Student Representation, Libraries, National Student Survey and Clearing......

Since returning from training ive been busy working on student representation within the university. Traditionally this has been excellent in some faculties and poor in others. One of my aims this year is to build on the Course Rep system and develop representation at a faculty level which will be more coherent and productive. We seem to be good at the department level (staff-student liaison committees) and at higher university level committees (attended by RUSU sabbatical officers) but not at the bits inbetween (Faculty level). So by creating a clear set of guidelines for departments, schools and faculties along with recruitment of more reps (you guys!) that are trained we will see a massive improvement in student representation.

***Course Rep Sales Pitch***

Representation is vital in the communication network of the university; it gives students the chance to feed back on a range of issues. In recent years there has been an increased drive for students to have a larger role in the way their institution is run; through the course rep scheme you can be part of this representation – Please come and see me for more details.

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Also this week the results of the National Student Survey have been announced. 87% of Reading students said they were happy with their course, Dave and I discussed the figures this afternoon and an area for improvement appears to be assessment and feedback, we will be talking to the university to see how this could be improved, including working towards anonymous marking, more contact time on your courses and better representation (mentioned above).

Other work this week includes working on the years campaigns - more to follow soon,Ii have also visited Bulmurshe Library on the university satellite campus to look at the issues they are facing and discussing the exciting changes to the ground floor in Whiteknights library this year.

Several times this week I have visited the clearing office , with top up fees coming in, recruitment and marketing is high on the university agenda. The clearing team have been working hard all week and with an allocation of extra student numbers it has certainly been a challenge. It has been great to see more students on campus, so if your thinking of coming to Reading pop into the union and see us!

Anyway im off to cook dinner!

Ryan
r.j.e.bird@reading.ac.uk

The first blog of Bird

Hello,

Six weeks into my role as VP Education and i have finally managed to set up a blog, so I am now part of the 'e-revolution' of communication at RUSU. Working as a student representative during the time of year when there are so few students around has been an odd start, yet i have been extremely busy, with training, meeting union and university staff and planning my work the next year.

A bit of background about me…..

Well, I’m from Burnham-on-sea, Somerset, i joined Reading in 2003 after my gap year which i spent in Sri Lanka, i studied Human and Physical Geography which i absolutely loved, i was an ambassador through which i visited schools in the area to spread the word about Geography and The University of Reading, i also took part in the CSV Learning Together programme. In my second year i was elected as JCR Treasurer for St Georges Hall and then became joint president in my final year.

All these opportunities led to my involvement in the union, and then through attending student council i really started to understand how much the union does for students, and i wanted to be a part of that - and so one grilling at hustings, one cold election week outside campaigning and one set of final exams and here i am!

I will be posting more about my role and plans shortly, so come back soon.

Ryan