Student Senate Reference Group

Representation from the regions is an important part of the make up the Open University Students Association (OUSA). Regions are where the students are and it is important that those students are allowed to have their voices heard by the university. One way of ensuring the voice of students from the regions reaches the university by enabling those voices to feed into the governance structure. Senate is the highest tier of the Academic Governance structure and students have six seats on Senate.

In order to ensure that regional voices feed into Senate OUSA negotiated a student body called the Senate Reference Group. This group meets prior to Senate (usually from about 10.30am) to discuss issues, go through the papers, and allows the six students going forward to the actual Senate meeting to take with them opinions and views form a wider student perspective. Following the pre Senate meeting there are usually workshops on issues of current interest to the student body and sometimes presentations by various departments of the university.

Amongst other student representatives on the student Senate Reference Group each region is entitled to send one appointed representative. Applications are now invited from students within the region. All current students are invited to consider applying for the position in their region. As well as attending the Senate Reference Group meetings detailed below, the representatives will also be invited to attend OUSA Regional Forum meetings in their own region. Travel expenses (and where necessary over night accommodation) will be paid for all meetings attended. Senate Reference Group members are expected to feed back to their region on events and outcomes of the day.

Scope of Group: advising student representatives sitting on Senate (the University's academic governance body) on issues involving regulating the University’s programmes of study, admissions, research, teaching and awards as well as monitoring, steering, reviewing and determining academic policy

No. of representatives: one per region

Length of Term: September 2006 to September 2007

No. of meetings: 4 per year (provisionally but may be more)

Timings of meetings: weekdays

Venue of meetings: Milton Keynes

Requirements of OUSA Representatives

• Interest in advancing student needs
• Ability to summarise important points for reporting back to regional forums
• Ability to put across points and deal with questions
• Time to spare and flexibility to attend all group meetings
• Attendance at 3-4 OUSA Regional Forum meetings (usually weekends held locally within the region) per year
• Submission of reports to Regional Forum meetings
• Awareness of OUSA policy (desirable)
• Experience of committees (desirable)
• Experience of dealing with people at all levels (desirable)
  

To Apply

Please complete and sign the Application Form for Appointment to Regional Committees clearly stating that it is Senate Reference Group that you are interested in. The completed form should then be sent to the OUSA office at PO Box 397, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BE, to arrive no later than the 1st December 2006.

Appointments will be made by the OUSA Regional Forum and will be based on suitability and experience of applicants for these important positions. Applications from inexperienced representatives and new students are welcome as training will be given.

For further information on this, and other representation opportunities within OUSA, please contact the OUSA office or your local Regional Forum.

Are you an employer?

OUSA have been asked to form a small group of student employers to act as an advisory panel to the Work Related and Employer Engagement Group (WREEG). The university has lots of experience and contact with large businesses but its knowledge of the small to medium enterprise (SME) and how to engage with them is limited. At a recent meeting of the group OUSA advised them that they already had a significant number of contacts in the area – amongst the student population. If you are an employer and think you might be interested in joining a group to advise the university then please do get in touch and we’ll have a chat. The group is unlikely to meet face to face (for those of you concerned about the time commitment) it is anticipated at all meetings will take place electronically.

Student Support Review First Report

A draft copy of the much heralded Student Support Review First Report landed on my desk last week (and many thanks to Mary Kirby for facilitating that).

Wow what a weighty tome it is! I've just finished working my way through it in preparation for the round of discussions that of course will follow its publication and I'm impressed with how much of what it contains reflects the student viewpoint that I know fed into the review process and informed the team behind it. Not that I ever doubted they were listening to us, but it is good to see the evidence of it.

The report will now do the rounds of Senate and the consultative structure where once again the student voice will be able to feed into it - so I do urge those of you on committees to read the report when you get your papers, discuss it with your local student groups, attend your meetings where it will be discussed, and raise your student voice.

The review team have opened a forum on FirstClass called Student Support Review Evidence - it's purpose is to gather additional evidence and comment on the overviews from the evidence website (that isn't up and running yet but I'll provide a link as soon as it is) they are inviting comments from all interested parties (so that would be us then yes? It's our future support structure and mechanisms they are talking about so we're interested in it aren't we?) - if you have anything to say then go along and say it please.

O U S A will also be hosting it's own forum (which will be opening soon and will be located inside the O U S A Matters forum) - this will be more of a discussion forum so that those who wish can feed back to the team of student reps who attend the Stakeholder Reference Group (which is a part of the Student Support Review team consulting structure) can take a wider student view of the first report back to the next meeting. Please do come along and join in the discussions.