This category is for projects, services or systems led by students’ associations, including at a strategic or institution-wide level and in partnership with university management.
This might mean successful students’ association campaigns, projects or services that help those whose engagement has been most at risk, ideas and proposals that have had impact on students engaging in their learning, students’ association engagement with wider decision-making and pandemic responses, or support to systems of academic representation.
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Winner:
Recruiting & Supporting Class Reps in a Remote Working Environment workshop
~ Glasgow Caledonian University Students’ Association
In September 2020, GCU students’ association ran a workshop for programme leaders on how to remotely recruit and work with course reps, and how to support and promote academic student societies. The workshop’s empowerment of teaching staff led to increased co-operation between them and the SA on supporting reps and academic societies, the number of reps registered by the deadline nearly doubled to 91%, the proportion of reps trained shot up to 88%, and many programmes increased the numbers of student wanting to be course reps. Four new academic societies were also created.
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Runner-up:
Collaborative development of ENSA online Programme Rep training
~ Edinburgh Napier Students’ Association
ENSA worked closely with university staff in quality enhancement to rethink many aspects of programme rep training, developing an increased focus on quality systems and university structures, updated scenarios to reflect the current year’s delivery, and a shared sense of expectations of the course rep role. Evaluation from the reps of the training was very high, with over 90% appreciating the revised scenarios, and 100% saying at the end of the year that the training had prepared them for the role.
