I would like to thank the 470+ reps for all the hard work they have put in this year and keeping Imperial’s education to that of a high standard. Without them so many good aspects of your course or the College would not exist, so their self-sacrificing efforts should not be overlooked and unrecognised.
As a union we go some way in trying to reward those who have gone the extra-mile, giving up their time to improve their fellow students’ experience by giving some of the best ones union awards.
This year 22 reps managed to win them:
Union Colours
Zahra Aboukhalil – Biochemistry Departmental Representative
Leonardo Paoli – CGCU Academic Affairs Officer
Matthew Hutchins – ICSMSU Academic Officer: Year 4, Biomedical Science and Pharmacology
Helen Pennington – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Life Sciences)
Will Brown – Chemical Engineering Departmental Representative
Sybghat Rahim – ICSMSU Academic Officer: Year 3, 5 and 6
Natalie Kempston – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Medicine)
Aaron D’Souza – Biology Departmental Representative
Jonathan London – Physics Departmental Representative
Bushuo Guo – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Humanities)
Nicholas Ng – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Engineering)
Ken Wu – ICSMSU Academic Officer: Year 1, 2 and GE
Richard Bennett – Electronic and Information Engineering Departmental Representative
Claudio Polisseni – MRes Controlled Quantum Dynamics Course Rep
Natasha Strydom – GSU Vice-President
Shiladitya Ghosh – Chemical Engineering Year 1 Rep and Horizons Rep
Plabon Saha – Mathematics Year 2 Rep
Johannes Hoenigl – Aeronautics Year 3 Rep
Outstanding Service Award
Simon Schillebeeckx – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Business)
Thomas Wilshere –Computing Departmental Representative
Ross Webster – GSU Academic and Welfare Officer (Physical Sciences)
Maryam Habibzay – GSU President
The Undergraduate Representation President’s Award went to Biology
They have increased the number of Staff-Student Committees for the next academic year so more issues can be raised and dealt with more swiftly, they went around the SAF for both of the Rep Weeks asking their students for suggestions and then followed them up e.g. final years giving talks to 1st and 2nd years on elective modules. The reps have also been heavily encouraging their lecturers to use Panopto (lecture podcasts) and they have played a strong role in BioSoc’s social events.
The Postgraduate Representation President’s Award went to the Business School
They have convinced the College to increase the PhD writing up period to 12 months as Imperial is behind our competitors, they have also helped give the rest of the College academics insight into the Business School’s workings and have made the Graduate School write various drafts for College policy e.g. the double marking definition and group plagiarism rules.
Similar traits between all the reps that have been given an award are them spending a significant amount of time carrying out the role, keeping in continuous communication with their students, reps they manage and the reps that manage them. They helped out enormously in the Rep Weeks, pushed key surveys (NSS and SOLE), implemented the Mums and Dads scheme in their department and used innovative techniques to improve the student experience e.g. introductory videos to first years, wiki to share notes/their answers to past papers or managed to obtain computers for their research group.
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