Growing The Rep-ertoire: Looking After Your Academic Reps

Since launching our Academic Review last year, the academic representation system has been going through a lot of changes to ensure that academic reps represent the academic interests of students across the University. Two of the things we’re excited to implement this year following the review are a year-round development plan and a recognition scheme.

The Year-Round Development Plan

The year-round development plan intends to go further than your initial induction, providing academic reps with a variety of training opportunities throughout the year. By further developing their skills, and broadening their understanding of the role, we’ll ensure that they are best equipped to represent you.

This year we’ll be running a session looking at the developments in academic societies with your VP Education and VP Societies & Media. We’ll also be running an ‘Influence and Inclusivity’ session, taking a look at the dynamics of power and valued relationships in part one, and in part two we’ll examine inclusive representation and understanding your peers. This will help push reps’ awareness and skills in exercising their reach as a representative.

But that’s not all. In the New Year there will be a ‘Tech in Learning’ session investigating how modern technologies can aid every day learning, and the impact they can have on the wider community. We’ll be ending the year with a ‘Careers Development’ workshop, dedicated to looking at what reps have been doing throughout the year, identifying their transferable skills, and looking to the future.

Recognition

We’re also going to be celebrating all the amazing work our academic reps do, so we’ve set up a new recognition scheme that aims to reward reps for the work they undertake within their role. This will happen in two parts:

First, we’ll be running a ‘Rep of the Month’ scheme where one rep each month will be nominated for the work they’ve done and then be rewarded and celebrated by the Students’ Union.

Secondly, there will also be a tiered rewards scheme for each of the representative roles. Reps will have a series of opportunities to complete activities, all of which will tie in with being an engaged and high-performing representative. As you might expect, the first tier is the easiest to achieve but the higher you go, the more challenging it becomes. But trust us, the third tier is definitely worth it. The rewards will vary from certificates, to merch and goodies, and the top reward being a reference for your CV and a full lunch with Professor Katie Normington, Senior Vice-Principal (Academic), so there’s a lot up for grabs.

Interested in taking part? This year, elections for course and department reps will be happening online for the first time – keep an eye out on the website for nominations opening at the end of Freshers’ Festival.