SU holds first ever Education Convention

Warwick Students’ Union’s first ever Education Convention was held on Wednesday 25 January, and was well-attended by staff and students.

The convention featured a question and answer style debate with a panel of the University’s senior management and smaller group discussions. The split into faculties enabled students and SSLC representatives to discuss issues relevant to their courses, and to attend short workshops.

At the Arts Faculty forum, the _Boar_ heard, amongst many other issues, intense discussion on the limitations of the Humanities building. Complaints concerned lack of space affected seminar discussions and how its negative effect on prospective students would impact on admissions.

The low contact hours for Humanities was also a concern and comparisons were made with more generous allocations for science and maths. A second-year History and French student declared: “as a Humanities student, I would not be prepared to pay £9,000 for the eight hours of contact time I receive a week”.

In the discussion after the forum, Cherelle Laryea, a third-year Psychology student, commented: “It seems that as we’re all Warwick University students we should all get equal contact time”.

Problems with essay returns were also discussed. Students argued against penalties for late submission whilst tutors are not accountable for late essay returns. English postgraduate Claire Bradwell commented that she was simply not getting essays back anymore, feedback she felt was crucial for her academic progression.

Third-year Classics student Nathan Murphy stated: “my tutors are frequently late in returning our essays, and when they do, essay feedback replaces our lecture or seminar for that week”.

Roger Levy, Chair of the Board of Undergraduate Studies at the University reported that Vice Chancellor Nigel Thrift was “keen to address this issue in the institutional review”.

Wider issues raised in the panel discussion included the lack of food outlets and cash and water machines at locations outside of the central Campus, such as Westwood and Gibbet Hill.

Mark Potter, Director of Retail at the University responded that an outlet in the Maths and Statistics building is “part of the five-year plan” amongst other locations on campus.

Responses to the convention were mixed. Postgraduate Arts Faculty representative Judith Blackwell said: “it’s been very useful for me to have members of the different departments in one room, at SSLC meetings it’s been very difficult to discuss wider issues than the department.”

Rosie Grayaburn, a PhD Physics student, found it interesting to see others’ views though the event was “more interesting than helpful.

Generally as a science student I’m quite happy, we have a lot of funding and nice buildings”.

Theatre Studies students Sophie Barnett and Fiona Joseph appreciated being able to voice concerns as their department apparently discourages them from joining theatre societies: “at open days we were told that this was an added bonus of University. Given that it’s so relevant to our course, we feel that our tutors should be more supportive of theatre society involvement”.

Students’ Union (SU) Education Officer Sean Ruston emphasised the importance of students from the SSLC system and other institutions giving direct feedback to the SU as well as the University’s senior management: “I think the convention complements rather than undermines the SSLC system, because at Warwick we have a very departmental system and every so often we get issues that can only be dealt with University-wide. Having people together in one room allows that feedback to take place”.