On the evening of Monday 2nd November, newly appointed Student Academic Reps from across the University came together at our annual Academic Rep Conference.
Laden with tea, coffee, biscuits, and of course 200 Gregg sausage rolls, well over 200 Academic Reps from across the university converged onto the Management School.
After a busy arrivals period, reps were ushered into LT18 to start with proceedings, kicking off with introduction speeches from both Niamh McAuley (LUSU Education Officer) and Louise Dixon (Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education).
Niamh, in her speech, welcomed reps to the conference and encouraging them to get stuck in throughout the rest of the conference and the year ahead.
Louise followed by introducing herself, explaining how she oversees the academic student experience here at Lancaster. She stressed the importance of genuine partnership between students, reps, and LUSU; asking for feedback regarding both problems and good practice and thanking reps for their commitment to the roles.
After a stirring introduction, we moved onto the academic rep show and tell session, where reps from last year share with the conference some of the amazing initiatives they have gotten up to over the past year.
Daisy O'Rawe (current LUMA Co-President) gave an insightful speech on creating peer-mentoring schemes from the ground up within a department, how to make them a success, and how they can be an asset to rep work regarding gathering feedback.
This was followed by Miles Haywood, last year's SCC Department rep, who gave a presentation on the importance of building community within departmental space and how the SCC reps went about doing this last year. This ranged from hosting regular events such as pumpkin carving and easter egg hunts to flag ship events such as the end of year BBQ and the SCC Winter Ball.
Then, Niall Barlow, Harishan Sivakanthan, and Georgina Wrennall, all BLS reps, did a session showcasing how reps in BLS have been using Instagram to reach out to BLS students to rep celebrate wins and keeping students in the loop regarding wider developments.
Afterwards, Paddy Mclean (current FST PGR Faculty Rep) spoke about the importance of community within the PGR space, outlining the unique challenges PGRs face at university, and the initiatives how that the PGR reps in Engineering have been trying over the past year.
Lastly, Lydia Saunders (BLS Academic Rep) did a presentation on the work of the Rep Timetabling group, a rep group focused on the issue of timetabling. Here, she outlined the work they did over the past year, ranging gathering data and getting over 200 responses from their surveys, to raising and meeting with the university timetabling team with the feedback they received.
Whilst a small slice of what reps do at Lancaster, it just goes to show all the amazing work our reps do at Lancaster.
After, reps then split off into their faculties into the remaining sessions of the day, with there being a session on the State of the Higher Education Sector in the UK, and Niamh doing an interactive session on her priorities as Education Officer and finding out the priorities of the reps in attendance.
We also hosted our annual Faculty and Department Rep elections!
Our most senior reps at Lancaster, they are here to represent and advocate for students at the Faculty and Department level – including senior level committees and getting directly involved with university decision making. Only Academic Reps are allowed to run for these roles.
After an evening of exciting elections, high drama, and plenty of counting the following positions were elected on the night:
FHASS Faculty Reps:
FHASS UG Faculty Rep: Julia Hauret
FHASS PGT Faculty Rep: TBD
FHASS PGR Faculty Rep: Election ongoing
FHASS School Reps:
School of Arts: Elsa Dorman
School of Global Affairs: Jonathan Carboni
Law School: Lojaina Ahmed
School of Social Sciences: Thomas Clarebrough + Rowan Jones
FST Faculty Reps:
FST UG Faculty Rep: Matthew Brennan
FST PGT Faculty Rep: TBD
FST PGR Faculty Rep: Election ongoing
FST Department Reps:
Chemistry: TBD
SCC: Jack Johnson + Tumi Phemsohang
Engineering: TBD
LEC: Emily Brazier
Mathematical Sciences: Robin Williams (LUMA Advocacy Officer)
Natural Sciences: TBD
Physics: Kanishk Syal
Psychology: Isabella Gormley
LUMS Faculty Reps:
LUMS UG Faculty Rep: Gace Maxim
LUMS PGT Faculty Rep: TBD
LUMS PGR Faculty Rep: Election ongoing
LUMS Department Reps:
Accounting and Finance: TBD
Economics: TBD
ENST: TBD
Executive Education: TBD
Management Science: TBD
Marketing: Aashan Kousar
OWT: TBD
FHM Faculty Reps:
FHM UG Faculty Rep: Niall Barlow
FHM PGT Faculty Rep: TBD
FHM PGR Faculty Rep: Election ongoing
FHM Department Reps
BLS: Georgina Wrennall
Sports and Exercise Science: TBD
Medical School: Temmy Adesanya
Health Research: TBD
Any remaining roles will be filled later.
We want to thank all the reps and guest speakers who came along and made it an amazing evening!