We know academic reps do amazing things, and we want to shout about them so they can get the recognition they deserve! Find out how your reps have had a positive impact on your academic interests this year!
This year, our academic reps have been busy working to improve the academic experience for their coursemates, themselves and even prospective students. It has been fantastic to see the great work being achieved by reps at course, department and school level and we would like to recognise and celebrate this work now that we have reached the end of the academic year.
In January, Jayden Bookout received recognition as Rep of the Month for her work as a student curriculum consultant on two validation panels this year. A handful of other reps have also taken on this role in the meetings and provided valuable student perspective. Validation panels serve as an opportunity to review the purpose, learning outcomes, and modules for a new course. Thank you to Sofía Cano, Felix Poree, Jake Cornwell and Martin Kapusta, and Jayden for attending and representing student voice at this level.
Andrei Mitroi was recognised as Rep of the Month for January as he has been a very strong advocate for building student/staff relationships and providing important insight into how to improve academic issues in the department. He always effectively communicated and resolved issues to the best of his abilities throughout the year.
In March, Lucy Yarrow was awarded Rep of the Month for facilitating a year abroad session for students to share feedback on the year abroad/Erasmus programme with department staff and University central administration. As a result of this session, the department was able to identify problems with communication and administration and is now planning meetings to solve the issues with the programme which will benefit 40-60 current students and any future Modern Languages year abroad students.
Zhe Long Ou has made important contributions to improving the academic experience of his coursemates. From forwarding important student feedback to senior department staff to providing more support for his cohort, he has been working hard this year to improve the academic experience for his coursemates which earned him Rep of the Month in April.
Ronak Shah was recognised as Rep of the Month in May for work including raising issues with department staff around timetabling, organising a group trip to the London Tech Show in March, and generally being an invaluable representation of student voice to his department.
Mia Cavanagh has been working hard this year to represent students in her department which is why she was recognised as Rep of the Month for June. Mia organised a meeting with staff involved in the module allocation process. After finding out about students’ thoughts on the current system, she approached department staff to present the feedback and discuss possible solutions to improve the system in the future.
Third-year undergraduate Psychology reps, Louise Adams, Niamh Hinkley, and Christina Michalopoulou have been working hard chairing the SSC meetings, participating in extracurricular Psychology events, promoting the department, building staff-student relationships, enhancing communication and providing important feedback in more than one way (such as creating student satisfaction/dissatisfaction percentages to share with staff). All these contributions have not gone unnoticed by the departmental staff who have reportedly found it invaluable and noticed a great improvement in student-staff relationships and student feedback this academic year compared to previous years.
Jack Masters, School of Humanities Rep, has been keeping the Humanities Instagram account up to date. Jack also uploaded information regarding dates and times of both academic and social events, which was very useful for the department.
Well done, everyone!