Your Education President's Summer Update
Hello and welcome to the first of my monthly updates. These will give you an overview of what I’ve been up to over the past month and how much progress I’ve made in delivering my manifesto points.
Over the summer...
I've been working with the SU staff team to plan upcoming awareness campaigns for the year, including an upcoming Dyslexia Awareness Campaign and campaigns relating to my manifesto points on sexual harassment and sexual assault.
I’ve also been working through my manifesto points. I’ve met with senior staff at the University to discuss learning resources and the mental health support we provide to our students. I'm currently drafting a case for the university to scrap the £100 dyslexia diagnosis fee and I’ll present this to the University soon.
I've Held Introductory meetings with a range of different University departments and staff. These relationships will be vital as both myself and Caitlin seek to implement our manifesto points in the coming year. We've also been building relationships with SU presidents from universities right across the country. In August I attended NUS “lead and change”, a conference for SU presidents alongside Caitlin. One of the takeaway messages from this conference was the effect of the current cost of living crisis on students – this is something we will be keeping a close eye on during the upcoming year.
Alongside my team at SMSU, I’ve also been preparing for course rep recruitment. Being a course rep is a great boost for your CV, allows you to build key employability skills and network with students and staff alike. If You’re interested, please speak to your course lead.
Alongside this, we’ve been recruiting and training our new “subject chairs”. Our four subject chairs will act as the lead student representatives for their faculty, supporting the course reps and ensuring our feedback system responds effectively to student’s concerns. You can find out who your subject chair is on the SMSU website.
Finally, I’ve also been supporting students individually with a range of academic and personal issues.
That’s it for this month's update.
As always, if you have any issues, concerns or ideas please do get in touch.
educationpresident@stmarys.ac.uk
