graduates should be just that: there are approaching 8000 graduates now, and a lot of work needed to bring the quality of their experience up to the standard expected.  VP Welfare should also be just that.  They should lead the Student Advice Service, provide training for welfare officers across the University and campaign on welfare issues that affect all students. 

We then need a VP Access and Equal Opportunities.  They will be responsible for the still important women's campaigning that is occuring.  But they will also be able to dedicate time towards currently unsupported work on Anti-Racism, Students with Disability, LGBTQ, International Students, Mature Students and Access.  Each of these groups have their own campaigns, which other student volunteers from these groups can lead.  The key change from this proposal is that these groups will have more support from the sabbatical structure in OUSU.  Casework will also be more evenly distributed between the sabbatials, with the VP Access and Equal Opportunities able to support a much greater cohort of student than the VP Women can currently do because of the restrictions of her democratic mandate.   Access fits naturally with all of this: it is about equal opportunities to admissions.  Work with raising admissions from underrepresented groups to the University is likely to have substantial benefits in the long run as students work in a more diverse environment, reflective of the population at large, and underrepresented groups become represented groups.  Finally, every student will be able to vote for their representative.  We will no longer be in a situation where male student parents and undergraduate international and mature students are essentially disenfranchised from their sabbitical representative.

In summary, this proposal would increase the amount of support OUSU offers underrepresented groups.  It will balance out workloads within the Student Advice Service allowing improvements in the quality of welfare support, as sabbitical officers will be less overburdened.  Finally, it will improve democratic accountability so that all students get to vote for their representatives.  As a current Student Advice Service member, I believe this is the best option to improve welfare and support for all students in Oxford.  I hope you agree with me.