Reports 5th Week Michaelmas 2007

Martin McCluskey  President

Report not yet submitted

Rich Hardiman   V-P (Finance)

Report not yet submitted

Louise Randall  V-P (Welfare and Equal Opportunities)

Meetings

•    Welfare Committee

This 2 week period saw the first official meeting of JCR and MCR welfare reps, in a very well attended meeting, which proved to be a really useful forum for discussion on the issues common rooms face. Particularly of note were discussions about the way Peer Support training is used and funded between colleges, and the issue of the inequality of welfare budgets between colleges.

A really useful discussion on condom brands was had, and following a number of complaints about the NHS brand, Safex, condoms that OUSU currently supply, support for OUSU beginning to stock Durex as an option was overwhelming. Some colleges were happy to stick with Durex, as they had had no complaints about Safex and feared Durex might be too expensive for their budget. Thus, we are planning on continuing to stock Safex for those colleges who wish to buy Safex, whilst also offering Durex to those colleges who would prefer. Please do ask me anything more about this!

•    Anti-Racism Committee

We’re currently working hard to kick-start its Black and Minority Ethnic / Anti-Racism campaign. The BME/Anti-Racism campaign is an attempt for OUSU to improve BME representation in the University and feed into the debates that are currently ongoing. We want this campaign to be able to help us in answering questions around BME access to the University, campaign on the needs of BME students within the University and take a leading role in the anti-racist movement in Oxford.

•    Consultative Committee for Health and Safety

I have the minutes of this meeting for anyone who is interested! Please do contact me if there are any issues that you wish to bring up at subsequent meetings.

Issues

It has become increasingly obvious that there are issue of rustication for welfare reasons, and self rustication, which need to be examined. Martin (President), James (Access and Academic Affairs) and myself have formed a working group to look at the issue and what can be done to improve the current situation.

Night safety continues to be a concern. We are currently working to promote the Walk Safe scheme, which has been set up by students at Teddy Hall, in order to provide students with a way to return home safely after dark. A student can ring the number, and a pair of volunteers will cycle to meet them, and will them accompany them home from their department, college, library or elsewhere. It is open Tuesday-Friday, 9pm-1am, and the number is 07769371882. Please volunteer for, and use, this great service!

There is a growing concern in the university that there are many students with disabilities who could be benefiting from the practical and financial support available, but who are not disclosing their disability. I have been working together with the Disability Office to write a ‘Simple guide to disclosure’ which will be available soon.


Student Advice Service

We have continued to have a steady stream of casework through the Student Advice Service. The volume that we are receiving further highlights the need not only for a Student Advisor but also further validates the need for the current review into the functioning of the Student Advice Service. For a detailed explanation of how the Student Advice Service functions on a day to day basis to better aid your understanding of the review, please feel to contact me!

The SAS is currently undergoing a period of consultancy run by the counselling service. This is proving to be a valuable opportunity to think about the procedures that are in place, the role of the SAS is within the university, and how the members of the SAS are being equipped to deal with the challenging nature of their work. We’re really appreciating this opportunity for some ‘blue sky thinking’ and believe that it will directly benefit the students who use the service. We’ll be reporting back as the process develops!

Hannah Roe  V-P(Women)

Report not yet submitted

Ingrid Frater  V-P (Graduates)

Casework has been mounting up over the last few weeks, and has taken up a good deal of time. However, casework is certainly feeding well into committee representation – e.g. on graduate admissions. 

MCR Presidents’ Committee – I organised and chaired this in third week, we were hosted by New College. Turnout was very good and we had some productive discussions on such issues as college fees, student safety and alcohol licenses. The sabs all came, to ensure that we are working closely with graduate common rooms.

International Students with Disabilities – I’m planning to write a paper on this, to take to Graduate Committee of Conference of Colleges in Hilary. 

SAS Review is now well underway and the discussions continue…

New Bodleian – I was on the tour with other sabs and CR Presidents, which was incredibly interesting and informative – Osney Mead motion today. 

Nightline training – I’m currently Nightline training as part of my SAS training and development. 

Proctors and Assessor meeting – I was present at this meeting with CR Presidents. Will be trying to encourage more topics of discussion from graduate common rooms for next term. 

Student website – www.ox.ac.uk/students is almost ready to go.  

Teaching and Learning Space – I’m currently collecting data from a survey up on ousu.org and by sending it round to JCCs. This data will be used to make a presentation to a University group working on teaching and learning space, of which I am a member. 

University meetings – Council, Graduate Committee of Conference of Colleges, Committee for the Language Centre. Will update orally.

International Students’ Campaign – constitution and committee will be ratified today.  Will update orally on meeting with Dr Heather Bell. 

Mature Students’ Campaign – am determined to get this going asap!

Common Room outreach/ZOO nights – I’ve been gathering dates for MCR meetings, and meeting MCR committee members individually, to try to ensure that I’m in touch with as many people as possible, listening to what they would like to be seen done and to speak to students about what OUSU is and how we can support students. I’ve also been going to ZOO nights to meet more students. 

Book selling – I’m going to be trying to set up a scheme on our website for book selling between students. 

MCR Presidents’ Questionnaire – Last year Andrea sent round a huge questionnaire to all MCR Presidents. Over the summer Greg Lim (from Merton) worked on compiling all the data, and it’s now on our website for use by current students and applicants. 

James Lamming  V-P (Access & Academic Affairs)

Term is already half way over and I don’t know where the time is going.  If there is a word to describe the past two weeks, it is ‘preparation’.  There will be lots of things happening over the next two weeks: finishing interview website, Osney Mead campaigning, admission policy discussions, OUSU Education Committee and interview videos, that are just about ready to go, but don’t all quite merit being reported on.  Here below are the edited highlights from the rest of my fortnight.  Any questions, then please get in touch and don’t forget to read my blog.

Access

Training – I helped with the training of volunteers for University and Target School schemes, running a training session myself.

Interview Website – I am still collecting profiles for this website, and have mounted a concerted push this week to get 50 students experiences on there.  I hope to advertise this via colleges mailings to applicants.

Target Schools – I met with Emma Coulston and Mike Nicholson to discuss a networking and information event for all students in Oxford finishing their PGCE or going into TeachFirst next year.  It is hoped that the event will provide these students with information about helping their future students applying to Oxford and inspire these new teachers to act as ambassadors for the University.

Academic Affairs

University Meetings – These last two weeks, I had University Council, Committee for the Languages Centre, and Student Gateway steering group.

National Student Survey – Met with Sally Powell and Richard Hughes in Academic Policy Division about NSS.  Our current policy is fairly neutral towards it, where we highlight all its faults but then say that it does have a use so we won’t campaign against it.  Communicated as much to them, and expressed strong reservations about passing on personal details like mobile phone numbers with which they agreed.

Miscellaneous – Caught up with casework paperwork and met John Eekelaar, Senior Tutor at Pembroke and Chair of Conference of Colleges Senior Tutors’ Committee for lunch to discuss the year ahead.

OUSU

SAS Review – With Ingrid, I submitted a proposal for a reformed Student Advice Service, and discussions about this have taken up a large amount of time over the past fortnight.

Claire Addison         V-P (Charities and Community)

Report not yet submitted