What’s in the future for academic representation?

Notes from the DoRep on AR21

Earlier this semester, a group of academic reps, SRC members, and a couple of DoReps (one current and one former) tried to collectively answer the question: what should academic representation for the next century look like? In addition to looking at the methods of representation for the future, the group looked at a number of the issues that we want to address together within our university.

What does the academic rep for the 21st century look like?

A lot of it was structured around the idea of tapping into the student network. Using modern technology to engage with student constituents but also reaching out to other schools and other universities to constantly find new ideas and identify a kind of best practice from across Scotland on what academic representation should look like. For this year, we’ve launched the Pathway portal for all our academic reps, including a Facebook Group, and created the Rep Directory, so that any St Andrews can instantly figure out who their Class Rep and School President are.

What are the issues that a rep for the 21st century is looking at (at least, in a St Andrews context)?

Module evaluation and feedback on the quality of teaching was a key topic of interest. Student reps wanted effective, efficient, and relevant systems to collect information about the quality of teaching. Using modern technology, academic reps had the ambition to see more being done around student feedback in module evaluations.

In addition, a number of reps want to see greater transparency in the various processes at work within the University and the Students’ Association. In particular, reps called for a more transparent use of module evaluation feedback across the University, with an emphasis on bringing students into the conversation, and also greater transparency about the quality of teaching in St Andrews.

There continues to be some additional attention to study spaces and making study conditions conducive for students with habits influenced by modern technology available to them. This builds on the earlier Students’ Association work with How St Andrews Students Study and reps at the event talked about wanting to continue to look at study spaces in the University and the Union and also working on library opening hours.

Altogether, our academic reps continued to have great ambitions for the years ahead and for the future of academic representation. Technology and changing student demographics are affecting the ways we look at issues, but many of the principles we’re holding dear — high quality teaching, transparency, and student engagement — still ring true.