Getting stuck in!

It seems like only yesterday I wrote last week’s blog - the days and weeks are starting to disappear very quickly now I’m getting stuck in! This week I have been focussing on graduation, open days, the Trustee Board and – most importantly – feedback for assessments and exams.
 
Things have been slowed down considerably by the lack of computer access in our office on Wednesday and Thursday. For this reason, completing the simplest of tasks this week has proved far more taxing than it should have!
 
Let’s start with graduation. The Union is given a page in the graduation booklets to be given out to all UCS graduates at their graduation in October. This was a very apt time to sit down and think about where the Union was three years ago when these students started their journey at UCS and how it has evolved and adapted for the class of 2009. It was great to see and write down the changes that have happened over such a short period of time and it’s slightly daunting (and exciting!) to think how much it’ll have changed by the time of the next graduation ceremonies in October 2010!
 
At the Trustee Board meeting on Thursday, we approved the final documents required to change the Union’s status from unincorporated association to company limited by guarantee. This was agreed by the members at the Annual General Meeting in March and we’ve been working on the documentation since then. The big change happens on 1 August, but don’t worry too much about it because it’s just a legal thing and everything will continue to operate pretty much the same as before!
 
Next up was the open day. For this, we re-wrote all our presentations from recent years, updating them to more accurately reflect what we do rather than what we could possibly do in the future, which was the content of previous presentations. As well as this, there was the first open day at UCS since I became president and nearly 300 prospective students came along with friends and family top listen to our student life presentation showing what’s on offer from UCS Students’ Union.
 
Finally, the last big issue I’ve been working on (and probably the most important thing which will affect every student at UCS) is the issue of feedback from academics. I posed a number of questions to UCS regarding written assessments/assignments, specifically about the time taken for feedback (either formal and or informal) from their lecturers. We also spoke about the quality of feedback and the differing times and quality of feedback in varying subjects, departments, schools and years of study. My last request was for exam feedback and/or the return of the exam script to the student once they have received their results. I’ve got no replies yet as UCS will consider it for some time but I’ll report back as soon as I hear anything.
 
Andy