SU President Blog

Hello one and all! 

As this is still the ‘quiet’ period for us (she says, knocking on wood and knowing better than to think it’ll last), I have one final reminisce of my first year as an officer.  

I know I say this job is crazy and weird and very varied all the time, and I’m sure my previous posts have shown that. But I wanted to put it down somehow. So, I’ve created a list of 50 highlights of the first year in office. Chosen at random and by no mean comprehensive of everything we do, but it will hopefully give you a bit more perspective on what your officers spend their days doing. Here it goes... 

50 highlights of year 1: 

 

1. The officers’ food pantry project: how well we put the project together, as well as reaching over 250 students in less than 10 hours.  

1. Early Arrival for International Students: this project was on my first manifesto, and we’re trialing it in September with around 50 freshers being part of it. 

1. First Bus commitment to change the GPS in all their buses: also part of my original manifesto and still ongoing, but it’s a solid commitment that should improve student experience around transport in the city. 

1. WonkHE’s Secret Life of Student – student story: I was invited to speak about my personal experience as an international student in the UK, bringing the negative side of the experience to the agenda for discussion amongst so many senior university staff members from across the UK. 

1. Train the trainer, training of Peer Mentors as well as committees: our lovely peer support team trained us to to be trainers. Ask our student leaders if they did the job right... 

1. NSS results: there is only one question on the National Student Survey (NSS) about SUs (question 25 - How well does the students' union (association or guild) represent students' academic interests?). We have increased our score from 72.36% last year to 77.72% this year. Over 5% higher than the sector average! 

1. PM Training: there was a LinkedIn post somewhere where I showed how Dr.Teslim Bukoye made us fall in love with project management (link here). I pay huge tribute to him for it, as that’s something not easy to do with a group of officers who’re mostly in love with public policy. 

1. Strictly Come Dancing: there’s a whole blog post on Latin and Ballroom getting me to embarrass myself so publicly... Here’s the link to it. 

1. South-West campaign on buses and their costs: worked on lobbying WECA alongside other officers from the South-West. This is still ongoing. 

1. Increased engagement in Sports and Societies: from 15650 sports activations last year to 16208 this year; from 6207 sport club members to 6384; from 3215 society members to 5281! A great year for student engagement in SU activity. 

1. Bath Colloquium: attended an event run by the university’s advancement team to network with influential alumni and donors and tell them about the importance of the student experience and the SU.  

1. APPG for students meeting: attended a session for an all-party parliament group on students to discuss student housing with officers from across the country and chaired by NUS.  

1. Meeting with local council: we had a meeting on student engagement with the council (link to my Bath Time article about it here). 

1. Media Law Training: at the beginning of the year, we received this training alongside our student media members. 

1. Committee of University Chairs (CUC) plenary session: I was part of a panel chaired by Jim Dickinson from WonkHE to discuss student experience and the underlying issues of it in front of the chairs of major HEIs in the UK. 

1. CEO appraisal and objectives setting: one of those wonderfully weird part of my job where I had to give Ryan, my day-to-day line manager, his objectives for the year in my capacity as chair of the board. 

1. Water fountains on campus: we had a meeting with campus estates to get at least one water fountain in each building and the work is slowly being done. 

1. The Baltics and Finland WonkHE trip: international networking as well as learning about representation processes and student-led student experience. The SUmmit revamp inspiration came from that trip! (Read below). 

1. SUmmit restructure and look at wider democratic processes: planned a whole restructure of our SUmmit committee which was approved by our student leaders, and we’ll trial this incoming academic year. 

1. Overseeing the officer development budget: a budget allocated to SU officers to encourage our professional development. We maximised it to the best of our abilities (this is how we paid for WonkHE sessions and trips; our going to conferences; as well as the student food pantry).  

1. Improving officer communications: by having recurrent blog posts, fortnightly updates, and drop-in sessions. 

1. Meeting with MP: we met Wera Hobhouse MP to discuss cost-of-living and student housing in Bath; which led to us sending a letter to parliament on CoL. 

1. Referendums: reached quoracy on two student referendums about UCU industrial action and affiliation to the NUS.  

1. Development plan for media student leaders: alongside our marketing and comms manager and our CEO, we did some one-on-one sessions with our media student leaders to make sure they’d make the most of their time while running a student group. 

1. Student engagement in the VC recruitment process: successfully involved students in the vice-chancellor recruitment process by organising a session where students got to ask the candidates candid questions about issues that students face day-to-day. 

1. Pope’s Nuncio visit to St Johns: by request of our Catholic Society, I reached out to the Pope’s representative in the UK (the apostolic nuncio) and got him to attend a CathSoc social and talk to our students. 

1. Consultation on new developments in the city: have engaged in a number of consultations about development of new housing initiatives in the city to make sure they’d be responsive to the needs of the student market. 

1. WECA consultation on bus lanes: filled out a response to the WECA consultation in the name of the SU and students at Bath, which would directly affect (in a positive way) the U1 bus route. 

1. Successful campaign for reelection: self-explanatory! 

1. 22.5% election engagement: with 4885 individual votes, we were well above last year's sector average (around 16%).  

1. Council and student engagement exercise: for the first time, Amber and I brought students to a university council meeting; by organising a sort of –speed-dating' session in which we divided students per topic on five different tables and got council members to hear to students concerns directly. This was so successful it will now be a yearly event. 

1. Library Sparks competition: participated as a panel member for the library’s competition on student change initiatives. 

1. Appointment of FWEMs: part of the interview panel for FW event manager roles and successfully appointed two fantastic FWEMs! 

1. Approval of Bath Time print editions: Bath Time’s editor would send me the edition prior to print every time to get approval and make sure we weren’t gonna get our students in any trouble for anything they published. 

1. Writing for Bath Time twice: once was the council article I shared above, the second one was my takeaways from the WonkHE trip (link here). 

1. Writing for WonkHE twice: my first article was on the dilemma of reelection (link here), and the second was on the debate between incentivising student participation with vouchers and other bits; and the ethical duty to be active citizens (link here). 

1. Duck Norris during Varsity: here’s a bereal, for proof. 

 

1. Employability workshop: participated in the university’s employability strategy by attending their workshop on employability.  

1. SU awards, Blues Awards: attending awards ceremonies is always an officer’s role, but it still deserves a special shoutout, for it was one of my favourite things of the year. 

1. Gender expression fund: supported the LGBT+ society in their bid to the student experience development fund to start a gender expression fund. I was in charge of final approval alongside the PVC for student experience and this is now set up. 

1. Southwest meet up on regional issues: we had two of these, once in UWE and the other time in Bristol SU, to discuss on regional campaigns moving forward. 

1. SCP moving out campaign: went door-knocking with Joe from the Student Community Partnership (SCP), to talk students through the moving out process as well as promoting the marks out of tenancy scheme to shine a light at some landlords’ predatory management of student properties. 

1. Marketing / Commercial area plans: alongside the CEO, evaluated and talked through these areas plans for the year. 

1. Summer Ball: this was in my top 3 favourite days of the year! I hope you all had as good a time as I did.  

1. Start of SU history project: Amber and I started looking at writing down the SU’s history in an accessible and engaging format. More on this soon. 

1. Power and Influence training: I oversaw running a training session for incoming and returning officers on power and influence and how to best use it while navigating the craziness of a SU officer role. 

1. Open Days: Spent two days out and about talking to prospective students, organising the rota for SU officers, and doing presentations on the SU offer to the people that came to see our campus. 

1. Student Trustee Recruitment: led the process to recruit two student trustees for the SU board of trustees and successfully appointed two people who will start their roles in the September meeting. 

1. Appointment of a director of sustainability: involved in the creation and initial appointment of a director of sustainability for the university. 

1. Appointment of a new VC: participated in the committee that went through the long list, short list, organised the engagement day, and did the assessments as well as the final interviews for the vice-chancellor post. The new VC will start in August! 

 

I appreciate some have a lot of detail and some have none. As usual, please do reach out if you’re curious about any of this. I will be off until the first week of August on annual leave, so I will skip one blog entry. In case you are worried. So, see you in August! In the meantime, stay tanned and be kind to one another.  

 

Much love,  

Jiji x