I'm Rob Stanning and I'm your new VP Academic Affairs!

I'm really looking forward to making a difference and getting stuck in. I'm working on a few projects at the moment and will update this page when I have more to update you on!

Have a great summer,

Rob x

Next week you will be able to vote for who you want to be my successor. Unfortunately my original sucessor Chris Pidgley had to withdraw. There are now 9 candidates running for Vice President Academic Affairs (Previously Vice President Education and Representation) check them out at www.elections.susu.org

The library is reviewing it's food and drink policy - tell them what you think - tweet them @UoSlibfood or email libenqs@soton.ac.uk.

Are you a current or prospective part time student?

If so, join our group and let us know how we can support you best!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=131378316872829

The Aldwych Group (The 20 Students' Unions of the Russell Group Universities) have issued their press release following suggestions for Russell Group universities to go private.

See below:

STUDENTS’ UNIONS OF THE RUSSELL GROUP OPPOSE PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES

Students at some of Britain’s top universities have objected to suggestions from the Russell Groupthat universities'go private'ifhigher education funding is not increased.

The Russell Group [1], which represents the top twenty research-intensive universities, has said that they would look at"radical options" if an increase inhigher education funding isnot forthcoming.The announcement comes shortly after the Russell Group advised the Browne Review to raise tuition fees to a level high enough to create a true market in the sector, implying that the Russell Group would consider the private option higher education funding was not increased through the proposed rise in student fees.

Giving evidence at the latest public hearing, held at the University of Leicester, Director general of the Russell group Wendy Piatt said universities could soon find themselves unable to meet students’ expectations because of the funding gap they faced. It would like more money to be raised by lifting the cap on tuition and by getting graduates and by placing a higher loan interest rates and introducing quicker repayments.

Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, Chair of the Aldwych Group [2] and LSE Students' Union Education and Welfare Officer said:

“I find the recent tactics of the Russell Group deplorable. What the Russell Group has said amounts to an ultimatum- raise fees or we go private.

"This is another in an increasing list of proposals and announcements that jeopardizes fair access tohigher education. Alluniversities currently rely on a significant amount of public funding in order to operate.Tuition feesin private institutionswould be astronomically high and would mean that only the richest would be able to afford them.

"For the Russell Group to threaten to go private is tantamount to holding the government to ransom and fails to take into account the interests of the rest of higher education sector.The Browne Review needs to ensure that there is a progressive restructuring of the system that is both beneficial for universities and students”.

ENDS

NOTES

[1] The Russell Group is a group of the twenty 20 top research-intensive universities in the UK. It was founded in 1994 and named after the Russell Hotel, London, at which its first meeting took place.

[2] The Aldwych Group is the group of students' unions of the members of the Russell Group. It was established in 1994 as a watchdog in response to the creation of the Russell Group. It is so called because its first meeting was held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), which is located on the Aldwych in Central London.

CONTACTS

Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, Chair of the Aldwych Group and LSE Students' Union Education and Welfare Officer - 020 7955 6709 or 07772397 930

Emma Di Iorio, Vice Chair of the Aldwych Group and University of Bristol Students’ Union Vice President (Education) - 07849 080792 or 0117 3313 508

Thomas Chigbo, Secretary of the Aldwych Group and President of Cambridge University Students’ Union – 01223 333 313

The University has drafted an assessment feedback policy.

This is great news as it took large amounts of input from last year's assessment feedback survey, from NSS and SEQ data, and as SUSU was involved the whole way throughout the time, in the assessment feedback working group

It has been approved by University committees in principle but needs ratification by Senate in June

Email me - education@susu.org if you want to see it. I welcome any comments on it!

The University of Southampton has not actively promoted an increase in student fees. However, along with other leading universities in the UK, we recognise the dilemma now facing the government in enabling Universities to secure the level of investment that is needed to maintain quality and accessible education, and world leading research.

Under current arrangements the lion’s share of the funding for Universities comes from the taxpayer in the form of public funding. Students also make a “private” contribution that can be deferred by taking a loan, repayable if and when a graduate’s income exceeds a defined level. These loans are at preferential rates and are, in effect, subsidised.

What do you think about this?

Today I saw the coalition programme for Government. (here)

I was particularly interested in the bit about FE and Universities. (here)

Take a read yourself, but there was one bit that particularly concerned me:

'If the response of the Government to Lord Browne’s report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote.'

So this means that if the Browne Review (The review the Government set up to review HE funding) concludes that fees should go up, the Lib Dems are entitled to abstain from voting.

Does this not essentially mean that they will implicitly be supporting the rise? -as they won't be voting against it. Many Lib Dem candidates talked about not supporting fees prior to the election, and many also signed the NUS pledge (although we aren't part of the NUS, it still has some resonance) and now they are saying they would just abstain?! Do you think this is fair?

Unless you live in Eastleigh, we are not represented by a Lib Dem candidate, however you can still have your say. Use this template letter (available soon) to send to your local MP asking them to represent you in Parliament on higher education funding.

This is the executives' response to AGM concerns. It was read out at Union Council and publicised on the SUSU twitter, but for those who have yet to see it, this is the response:

We’d firstly like to give our apologies to anyone who was left frustrated or disenfranchised by the Annual General Meeting yesterday. We’d also like to give our apologies to the chair of the AGM Phoebe Gardiner, as she had not received proper training for the role, and had she had training, some of the below issues and frustrations may have been alleviated.

Quorum issues(not enough for the minimum)

1) It was a figured ‘plucked out of thin air’

The figure of 250 for quorum is set out in the constitution.

2) Lack of quorum caused the meeting to start late. (And so delayed other proceedings)

We tried to publicise the meeting as much as possible to encourage students to come, however by constitution we would not be able to run an AGM without quorum. It is unfortunate, but it would be undemocratic of us to start the meeting without quorum. (And arguably students could say 250 is too low as it is.) We have addressed the issue of delay and length of proceedings hindering other motions below.

3) Someone called quorum, which would have lead to us counting and possibly ending the meeting due to not being quorum, but it was then re-voked.

Quorum works in the sense that as long as we are quorum for the first half an hour, we can carry on, unless someone asks to check if we are quorum.

When someone called quorum, the feeling of the room was to carry on, and unless we had counted, we could still carry on. The ‘quorum’ call was withdrawn and we carried on. However, as the validity of motions has been called into question, motion 6 ‘location of AU clubs AGMs’ will be taken to the Emergency General Meeting on Monday 17th May to be ratified. If we are not quorate at the Emergency General Meeting, the motion will go to Union Council to be ratified. Allan Steynor, Athletic Union President and proposer of the motion has said he will withdraw the motion if it is not ratified and plans to work closely with Sophie Paterson, VP Welfare and Societies on the issue regardless.

Timing of the meeting

The constitution states that the AGM must be in the summer term and we understand it may be a lot of time out for students to take out to come however this was the best date available. We do understand that frustrations were borne out of waiting and not having chance to discuss the motion students had waited for and we are looking to change the running order of meetings to allow motions to be discussed first in future. We are also holding an Emergency General Meeting to allow these motions to be discussed.

Publicity

We had posters and flyers and advertised on facebook and twitter as well as on our website (agm.susu.org) and all forms of advertising were linked to the AGM website which had details of the meeting, and how to submit a motion. The University won’t let us have access to all email addresses, so we were only able to send an email to schools to ask them to send it out for us. We will try and publicise the AGM more and earlier next year.

Issue of students not having their voice heard.

1) Way of debating

We realise the way of debating is very antiquated and are looking at changing our way of debating for the future.

We are also looking at making sure rules for how the meeting works (i.e how a motion will be discussed) and any procedural motions (e.g. what you can raise and when) are given to students when they are in union meetings so they can understand what is going on.

2) ‘filbustering’/ order of motions/order of agenda

The reason for the 3pm cut off was as students in theatre group had the cube booked for a play after that.

It would never be our intention to ‘filbuster’ a meeting. The order of the agenda and motions are set by the order in the constitution.

We pushed for the first time this year that students could use the AGM to pass motions and were glad to see so many motions. Unfortunately we did not realise we wouldn’t be able to get through all these motions with the cut off of 3pm, yet in hindsight we should have done.

We are looking to changing the constitution to say that motions come first in meetings so students motions are heard first. We are similarly looking to change the constitution to say that any students who are not part of council may get their motions heard first. However, some students have commented that we needed to make other motions to go to Council where they would be more appropriate. We understand the concerns, however it would be unfair of us to dictate which motion should go where, and all students, whether on Union Council or not, should have the option to bring a motion to the AGM.

We have taken on board the comments about sabbatical reports and are looking towards putting them online and having a separate question and answer session in the future.

We felt the sabbatical and financial reports were necessary as students often wonder what we do, or what we have achieved, so we felt it was important to use that forum to be transparent and show what we had achieved.

3) ‘This was students’ one chance’

We understand frustrations of students whose motions were not discussed and realise that the AGM is one opportunity for motions to be proposed. However, we want to clarify that anyone can propose a motion at any time at Union Council, through a Union Council member. This may sound bureaucratic, but Council is this way to stop cliques coming along in big groups to push their motions through, and ensures that council is more representative. Similarly, Union Council is made up of representatives of different areas and cohorts, so the student on Council is there as a representative for you, not just there to say their own views.

Students also seemed concerned that motions that were not discussed at the AGM would go to Union Council and this would mean they would not be able to vote on the issue. Whilst we feel Council should be representative, we understand this concern and are putting on an Emergency General Meeting on Monday 17th May at 5pm in the Cube, where the outstanding motions can be discussed and any members at this EGM can vote.

Way of voting

We are looking into other ways of voting; at the time the electronic voting system does not have the capacity for quorum. We’ve explored paper ballots as a potential and will look to change the way of voting if possible in the future.

We will be holding an emergency general meeting in the Cube from 5pm on Monday 17th May. This is so that those who felt they did not get their motions etc heard at the AGM have another chance. There will be more details to come