My tale of me - Chris Jenkinson

After a long Law School meeting this afternoon I am pleased to report that the earlier decision to reduce the number of lectures by 10, per 20 credit unit, and replace them with ’surgery hours’, has been reversed. The lack of involvement of course representatives in the working group, and the lack of consultation with students more generally was also recognised.

There will be a review of teaching quality in the Law School in the future - as there rightly should be - but it will be less rushed, engaging more people, staff and students. I hope that next year’s law students do take part and contribute critically, in the way that the law course representatives I have known this year have done so since the proposals first became public.

I took the opportunity today to talk to many Heads of School across the University on the importance of involving students in these debates, as partners. Students I have known who have contributed to discussions about improving student support or feedback have made insightful comments which have often led to major changes when those students’ views were listened to properly.

I am very hopeful that there have been major lessons learned from the past few weeks and that students in the future are not consulted in a tokenistic manner but will be an intregral part of future discussions around teaching and learning across the University.

The recent announcement that two-thirds of vice-chancellors across the country are lobbying for an increase in the cap on tuition fees is shocking and regressive. What’s worse is that the vice-chancellors are doing it anonymously. It isn’t just a small increase - it’s at least £4000 a year, with many arguing for £20,000 a year and one in ten demanding the ability to set any level. I don’t understand how more debt for students is going to be good for this country, especially in times of recession - students could be graduating with over £30,000 of debt.

It’s ridiculous that vice-chancellors are hiding behind anonymity and making these kind of statements. I want a debate on higher education funding - I don’t believe that higher education is funded well enough -  but I want it to be open and transparent. I want to discuss why universities don’t receive enough resources to pay their staff a decent salary, or why class sizes are out of control, and why there aren’t enough books in the library. I don’t want it to be restricted to ‘how high should the cap be’, or done in the shadows.

I want a debate - but not this debate.

I’m delighted at the reaction I’ve got from party members of Liberal Youth about my campaign and what I’ll do if I’m elected as Vice-Chair (Membership Development).

I haven’t put as much time into my campaign as I’d like as I’ve been busy helping the current chair of Liberal Youth Manchester, Kate Little, run for a sabbatical position in our Students’ Union.

As a sabbatical officer myself, I know I’ve developed a huge amount as a liberal, as a campaigner and as a person, and if I’m elected I’ll be a loud champion of encouraging our members to stand for election in your Unions.

I’ve also brought liberalism into my Students’ Union and the University (through introducing online voting so more students are engaged, making decision-making more transparent, and supporting widening participation so access to higher education is based on merit, not one’s social background).

I know the reputation student politics has, and some of it is deserved. But student politics also teaches valuable skills like preparing for meetings, holding others to account, public speaking, lobbying and campaigning. I want membership development to be more than just increasing the number of members on the books.

Elaine Bagshaw, who I’m backing for Chair of Liberal Youth, visited Manchester yesterday and spent most of the day with Kate campaigning. I’m proud to support her - she has done a fantastic job as Chair since she took office and I know she will do even more if re-elected.

I’m voting for Elaine as I know she has a plan. A plan which means more branches, more campaigning, more communication, more socials, more teamwork, more policies, more activists, more members, more elected young people, and a Liberal Youth of which we can all be proud.

I hope you support her too - please join her group on Facebook.

I’m running for Postgraduate and Mature Students Officer in the University of Manchester Students’ Union elections. Here’s the video I recorded for the campaign:

Course representatives

I have continued work on the course representative conference. The booking form has been open for 4 days at the time of writing and over 60 course representatives have registered, which is an impressive number. I have begun work on my sessions in the course representative conference (the opening session, and education funding), and will organise a meeting to discuss the education funding session in more detail late this week or early next week.

The next round of course rep meetings on a school-by-school basis are coming around very quickly. The dates on our end have been determined and we are currently verifying with schools whether the proposed dates are feasible. These will be quite intensive but are very useful in gathering opinion about educational policy and practice, and talking and getting feedback about the work of the Union.

Review of Undergraduate Education

I have attended a couple of meetings, including the central strategy group, since the last Executive meeting. Current work at a institutional level revolves around curriculum design and reform (a new group I will be sitting on), the Higher Education Achievement Report, and review of the award system for excellence in various fields, academic and non-academic. Work at faculty and school level continues to be improving feedback, implementing academic advisors, and engaging more staff in the review.

Other activity

I was grateful to meet the new Chancellor and give him a tour, with the General Secretary, of the Union. He was very interested in the work we do in many areas including academic representation, societies, and our democratic structures.

I attended the General Assembly and took the opportunity to talk to several members of senior staff about the work I have been doing on the review and bringing to their attention the views of students and the Union on some of the changes.

I attended NUS regional conference and talked to colleagues about shared issues in addition to attending sessions.

I have also worked on some governance reform to the constitution for the election regulations. I talked to almost all sabbatical officers and several part-time officers (unfortunately constrained by the exam period) about the changes and found the feedback immensely helpful.

I have also helped many students with simple and more complicated problems via email, phone, and in the Advice Centre.

Since the 17th December, I have been working on the two key areas of course representatives and the review of undergraduate education, but I have attended a couple of conferences and contributed towards the website and other non-portfolio activities.

Course representatives

I finished the first round of meetings with all course representatives on a school-by-school basis before Christmas. It was a great opportunity to meet and find out what being a course representative, and studying, is like in many different areas of the university. Unfortunately the meeting duration was only one hour and I frequently found myself pushed for time to get enough information on a whole range of subject areas.

Attendance at the meetings varied significantly from school to school. Due to the short amount of turnaround before starting the meetings, I determined meeting times unilaterally, which meant unfortunately there was a short amount of notice and conflicts with academic commitments in some cases. More forward planning is necessary in future to ensure a higher turnout.

Kevin O’Brien, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, led the sessions with course representatives in the faculty, asking questions about key aspects of being students in the various schools, which I believe was hugely beneficial for all sides. I am encouraging the Associate Deans in the other faculties to take part in similar activities in the next round of course representative meetings.

In addition, a large amount of work is being done into improving the quality of the data about course representatives so a more strategic view in the future can be taken. We are slowly becoming more aware of where the gaps in the data are so they can be filled and we are becoming more aware of the various structures of student representation that exist in the various schools. Being better at record-keeping means that less time can be spent on reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes in future years and more on better support and more events for course representatives to benefit from.

I have also been planning the first Course Representative Conference, which is occurring on the afternoon of Wednesday, 11th February. I am hoping this will be a success and hope members of the Executive will attend and enjoy the conference as well.

Review of Undergraduate Education

I have attended several meetings regarding the review, in Humanities, Engineering and Physical Sciences, and Medical and Human Sciences, and with the Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Colin Stirling. I have also been to meetings about the Learning Commons. Progress continues to be made and several changes will be in place for the upcoming semester, particularly around Academic Advisors. Discussions about improving feedback are ongoing and I have asked the course representatives to continue to be vocal on this topic so it does not slip off the agenda.

Other matters

I attended the Executive away day and the Higher Education Conference, hosted by NUS. Both were interesting events (in different ways), covering new areas that will influence the work I do over the next semester. The issue of postgraduate representation and involvement in the Union will be a focus of mine.

I was pleased to notice that several members of university staff are readers of my blog and have started to look into feedback on exams as a result of my blog post on the issue.

I am also pleased at the trial of the 24-hour library, which is going well. It seems more popular than first expected and I will be meeting the head of the library to discuss a way forward after the end of the exam period.

Last week I had the first eight out of twenty-three meetings with the course representatives at the University of Manchester. I’ve been meeting them on a school-by-school basis, as schools have a great deal of autonomy in educating their students. It’s been highly interesting listening to course reps from right across the university, and discovering just how widespread some of the problems are.

While I’d expected that some personal tutors were better than others, with some being very knowledgable, full of useful advice, and eager to give it, while others being rather apathetic, not bothering to show up to introductory meetings or declaring they were “here for research and nothing else”, I was not quite ready when it turned out that the tutors’ lack of engagement with their students seemed to be the norm. While the average tutor was generally helpful if approached, and may have reached out to their tutees once or twice over the course of study, there was nothing near the appropriate level of academic advice that students should be receiving.

If Manchester is to embrace a learning culture which is personal to the student, allowing students the flexibility to choose units they wish to study, in the learning environment they work best in, and getting feedback on work they have done rather than on the work the group has done, and to get advice and support tailored to their needs, the tutorial system needs to change to reflect that.

Late last academic year a policy was passed at University Senate,  introducing “Academic Advisors”. Academic advisors are required to make weekly contact with their advisees, and the role includes providing information and guidance on academic choice, planning targets for development, monitoring performance and identifying fulfilment of the “Purposes of a Manchester Undergraduate Education” (a set of attributes all graduates from the University should possess). This policy is a good one - part of a personalised education is developing personal relationships with members of academic staff. It is important for so many reasons, not least in that the academic a student gets to know the most is probably going to end up writing a reference.

I’m not pretending that all academic advisors will be brilliant. There will still be apathetic ones, who do not care about their students. But by making it more of a two-way street, with the academic advisor required to be more proactive and not just leaving it to the student, the safety net is increased, all students will get more support, and a major step along the pathway to a personalised education will be achieved.

I think Shamir Patel, in his article “An apathetic attitude”, does a disservice to the hard work the several hundred course representatives do across the university. Being a course rep does not lead to infamy with your photo on the front page of Student Direct or many column inches, but it does lead to respect, experience, and most importantly change.

Finding out what students want changing is simple – persuading the people with the purse strings to agree to that change is a lot more complicated. It’s not whinging to sit in meetings, argue with staff and win improvements for students.

Hardworking course reps in the past have won changes to teaching to make it more personal, changes to the feedback we receive on the work we do, and the 24 hour library we’ll have at the next exam period.

I’m proud of the course reps at this university, and students should be too.

I was delighted when my proposal for updating the election regulations at the University of Manchester Students’ Union so that students can vote online in our upcoming elections was endorsed overwhelmingly at Union council on Tuesday evening.

It is simply ridiculous that students have to vote in a building miles from where they live and the other side of campus to where they study. It is also ridiculous that the times polling stations are open (10am-6pm) exclude hundreds of students from voting because they are working or studying. It is ridiculous to lecture to students about how important it is to vote when they would have to spend up to half an hour queuing to get a ballot paper.

If students cannot make it to the ballot box, we have to bring the ballot box to them. From now on, there won’t be any queues when students want to vote - they can vote from any computer. Students won’t be disenfranchised because they have to work to pay for their way through university, or because their degree takes them away from the Union. We’ve finally taken the step which needed to happen several years ago to bring in a voting system which facilitates voting rather than restricting it.

There was one dissenting voice in the vote - that of a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party. As usual, the SWP continue to be a barrier to democracy when it comes to the crunch - they claim online voting is “populist”. If it is populist to want more people to participate in Union democracy and decision-making then I am a proud populist - though I prefer to call myself a democrat.

I’ve written a guest article for the University of Manchester Politics Society titled “Winning a free education” - here’s a snippet:

We need a policy which enables campaigners and activists to reach out to less politicised students and allows them to take ownership of the campaign, engaging them and ensuring that even small actions taken are steps towards victory.