April - Leaving a footprint

Autism awareness  

I ran the Autism Awareness campaign week which was half students half staff facing. Student wise we watched Rain Man and had a debate session on “Is Autism a Disability?” which became a really good discussion on how we consider disability in society. Staff wise we hosted a talk by a researcher specialist in autism which was open to all but most attendees were staff, and I delivered to each school a copies of “Best Practice guides for lecturers in HE (Higher Education)” so they can read up on inclusive teaching practice.  

I want to say a special thank you to the leading staff in LTIC and Natasha, manager at the SU, for being so on board with the importance of the campaign and helping its execution. Of course, an extra special thank you is due to Lynn Bhania for doing the brilliant talk on autism, which has been recorded and shared with all UH teaching staff. 

But the fight for inclusivity does not end there! The university is having to write up a “Access and Participation Plan” which is their strategy of recruiting students from underrepresented backgrounds as well as ensuring their success in the university. I am now shifting my focus for them to include a commitment to autism/neurodiversity awareness and success of our students in that Plan so it can be an official university commitment.  

Lecture capture 

There is a lot of talk about lecture capture, its pros and cons. Personally, I think recorded lectures are brilliant idea – we recognize that our teachers are the experts and we don’t want to their miss their sessions and we want the chance to have a relisten – so this is a good thing! I think it is important that the university hears back from the students that are getting their lectures recorded available on studynet so I've gathered some really insightful comments on the impact of the recordings and sent it to the uni’s senior management team. Hopefully this will lead to all our lectures to be recorded next year! 

Common room renovations  

The accommodations team on College Lane (ULiving) are renovating their common rooms and designed a new one aimed for quiet study. At a meeting where we were talking about ideas for the room, I told them they should include an inspiring quote by Virginia Woolf as a tumblresque way to get students to motivate students to study. They actually did it! I am claiming this as my legacy as I inch closer to the end of my term and I would like to thank the UH Literature department for enlightening me to awesome authors.  

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own. 

NUS 

I attended the National Union of Students conference whereby I witnessed the UH delegates elect the next National Officers and vote on their priority policies. I wrote a full report about the trip here: https://hertfordshire.su/news/article/mysteryshop/The-future-of-NUS-is-female/ 

SU Awards/STAG Awards   

Presented the SU Awards with fellow officers and SU staff – was a lot of fun.  

I've been pushing for students to nominate in the STAG Awards (Student-led Teaching Achievement Gold Awards) and with this stronger branding we have got an increase in nominations from last year's student-led teaching awards, still not as much as I would've hoped (I aimed for over a 1,000) but still a small success. We received hundreds of nominations with fascinating comments from students on what they really value from uni staff (cheeky bit of inadvertent feedback). 

The STAG Awards is a really important campaign for me because I know students want an opportunity to thank that teacher that really inspired them or helped them not drop out. But it also gave me scope to introduce two new Awards – Best Inclusive Practice and Best Student Staff, so that we can show appreciation to the staff members that go the extra mile for recognizing and responding to diversity as well as PhD student teachers who stand as living examples on how to peruse an academic career. 

I’m working on a couple of jokes to slip in whilst presenting the STAG Awards night – suggestions welcome.  

SEEC membership for postgrad officer 

This win required 2 minutes to achieve but I'm still happy about it. A senior committee of the university is the Student Education and Experience Committee and they have a space on that committee for a postgraduate rep that is never filled. I suggested that the space be filled by the elected Students’ Union Postgraduate Officer and it was approved by the committee. This way it ensures that postgrads get representation on key committees and the SU actively commits to ensure ongoing representation for postgrads. 

Pending tasks: 

Degree Grading Transparency

Been speaking to many final year people who are starting to talk degree grades. In the summer I made a bunch of flowcharts to help students in visualizing how their modules get graded into a total degree. Here are a few examples: 

 

But they only represent around 60-70% of cases, as they don’t account for the degrees whereby the student has significantly done better in their second year (Level 5) than in third year (Level 6) - as these cases can result in the degree grade being calculated with heavier weighting from Level 5 modules than the above diagrams show. So I plan to make two generic flowcharts to represent these two scenarios which will account for the vast majority of how your degree will get calculated.  

Transgender awareness in healthcare curriculums

   

It is so important for councilors and healthcare professionals to understand transgender people and their needs. I have set up meetings with programme leaders of the Social Work and Nursing curriculums to communicate why it is important our graduates get this information and the resources available. I sincerely hope I will be successful in this, trans rights are human rights.   

Thank you for reading :)
Zaina
Email me: z.hakim@herts.ac.uk