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.

Central Reps

About
Central Representatives are students who sit on Open University committees and groups that meet weekdays on campus in Milton Keynes (they generally meet 3 to 5 times per year, and the year currently runs from September to August). Consideration for appointment as a Central Rep is by application (supported by references). Applications are processed and references followed up and then everything is sent to an Executive Committee (E C) appointments panel who meet once face to face in May or June and online throughout the rest of the year. The appointments panel considers the applications and makes recommendations for appointment. The recommendations then go to the full E C for confirmation of appointment.

Recruitment and Selection
When considering suitability for appointment many factors are considered and the E C appointments panel has a document appropriately called the Principles of Appointment which it uses to help make decisions about suitability or not.

Once appointed a Central Rep will be allocated to a committee/group - usually this is based upon the preferences they express, but this can’t be guaranteed with applications that arrive outside the main appointments period as their preference may have already been allocated to someone else.

Having been given a committee or group the rep will be sent all available info about it including dates of meetings for year, and the Terms of Reference (T o R) for that particular body (the T o R details the scope, remit and usually the membership of that body), they will also often be contacted by the secretary to the committee/group to say welcome.

Training and Support
Reps in place by August are invited to attend the O U S A Central Training event which generally takes place in September. This is a residential weekend where old and new reps will take part in training sessions helping them familiarise themselves with their new roles (and just as importantly begin to build contacts with other reps and so develop their own support network.

Speaking of support networks there are a couple directly available to Central Reps. First of all the role falls under the remit of Vice President Education so all the Central Reps are supported and facilitated by V P Ed and that roles support team at the O U S A office. There is also a FirstClass conference where the reps can meet up, exchange ideas, discuss issues – this is also where the reports from meetings are posted for the attention of V P Ed.

Good To Go
The university committee year starts in September soon after training takes place and that’s when the Central Reps begin to fully perform their roles by attending their meetings, using their student voice to speak up about student related issues raised there, and reporting back to V P Ed about matters of interest coming out of the meetings.

Is It For You?
It all sounds very formal doesn’t it? I suppose to a certain extent it is – Central Reps are one of the main tools we have for making the university aware of our views and it’s important that we have people in those roles who are not only prepared to do the role but are also capable of it. The meetings themselves though generally friendly are disciplined affairs so can be a little intimidating to a lone student in a room full of university staff. The issues discussed can be technical and/or wide ranging – it is important we have the right people in the roles. All that said the roles can also be fun, interesting, equip you with new skills, hone some existing ones, build confidence, empower, help develop negotiating skills, and lots of other things that employers look for in their prospective employees.

More Info?
Interested? Have you got what it takes? Like to develop some worthwhile employability skills? Like to help make a difference – together? Want more information? Vacancies for Central Reps exist throughout the committee year and applications are always welcome – we are particularly always on the lookout for research student applicants who are significantly under represented amongst our pool of reps

Contact

O U S A P O Box 397
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6BE

ousa@student.open.ac.uk

01908 652026

Student Representatives

One of the primary functions of the Student Association is to present the student viewpoint to the university. We do this in a variety of ways and at various levels of the university structure. One of the main ways we put forward the student viewpoint is by having Student Representatives attend face to face meetings held by the university.

Student Reps are appointed (or for some committees they are elected) to sit on university committees and groups at both regional and national level. They put forward the student viewpoint by using; personal experience, anecdotal evidence, and by using OUSA policy from the Register of Decisions (the Associations policy document which contains all the policies decided over time by our annual conference).

The various types of Student Representative are:

• Central Representatives
• Central Disciplinary Committee Representatives
• Central Consultative Committee Representatives
• Regional Committee Representatives
• Regional Consultative Committee Representatives
• Regional Representatives to the Senate Reference Group

More about each of these roles in a while.