Undergraduate Academic

Representation Handbook 2010/11

Undergraduate Academic Representation

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 Contents
Contents 2
Introduction 3-4
Why Become a rep? 5-6
Personal & Professional 6
Development
Recognition 6
Year Representatives (Roles & 7-11
Responsibilities)
At the beginning 7
During the year Dealing with issues 8
Disseminating information 9
Monitoring 11
Departmental Representatives 12-15
(Roles & Responsibilities)
At the beginning 12
During the year Managing Year Representatives and 13
staff contact
Staff-Student Committee (SSC) 14
meetings
Departmental society 15
Academic Affairs Officers (Roles 16-17
& Responsibilities)
At the beginning 16
During the year Faculty Representation Meetings 17
Communication 18
Support and Resources 18
Feedback 19
Meetings 20
Suggested agenda template for all 21
Staff-Student Meetings
Useful Contacts 23

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Introduction
Welcome to your new wonderful
career as an Imperial College student
representative. This handbook has been
designed not only to assist you in being
the best rep you can be, but also to show
you how to make the most of this year!

Over 8,500 undergraduate students

study at Imperial College. Students
work in groups but ultimately each
student is in their own situation, carries Alex Dahinton
out their own tasks, and experiences Deputy President (Education)
E: dpeducation@imperial.ac.uk
their own interactions with College.
T:020 7594 8060, extension: 45646
Problems arise every day and without
representation students are powerless to
resolve significant issues. This handbook
has essential information, advice and
guidance that will help you through your
year as a student rep. There will be times
when it can either give you the answer
or show you where to go for help. It is
designed to be used throughout the year

Representation brings power to the

students. As a rep you have been
allocated the authority and control to
bring up issues which College is not
aware of, and step on their toes (not
literally!) over issues which have not been
resolved. At Imperial, a sophisticated
undergraduate academic representation
structure brings power to each
student through Year Representatives, Andrew Keenan
Departmental Representatives and Representation Coordinator
Academic Affairs Officers. Student-staff E: a.keenan@imperial.ac.uk
T:020 7594 5387, extension: 45387
meetings solve some problems, and
dealing with other problems requires the
help of other parts of the representation
system.
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 Introduction cont...
The following figure illustrates this
structure:

Union  President

Deputy  President  
Representation  Coordinator
(Education)

Academic  Affairs  Officers  (AAO) Faculty  Union  President

Departmental  Representatives

Year  Representatives

Students

The double arrow lines are there for a become unaware of the hard work being
good reason - two-way communication is done by their reps.
completely fundamental to a successful
year of representation! Any break in the Here’s to a successful year!
above structure means either issues
students raise are not brought up in Alex Dahinten and Andrew Keenan
higher committees, or the students

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Why become a rep? What will I get out of it?
One who earns leadership of the masses
by working ceaselessly for people’s
welfare finally realises that he has been
rewarded with many added advantages.
Atharva Veda
Be assured: the primary reward of being
a representative is in the satisfaction of
having made a difference. Not just by
helping your fellow students overcome
difficulties but also by influencing
opinions and decisions directly affecting
your year/department/faculty. The
changes you make will be apparent in
your and your fellow students’ courses.
It takes a stagnant institution to be free
of problems for resolution and there
will always be a need for academic
representation. The most satisfied,
fulfilled students will still have issues to
raise, and it is often the very best, most
effective staff who will take advantage
of our representative capabilities the
most. The College itself is aware of
the importance of an effective student
representation system, and is supportive
of your efforts – if students cannot
raise the issues which prevent constant
improvement of College’s academic
offerings, then who will?
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 Personal & Professional Development
But there’s even more in it for you.
Alongside the knowledge that you will
have made a difference to how well you
and your peers have been taught, being a
rep is an ideal way to work on your own
development –which means your time as
a rep can have benefits long after you’ve
crossed the stage in the Albert Hall.
These benefits can be both personal and
professional, and can be an invaluable
boost to your employability. Being an
effective rep will mean being proficient
in teamwork, time management,
interpersonal communication, and
problem solving. The best thing is, you
aren’t learning these in the abstract – you
will be experiencing them first-hand with
real consequences, and employers value
that above almost everything else.
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More information on what being a rep
can offer you, and how to develop your
skills, will be available from the Union
website.
Recognition
This year, we have introduced a
special award for the most dedicated
representatives. On top of receiving
Union colours, you will be singled out
as the outstanding rep in your faculty.
The award can be won by either
Departmental or Year Reps, and each
Faculty will have one winner for each.
We will be looking at attendance to the
various meetings throughout the year,
as well as general enthusiasm towards
representing your peers. Even if you do
not win “Faculty Rep of the Year”, you
can still be nominated for Union Colours
or Half-Colours!
Year Representatives
(Roles & Responsabilities)
Whichever kind of representative you are,
read through this entire section and make
sure you understand the responsibilities
of each member of the representation
structure.
If you are a Year Rep, you will have
most likely been elected recently in
the first few weeks (back) at Imperial.
Congratulations! In brief, your duty is to
represent all students in your year within
your College Department. You report
to your Departmental Representative,
passing difficult systemic problems up to
them and feeding your communications
and achievements back to the students in
your year.
As a Year Representative, your duties are
straightforward but vital. You are the only
representatives in direct contact with the
students you are serving and therefore
act as their first point of call when
problems arise. You are instrumental in
academic representation, as the primary
means of communication between the
representative structure, College staff
and the student body.
At the beginning
Your first task is to make yourself known
to your year. Your manifesto and election
was not enough: once you are elected,
you must make your role absolutely clear
to your year so that they can use your
power effectively.
Start off by sending an email to
everyone in your year group (talk to your
Departmental Administrator to find out
how to do this). It may be best to forward
the email to them and ask them to send
it. In this email, you should:
• Introduce yourself as their Year
Representative
•Outline what your role is, including your
responsibility of relating issues to staff
and upwards where necessary
•Give them contact details - this is
usually just your email address.
•Also give them the name and email
address of your Departmental
Representative - you are accountable
to the students if you don’t do your job,
and they must have a point of contact.
They may simply need a contact if you
are ill or away.
•Keep a relaxed, informal tone – you are
their peer – but write a smart and easy-
to-read email.
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 Year Representatives cont...
During the year: dealing with issues
arising
If you have made your role clear to
your fellow students, it won’t be long
until they first approach you. When this
happens, your first task is to gather
information on the issue. Ask yourself:
• What EXACTLY is the problem? If
it’s not an academic issue, it is out of
your scope: refer them elsewhere (see
Useful Contacts Section). Talk to all the
students involved in the issue until you
are completely clear about it.
• Who does it affect? Which student or
group of students? This could range
from one student to the entire college.
Issues affecting one student must
still be dealt with but may have to be
deprioritised in favour of problems
affecting many people, or may require
particular care to maintain the student’s
right to privacy or even anonymity.
• How does it affect those students?
In what way are they pressured or
disadvantaged? Try and assess the
nature and the extent of the effect by
talking to them.
• Occasionally, you might be presented
with a problem that is best solved by
the College’s and Union’s welfare staff.
If so, direct the student to the right
member of staff – be that a College
Tutor, the Deputy President (Welfare),
or the Student Adviser.
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At this point you are in a position to
decide where to take the issue. It may
be appropriate to simply monitor the
situation, perhaps if it is something that
should sort itself out. It is more likely that
you will have to take action by elevating
the issue. It is then time to decide where
best to take it.
Broadly speaking, elevating an issue
means taking it along one of two
routes: directly to departmental staff,
or up to the next level of the student
representation structure. The appropriate
route is at your discretion.
• If you believe your issue could
benefit from consideration by your
departmental staff, make it happen.
Your primary point of contact with staff
is at Staff-Student Meetings, however
you do not need to wait for these
meetings to bring up issues.
• If you are unsure of how a problem
might be solved OR a problem
remains unsatisfactorily addressed
after a Staff-Student Meeting OR there
is some complication (e.g. personal
privacy issues) you must elevate
the issue to the next level of the
student representation structure: your
Departmental Representative.
In certain circumstances, generally urgent academic problems that require immediate
attention, do not wait for the next Staff-Student Meeting or for your next meeting with
your Departmental Representative. Speak to a member of your departmental staff
describing the problem and its urgency, or to the Deputy President (Education).

During the year: disseminating information

Just as you are responsible for representing the views and experience of your year
group to College staff and Departmental Representatives, you are responsible for
disseminating information down to the student body too!

All aspects of your active representation must be made transparent to the

students you are representing.

Where you are bringing an issue to the attention of staff or other representatives, you
must ensure that all students involved in the issue are informed and continually kept
updated. This might be an acknowledgement of the issue and a promise to investigate
further. It might be an explanation of the rationale behind the decision not to act or it
might be a proposed solution to the issue.

If you report an issue to staff, inform your students so that they know that the issue
is being dealt with.

If you receive any response from staff concerning the issue, report it to your
students.

If you elevate an issue to other representatives, inform your students so that they
know that the issue is being dealt with.

Should you find out that any decision has been or could be made by your department
that could affect students’ academic affairs in any way, whether positive or negative,
try to inform your students as soon as possible to allow them to consider the decision
and respond through you.

Throughout the year, you will be asked by your Departmental Representative/ AAO/
Deputy President (Education) Representative Coordinator to disseminate information
to your years. This may range from emails asking them to participate in one of our
surveys, to vital academic information updates. Please make sure that this info
reaches the students quickly!

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 Year Representatives cont...
Feeding your achievements and new information is important for two reasons:

• Representation cannot be said to be effective if the communication is only one-way.

A continuous feed of information back to students is essential and gives students
perspective on the matter: if a request is unrealistic, the students must know.
Likewise, if a solution has been reached, the students must be informed.

• For the effective representation of any group of people, the group must have a high
level of trust in the representative. Much of this trust must be built from scratch; the
only way to do it is to prove your value as a representative by directly involving your
students in every matter you deal with. By creating trust in you, it is more likely that
students will feel free to make use of your representative capabilities.

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During the year: monitoring First, ask yourself these questions.
Then consider how others might answer
Your job is both reactive and proactive. them. Ask some of your fellow students
While primarily you are the first calling directly, or stand in front of your year
point when your peers encounter and poll them. Monitoring your year for
any sort of blip in your academic potential issues is a continual process, so
environment, it is also very useful to go you should never stop considering these
out to collect information from them: questions. Be prepared to ask your year
by keeping your ear to the ground and on a regular basis what their feelings are.
picking up early anything that has the
potential to become a problem, you are In democracy everyone has the right to
in a far, far better position to deal with it be represented, even the jerks.
than if you wait until the problem comes Chris Patten
to you.
If you’re not sure whether a problem is
This includes keeping a close eye on worth tackling or not, whether it seems
your own personal academic affairs. You completely insolvable or completely
are your best judge of the quality of your trivial, elevate it anyway. It is always
course. Ask yourself: worth trying. Imperial is only a world-
leading institution through attention to
• Am I enjoying doing this or am I finding detail and every detail is worth touching
it particularly unpleasant? If I am finding up.
it unpleasant, is it a problem with the
teaching or administration that could
possibly benefit from representative
attention?
• Am I learning from this? If not, is it a
problem that could possibly benefit
from representative attention?
• Am I finding it difficult to keep up with
the work? Is it because I’m being given
too much of it?
• Is there any other problem that
is making it harder to learn than
necessary?

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 Departmental Representatives
(Roles & Responsibilities)
As Departmental Representatives,
you take ultimate responsibility for
making sure the student voice in your
department is heard. You have been
elected before the start of the year in
order to enable you to prepare for the
coming year and begin your job as soon
as teaching starts.
At the heart of the representation
structure, you are the link between Year
Reps and Faculty Union Academic Affairs
Officers. If you drop out of the structure,
you disconnect your entire department,
preventing them from being represented.
It’s also your role to manage the Year
Representative system below you and
make sure it is communicating upwards
and downwards and thus working
effectively.
At the beginning
Before you can fulfil your role, your Year
Representatives below you must be in
place, doing their job. So your first task
is to fill all Year Representative positions
and brief them. The sooner you do
this, the sooner your department will
be effectively represented! Choose an
appropriate time to carry out both of
these things; they should happen about
two or three days apart, to give them a
chance to decide whether they should
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stand for election or not.
Briefing them involves presenting the
role of Year Representative to them:
you must make it sound appealing
while ensuring they understand the
responsibilities of the job. Remember
to tell them when you will be returning
to hold the election. You should bring
some copies of this guide for them to
read: leave them on a desk as you leave
so that those who are interested can
consider standing at their own leisure.
Holding the election is simple. A show of
hands will suffice:
• Ask for those who wish to stand to
come forward
• Give each candidate a minute or two to
present their manifesto to the year and
answer any questions
• Remind the class that they can also
vote to re-open nominations (vote for
RON) if they don’t wish to elect any of
the candidates
• Send the candidates out of the room
and count votes for each candidate and
RON
• Allow them back in and announce the
result of the election
If you so wish, you can hold an online
election for your department. Contact
president@imperial.ac.uk for more
information.
Now that your Year Representatives
“team” has been established, make
sure that you introduce yourself
personally to them as their Departmental
Representative and take a note of their
names and CID numbers. Make sure you
send this list of names to the Deputy
President (Education) right after getting
them so that the Union can populate the
Rep database.
During the year: managing Year
Representatives and staff contact
Just as Year Representatives have a
responsibility to continuously monitor
the students they represent, picking up
issues quickly to minimise any negative
impact, you have a responsibility to
monitor your Year Representatives,
encouraging them to keep all their
communication channels open and their
ear to the ground. As a representative
yourself you should also remain very
close to the student body, being
prepared to talk to individual students as
necessary.
Your biggest responsibility lies
in organising Departmental
Representation Meetings, allowing
your Year Representatives to elevate
issues to you in a formal way. These
meetings should occur every 2-3 weeks
where possible. You and your Year
Reps must attend these meetings; it
is fine for anyone else to attend these
meetings as well and it is a good idea to
invite your Academic Affairs Officer to
attend.
The organised contact you have with
staff is the same as the contact the Year
Representatives have: Staff- Student
Meetings.
In effect, your ability to engage staff
in dialogue is no different from theirs:
anything you can talk to staff about, they
can talk to staff about. So why should
they elevate issues to you? There are
many reasons:
• A chance for dialogue: by bringing
issues to your attention and the
attention of their fellow Year
Representatives, you can explore the
issue in great detail: are any other
years of the course experiencing
this problem? Did previous years
experience it? Is it really an issue at all?
• It can then be elevated further: to your
Academic Affairs Officer.
Where issues come to your attention,
your duty is very similar to that of a Year
Representative: do some triage. If you
believe, following discussion between
you and your Year Reps, that bringing the
issue back to a Staff-Student Meeting
would be beneficial, then do this. If you
have hit a dead end, or you believe the
issue has consequences with a wider
range than your department, or you wish
to discuss the issues with a more senior
representative for any other reason,
then elevate the issue to your Academic
Affairs Officer.
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 Departmental Representatives cont...
During the year: Staff-Student Remember to cc in your AAO (see
Committee (SSC) Meetings Contacts) when you send these
reports to your departments.
Staff Student Committee meetings are
your time to shine as Dep Reps. You 2. A
 s soon as you get access to the
have the opportunity to bring up your meeting minutes, send a copy to
peers problems with your staff, and can the Representation Coordinator
monitor their willingness to deal with (representation@ic.ac.uk). Together
issues. A few weeks before the meeting with the Deputy President (Education),
takes place, make sure that your Year
Reps have collected a list of positive and
negative issues that have come up. Have
a Departmental Rep Meeting with them,
and decide on which issues are worth
bringing up with the Staff. You should
not feel intimidated by your College
Staff, however always remember to be
respectful and knowledgeable bout what
you have to say (see Meetings section
for more information).

After the meetings, there are two vital

things you need to do:

1. S
 end a short (and relevant) summary
of the SSC meeting minutes and what
was discussed, to the students of your
department. Keep it short and sweet,
however make sure that students
know what is happening behind the
scenes is your department. There
may be circumstances where your
Department Staff will ask you to keep
issues to yourself for the time being,
so please respect these wishes.

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they have a combined responsibility to
monitor the quality of undergraduate
representation and teaching across
College. By doing this they can assess
the effectiveness of representation
within each department, reflecting
on the readiness of the department’s
staff to listen and respond to
the student voice. It also allows
identification of weaker student
representatives, and the identification
of stronger representatives for
recognition and nomination for
Union Colours awards. The Deputy
President (education) also holds
termly presentations to the Quality
Assurance Advisory Committee,
letting them know how departments
are responding to the issues brought
up by students. This is done by
condensing and collating all the SSC
minutes and correspondences from
the Departmental Representatives
at the end of session each term.
The strategic advantage of this is
enormous: College is very keen to
foster a culture of constant academic
quality review and improvement
involving student representatives.
Where a department consistently fails
to satisfactorily address issues raised
by representatives, College’s senior
academic staff will readily investigate
and make recommendations directly to
the department, concerning both the
original issues raised and their ongoing
responsiveness to students.

During the year: Departmental society

Although the students you represent are

ultimately at Imperial to get a world-
class degree, they also want to have fun
in their free time! Your departmental
society is a great point of contact for
this, and supporting them will help
create a sense of community within your
department. Make sure students are
getting a bit of a break from the academic
pressures to have fun relaxing with their
course mates.

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 Academic Affairs Officers
(Roles & Responsibilities)
As Academic Affairs Officer (AAO),
you ultimately are in charge of the
representation network in your Faculty
Union (FU). Whether Engineer, Medic
or Scientist, everyone is represented
at Imperial and it is your job to make
sure that your FU reps are doing this job
well. You are the glue that keeps the rep
system within your respective faculty
unions (FU) intact. Throughout the year
you will work closely with your exec, the
Deputy President (Education), and the
Representation Coordinator, as well as
College Staff.
It’s your role to make sure that the Year
and Dep Rep are doing their jobs, and
to report up to the Deputy President
(Education). Of all the reps in your
department, you will have the most
contact with the college and faculty “big
dogs” through the numerous different
committees you stand on.
The AAO sits on the Union
Representation and Welfare Board
(RWB), where they represent their
faculty’s representation framework
together with the Faculty President and
Welfare Officer. Also, your faculty will
ask for you to attend some meetings as
the student voice.
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At the beginning
The best way to start off your new job
is by making sure your Departmental
Reps know who you are. Contact them
over the summer and begin to come up
with a strategy for the year to come.
Just like for every elected position, your
Dep Reps will be very keen to dive into
their jobs once they begin in October,
so you should aim to use this positive
enthusiasm to your advantage. Dep
Reps will be full of ideas at the start, so
it is important that you meet with them
to capture these ideas early on, and
discuss how feasible they are within their
departments.
As mentioned elsewhere in this
handbook, your role is proactive as well
as reactive, so make sure to gather all
the manifesto points and proposals
of your reps, combine them with your
goals for the year, and begin to develop
your own agenda rather than waiting
for issues to come up. If you keep
the Deputy President (Education) and
Representation Coordinator aware
of these plans, they can assist you,
and make sure that effort is not being
unnecessarily duplicated across College.
It is vital that you remain in continuous
contact throughout the year with
your Dep Reps; establishing a good
relationship with them will make your
job much easier! Be approachable and
friendly with them, so that they feel
comfortable seeking you out for advice.
All of this goes for the staff in your
department too; representation is
cooperation, not battle, and maintaining
a friendly rapport with your staff will go a
long way to smoothing the path for your
proposals. Introduce yourself to them
early if you don’t know them already,
and keep in regular contact about the
progress of various issues and the latest
news from their reps.
During the year: Faculty Representation
Meetings
As AAO, it is your responsibility to
organise the Faculty Representation
Meetings. There should be a minimum of
at least one every term, however two are
recommended. During these meetings,
every Departmental Rep is asked to
provide a short overview about how
things are running in their department.
If a representative cannot make it to
the meeting, still ask them to send you
an overview. The idea behind this is
to engage the representatives to help
each other out, and to use best practise
between departments. Unresolved
issues which have been brought to
Dep Reps by their Year Reps during
Departmental Representation Meetings
should be brought up here, as well as
any other (positive and negative) issues
they are working on.
Make sure that at the beginning of the
meeting one rep volunteers to take the
minutes and note down action points.
These do not need to be incredibly
detailed, but rather will serve as a
record for yourselves, and as a way to
keep the Deputy President (Education)
and Representation Coordinator “in
the loop”. After these have been typed
up, make sure to send them to the
Deputy President (Education) and the
Representation Coordinator, as well as
every Dep Rep, within five days of the
meeting.
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 Communication
The single biggest problem in
communication is the illusion that it has
taken place
George Bernard Shaw
The importance of communication is
brought up in almost every section of
this handbook, but we think it’s so crucial
to an effective system of representation
that it’s worth mentioning again.
Furthermore, it comes in many forms.
From the Deputy President (Education)
to each and every Year Rep for every
single course, there must be a constant
flow of information back and forth about
the various issues being brought up and
solved, so progress can be tracked and
momentum maintained. Otherwise,
problems fail to be solved and the crucial
trust in the representation system is
weakened.
Year reps must also be pro-active
in seeking out the opinions of their
classmates – whether through
surveys and emails, or simply through
conversations with their peers. A
problem that is not communicated to the
rep cannot be solved; a problem that is
sorted, but the students are not aware,
often may as well have not been solved
at all.
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Support and Resources
Starting this year, Imperial College Union
has a member of staff who will assist
and support the entire representation
system – Andrew Keenan, the
Representation Coordinator. His role is
to take the administrative and support
tasks away from sabbatical officers
and representatives, to allow them to
focus on their goals and their cohorts.
If you could do with assistance in your
role, such as help formulating a survey
or organising meetings, please email
representative@imperial.ac.uk.
We have also created a software-based
system to ‘capture’ and track issues
raised across College by representatives
– to ensure that progress on every
issue is monitored, and no problem
‘falls through the cracks’. You can add
any issues to this system by contacting
the Representation Coordinator, and
the system is explained on the Union
website.
Feedback
Feedback from coursework and exams
has proven to be, year after year,
Imperial’s “Achilles heel” when it comes
to student satisfaction surveys. Students
are not happy with both the quality and
timelines, and as reps you need to be
aware of this. This year we are planning
on making some lasting changes to the
way College gives feedback, as well
as making students aware of different
methods staff members use to give
feedback.
The Rector has written a letter to all
departments this summer, highlighting
improved feedback as a priority. This
letter will be given out during rep
training. The Union is currently drafting a
feedback policy, which will specify what
we as students expect from lecturer, and
vice versa.
Regarding timeliness, every department
has been told that they need to provide
clear information to the students
regarding both the submission and
the return of coursework. This is a
very large step in the right direction,
however cannot be actualised unless
the student representatives are making
sure it happens. It is vital that Year Reps
let their Dep Reps know if this is not
happening, and that Dep Reps let the
AAOs know of any recurring feedback
issues within their departments.
Also, as reps you need to make sure that
during every Staff-Student Committee
and Departmental Representation
meeting, “feedback” is a standing
agenda item. Even if your department
provides its students with good
feedback, make sure that it is talked
about!
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 Meetings
The best meetings are:
• Relaxed and enjoyable. Meetings are
not meant to be intimidating affairs.
As students, your task is to make the
meeting as productive as possible;
meeting etiquette is nothing special,
just common sense.
• Productive and satisfying. If there
is anything being reported to the
meeting, the chair should have emailed
it around to the committee members
beforehand as meeting papers, and it
is absolutely key that everyone who
attends has read these papers in
advance.
• Timely. Start on time and finish quickly.
• On topic throughout. If you have
an issue to bring up that is relevant
to the meeting but unrelated to the
topic being discussed, wait for an
appropriate moment so that the current
topic does not get unnecessarily cut
short.
Each member of a committee should
be prepared to contribute to any of the
matters arising in a meeting before it
starts. This is achieved with the agenda
and papers. Expect to be emailed an
agenda in advance of the meeting that
mentions each matter for discussion
in a list. If any matters on the agenda
involve a document of interest, be it a
report, a letter, an email, a proposal or
a page of lecture notes, you will receive
the document as a ‘paper’ attached to
the agenda. Finally, with the agenda and
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papers you should receive a copy of the
minutes from the previous meeting.
If you are reporting to a meeting,
submit any papers as soon as the chair
requests them, in order that they can
be distributed to all members of a
committee for reading in advance of the
meeting.
Check your emails to find the agenda,
papers and previous minutes. Read them
thoroughly in advance, and print them
to bring to the meeting. They can be
printed for free in the Student Activities
Centre on level 2M of the Union building.
Where you have a comment to make,
highlight and make annotations so that
you are best prepared to bring it up
constructively in the meeting.
Finally, there is no such thing as a stupid
question. A meeting will not work if
each attendee is not on an even keel,
so if you have read the minutes from
the previous meeting and the papers in
advance, and you still are unfamiliar with
something, do not be ashamed to ask for
an explanation or a definition, and do not
be reluctant to give someone else such
an explanation.
A guide to getting the most out of your
meetings is available on the Union
website.
This year, College has agreed that “Feedback” should be a standing point on all
meeting agendas. This means that you need to make sure that it is discussed
at every SSC meeting, and if it is not then bring it up with the Departmental
Representative.

Feedback should also be discussed when you have your Departmental

Representation Meetings.

Suggested agenda template for all Staff-Student Meetings

The template on page 22 has been prepared for two purposes:

• In departments where students historically set up the Staff-Student meetings, you
may find it useful to use this agenda as a starting point when you prepare agendas
for the meetings.

• It details the current standing agenda items as set by senior quality assurance staff
at Imperial. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of these standing agenda items
are discussed exhaustively at every Staff- Student meeting. They should be points
of discussion at all Faculty and Departmental Representation Meetings as well, and
the dialogue between representatives and students should always touch on these
topics (particularly feedback and personal tutoring), in order that the discussions at
all meetings are well-informed.

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 Departmental Staff Student Committee
Meeting
In the Department/Division of ______________ held on ______of ______
20___ at ___.___

1. Apologies for absence

2. Approve: Minutes of the last Staff-Student Meeting, held on ________ 20__

3. Standing agenda items

3.1. Review of last Student Online Evaluation (undergraduate)

3.1.1. Students to comment on Department’s participation levels and experience of
being surveyed
3.1.2. Staff to review findings within the Department from survey, particularly
concerning feedback and personal tutoring
3.1.3. Staff to advise what action has been taken as a result of these findings
3.2. Review of last Postgraduate Online Evaluation
3.2.1. Students to comment on Department’s participation levels and experience of
being surveyed
3.2.2. Staff to review findings within the Department from survey, particularly
concerning feedback and personal tutoring
3.2.3. Staff to advise what action has been taken as a result of these findings
3.3. Personal tutoring: students to report accounts and general feeling concerning
the quality of personal tutoring in the Department
3.4. Feedback: students to report accounts and general feeling concerning
the consistency and quality of assessment feedback in the Department,
particularly its change over time
3.5. Positive comments: students to report noteworthy examples or instances of
good teaching practice, or evident improvement in teaching practice

4. Matters arising from students

4.1. To consider: __________ raised by Year Representative (Year 2)
4.2. To consider: __________ brought by Departmental Representative
4.3. To consider: __________ brought by Postgraduate Representative

5. Matters arising from staff

6. Any other business
7. Date of next meeting

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Useful Contacts
Position Name Email Address
@imperial.ac.uk
Deputy President Alex Dahinten dpeducation
(Education)
Representation Coordinator Andrew Keenan a.keenan

Academic Affairs Officers

CGCU (Faculty of Engineering) Marcus Ulmefors cgcuaao
RCSU (Faculty of Natural Sciences) Catherine Wu rcsu.aao
1st year, 2nd year and Graduate Entry Ali Hosin icsm.ao12GEP
Medics
4th year Medics, Biomedical Science Suzie Rayner academic.officer4bp
and Pharmacology
3rd, 5th and 6th year Medics Annalan Navaratnam medic.edrep356

Departmental Representative (fill in yourself)

Year Representative (fill in yourself)

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Departmental staff (fill in yourself)

Head of Department
Senior Tutor

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Other contacts
Advice Centre Nigel Cooke advice
(Student advisor)
College Tutors – refer students to college-tutors or
them for confidential advice on any Mrs Margaret Cunningham m.cunningham
issues
Dr Mick Jones m.d.jones
Dr Simon Archer s.archer

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Imperial College Union Tel: 020 7594 8060
Beit Quadrangle Fax: 020 7594 8065
Prince Consort Road Email: union@imperial.ac.uk
London Twitter: @icunion
SW7 2BB imperialcollegeunion.org