A lot of things have happened in the last few weeks! Here are some highlights:

After a seemingly endless stream of meetings I can now say that I have made acquaintances with all the relevant people in College with whom I will be working (bar one or two who are booked into my calendar). Included in these was a meeting with James Stirling, the new Provost (Footnote 1). I used the opportunity, with the Deputy Presidents, to explain how the Union works and the issues that students at Imperial face. I am pleased to say that he took a very deep interest in the student perspective and is very keen to work closely with the Union. I will be meeting both him and the Rector regularly each month at separate meetings. These will be very useful opportunities for making sure that those high up within the College are continuously aware of what students are thinking in order to better inform the decisions they make. 

The first meeting of the Union Executive Committee (Footnote 2) was held in late August and I wrote the following paper, which was subsequently passed https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/your-union/policies/80. I wrote this in response to a highlighted fact that many Universities in the country, including our own, may give academic sanctions to those that owe debts related to a non-academic services. An example of this would be the College not allowing a student to graduate until they had paid off debts for accommodation. It was agreed that the Executive committee does not support this.

Undergraduates not yet having arrived, there has been enough time available to spend on implementing some of my objectives for the year.  Here are a few of them:

• As promised there will now be a Sabbatical Hot-Desk running in the JCR every Friday lunch-time between 12:00-13:00. This will run without failure throughout the year with one or two Sabbatical Officers (Footnote 3) present to answer any questions or take any suggestions you might have about the Union, the College or your life in general as a student.
• In response to the demand for a better system of personal tutors I have been working with the College on the implementation of a personal tutor feedback system. I have been shown a demo of a proposed system that looks very promising. I am pushing for a system that allows the students to easily give feedback on their personal tutor and which will track whether appointments are made/attended by the tutor and students. The system would most likely give the tutor access to all academic information which should make the interaction between tutors and tutees much more useful and productive.
• As promised I am currently hard at work developing a consultation mechanism to be used by the College when consulting students. This will essentially be a quality mark that we as a Union will award to decisions made by departments when they have appropriately consulted with students before making a decision that affects students. I am currently working on exactly how this is going to look and the various criteria that will need to be completed. I will then proceed to consult various people within the College to ensure that the requirements are reasonable and achievable and to begin using it when making decisions. By making it much easier for staff in the College to properly consult students I believe the quality of decisions made will increase dramatically, as will the student experience.
• As promised there has been extensive input from Postgraduate students into the renaming of the old Holland Club, which is currently undergoing redevelopment. A request for name suggestions was sent out in the postgraduate newsletter a few months ago. These suggestions have recently been narrowed down, and one has been provisionally selected. This will be announced in due course.

OH! And here is a podcast I recorded with Professor Debra Humphris (Vice Provost Education) about this year's NSS results (footnote 4) http://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/imedia/content/view/3840/national-student-sur...

I will be on a train to Nottingham tomorrow morning to re-attend Aldwych (Footnote 5) along with Nat (Deputy President Education). I will be asking other Unions what their experiences are with being consulted by their University and if they have anything similar to the Consultation mechanism that I am developing.

Until next time!

David.

(1) The role of Rector has been split into the ‘President and Rector’ (Sir Keith O’Nions) and the Provost. The ‘Provost’ is the person charged with academic matters and the internal running of the College whilst the ‘President and Rector’ is charged with the overall strategic mission and international profile.

(2) The Executive Committee is the body which acts on behalf of Council when Council is not in session. 

(3) In this case it will include the President, the Deputy Presidents and the Felix editor (who will be there handing out Felix- the student newspaper)

(4) The NSS (National Student Survey) is an annual survey filled in at the end of the final year for Undergraduates which asks them to rate their experience at the University.

(5) Aldwych is a group consisting of the Student Unions of the Russell Group Universities. We meet regularly throughout the year to share best practice and to enable collaborative work on important issues.